Capetonians could face stricter water restrictions as dam levels hit a four-year low.

Save good quality drinking water - use grey water for irrigation

Low-level restrictions are already in place including a ban [...]]]> Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 18 Nov 2011

Capetonians could face stricter water restrictions as dam levels hit a four-year low.

Save good quality drinking water - use grey water for irrigation

Low-level restrictions are already in place including a ban on watering gardens between 10am and 4pm.

Adding to the low dam levels, rainfall this year has also been below average.

A UCT climatologist said of the past 10 months, eight had had below-average rainfall. May, June and July, usually the wettest months, were “drier than normal”.

Climate models showed this situation was likely to become more common in the years ahead and it could drive up the price of water.

Residents were being urged to conserve water. This appeal comes as climate change is expected to lead to rising temperatures and changes in rainfall patterns.

The City of Cape Town’s water department was due to meet the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry on Wednesday but has not released any details.

The city’s draft annual report says 19 percent of water was “unaccounted for”. This term refers to the difference in the amount of water purchased and in the city’s distribution system, compared with the amount which is sold to customers.

The report for the past financial year calls for measures to prepare for a “water-constrained future”. Some of the alternatives are desalination of sea water and the greater use of groundwater.

According to the draft report, some water-saving techniques are showing results. One of these is a pressure-management system which reduces the pressure of the water supplied to city consumers during off-peak periods.

This results in fewer leaks. A project like this at Brown’s Farm in Philippi produced an estimated saving of R8.2 million annually. After the project was introduced, there was an immediate drop in consumption.

Levels of the six major dams supplying Cape Town are at the lowest they have been in four years. On November 7, levels stood at 86 percent. Last year at this time they were at 93 percent and at 102 percent in 2009. Levels peaked in 2008 at 103 percent and were 99 percent in 2007.

Farouk Robertson, spokesman for the city’s water and sanitation department, said the city had “never relaxed” its appeal for residents to use water wisely.

Robertson said the city had expanded rapidly over the past few years and economic activity had increased.

This had led to more water consumption.

He urged residents to “amplify water conservation efforts”.

One tip was that residents should monitor the moisture of the soil in their gardens and, if necessary, introduce composts which would reduce the evaporation of water.

Another measure was to use buckets to wash cars, instead of hosepipes.

Robertson appealed to home-owners to watch their water meters and report leaks immediately.

“If you are wasting water, you are depriving other people of good quality drinking water. Know what you going to do, before you open the tap,” he said.

Peter Johnston, a climatologist with UCT’s Climate Systems Analysis Group, said for May, June and July, rainfall was less than 80 percent of the long-term average.

Johnston added that as December approached and it got hotter, around 1 percent of the volume of dam water would be used or lost due to evaporation each day. Because, November had been cooler, it had lessened the impact of evaporation.

“This is the sort of thing we can expect. We should get used to this scenario occurring more often and it’s a call for all us to watch our demand and usage.”

The Department of Water Affairs and Forestry was not immediately available for comment.

By: Bronwynne Jooste
Source: iol

The City of Cape Town has warned its residents they are likely to face water restrictions in the coming 12 months after poor rainfalls this year.

Mayoral committee member for utility services Shehaam Sims [...]]]> Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 14 Nov 2011

The City of Cape Town has warned its residents they are likely to face water restrictions in the coming 12 months after poor rainfalls this year.

Mayoral committee member for utility services Shehaam Sims said people in and around the city would have to carefully control how much water they used in the coming dry season.

“We had good rains this year, but they came mostly out of the wet season when the temperatures had warmed up,” Sims said.

“There was a lot of evaporation as a result and now the Western Cape dams are at 86 percent capacity, compared to 93 percent last year.”

Sims said Capetonians tended to use up every drop of water allocated to them by the water affairs department. A meeting between the city, the department and other water bodies would be held next week to decide on whether to impose summer water restrictions or not.

“Last year we were allocated a capacity of 1090 megalitres per day,” Sims said.

“Cape Town uses about 920 megalitres. We are quite close to the allocation.”

Sims said residents in the city should try to save water by reducing their shower time, only flush toilets when necessary and repairing leaks. She asked people to report leaks in public areas to the city on 0860-103-089.

- Sapa

Cape Town may be subjected to water restrictions this summer because August and September are likely to be drier than usual, a climate researcher has warned.

Predicted below average rainfall will bring water [...]]]> Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 17 Aug 2011

Cape Town may be subjected to water restrictions this summer because August and September are likely to be drier than usual, a climate researcher has warned.

Predicted below average rainfall will bring water restrictions

Peter Johnston, of UCT’s Climate Systems Analysis Group, said there was no need for desperate concern just yet – but this could change if no more winter rain fell.

Traditionally, the province’s dams are full in August and September. However, Johnston said, after the driest July in years, and with below average rainfall predicted for this and next month, water restrictions could become necessary.

The provincial government has urged farmers to store water for the summer months.

Johnston’s colleague, Mark Tadross, said a high pressure system over the Atlantic Ocean was keeping storms away from the Western Cape. “We don’t know why (this is happening),” said Tadross. “Of concern is that the dams are well below what they should be (at) this time of the year.”

The regional manager for weather services in the Western and Northern Cape, Antarctica and islands, Johan Stander, said the forecast was dry for the next couple of months. “Because of climate change, adverse conditions will happen more frequently and storms will be more severe.”

Wouter Kriel, the spokesman for Agriculture, and Rural Development MEC Gerrit van Rensburg said:

“We are monitoring the rainfall, but there are no red flags yet. We are advising farmers to fill up their water storage facilities.”

Source: IOL

A University of Cape Town climatologist on Monday warned that the Mother City’s water situation is critical.

Using grey water for irrigation

Recent figures indicate Cape Town received about 20 millimetres of rainfall [...]]]> Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 01 Aug 2011

A University of Cape Town climatologist on Monday warned that the Mother City’s water situation is critical.

Using grey water for irrigation

Recent figures indicate Cape Town received about 20 millimetres of rainfall in July. That is well below the month’s average figure of 140 millimetres.

Dams are currently at about 70 percent capacity, but climatologist Peter Johnstone said if it does not rain soon, dams may run dry by summer.

Johnstone said it may become necessary to impose strict water restrictions.

“After September the rainfall gets very low and if it comes to October, November, December with very little rain, we start using a lot of water, then we find that our dams are running at 30 percent full and that is very, very risky…”

He added, “At that sort of levels we are going to have very strict water restrictions.”

Farmers are also battling.

Chief Executive Officer of Agri Wes-Cape, Carl Opperman, said they are desperate for more rain.

“The rain that we received last week was not enough, but it was basically just enough to tick us over the critical phase that was busy developing. We are looking for some more rain,” he said.

By: Rafiq Wagiet
Source: Eye witness news

With climate change now widely recognised as the major environmental problem facing the world, the South African government is taking awareness to schools with plans to incorporate more environmental studies into the school curricula.

Durban could face water restrictions as early as next year. This is the warming from eThekwini municipality water department head Neil Macleod, who said last week that recent good rains are the only reason [...]]]> Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 06 March 2011

Durban could face water restrictions as early as next year. This is the warming from eThekwini municipality water department head Neil Macleod, who said last week that recent good rains are the only reason restrictions have been avoided so far this year.

Rainwater Harvesting is a sustainable way of augmenting municipal supply

“The total rainfall for last year, for this region, was the fourth lowest on record. The dams at the beginning of this year were on average 20 percent lower than at the start of 2010. We typically have a series of wetter years followed by a series of dryer years. The wet years have continued for an extended period and have protected us for the statistical possibility of restrictions.

“If we’d had normal rainfall over the past three years, we would almost certainly be in the middle of water restrictions right now,” he said.

And the situation is likely to get worse. “For 2011, I do not see restrictions being introduced. But 2012 could be a different story. We are nearing the end of the summer rains and if we have a dry winter comparable to last year, then water restrictions in 2012 are almost inevitable,” he said.

Macleod’s comments come just two weeks after Professor Mike Muller, former Department of Water Affairs director-general and now commissioner of the government’s National Planning Commission, warned that South Africa will face a water crisis within the next decade.

He singled out the eThekwini, Nelson Mandela Bay (Port Elizabeth) and Joburg metros as the municipalities likely to first feel the shortages.

Muller told the Sunday Tribune yesterday that it is vital for cities to plan to ensure they avoided water crises.

“We need to plan and do the right things at the right time. Water is difficult because you don’t know exactly how much you have. You’re working on estimates of how much rain will fall, but it might not be the same as what you’ve estimated.

“We need to ensure not only that we have enough water now, but that we have enough if there is a drought. If that happens, we need to know we have plans in place. The national Water Affairs department has plans for all major cities, but often they are not implemented in time.

Every city needs to think about what it needs to do and whether it is doing it,” he said.

Muller said he was impressed with the efforts of Macleod’s department to reduce water losses and ensure available water was being used effectively. “Every city, when it plans, needs to look beyond building dams. They need to conserve and better use the water they’ve got,” he said.

Macleod said: “We are at a point where our dams are unable to sustain the current demand over an extended period and the risk of failure is one in 15 years – that means water rationing every 15 years, statistically.”

Adding to the problem in Durban is the amount of water lost or stolen, with the recent draft budget report for the 2011/12 financial year stating that 35 percent of the city’s water is lost or stolen through illegal connections.

Macleod said measures were in place to reduce this figure, including replacing ageing pipes and managing water pipe pressure.

But Macleod said other measures need to be considered, including building the Spring Grove Dam in the KZN Midlands and building a dam in the Umkomazi River.

Spring Grove should have been storing water five years ago, he said, “but construction work has not even started” despite an ever-growing demand for water. Macleod said even if Spring Grove was built there would still be a need for more capacity.

The other option would be to dam the Umkomazi River.

“The most recent estimate I saw put the final cost at close to R20 billion. Environmentally, the proposed site is also in a rather sensitive area.

“Continuing with traditional dam building is becoming unaffordable from both economic and environmental perspectives,” he said.

Given this, other more innovative measures are needed, including desalination of seawater and recycling water. Recycling is cheaper but has other implications.

“People don’t like the idea or want to drink recycled sewage. It has a ‘yuck’ factor. This is despite the fact that most of our water comes from heavily polluted waters, but it is the thought of recycled sewage that disturbs people. Durban’s water, for example, has Pietermaritzburg’s sewage in it. Recycling is more an emotional thing, and that’s the really big negative we’re facing,” Macleod said.

A desalination plant would cost about the same to build as a recycling plant – about R1.6bn to R2bn.

“Recycling is cheaper because the amount of impurities, and this might be surprising, are higher in seawater than sewage, making it easier to treat than seawater. Sewage plants would be inland, while the desalination plant is at sea level, so the amount you spend on pumping the treated water is less. While the capital costs are about the same, the operation costs do differ,” he said, adding they would be run by a private company, probably foreign, because of the specialist nature of the work.

Both options are being researched, but Macleod said a decision was needed urgently.

“Whatever we build, it has to be built by 2013 or 2014. We need it really soon,” he said.

Macleod encouraged ratepayers to report water theft or leaks so they can be dealt with quickly. The toll-free number is 080 131 3013.

By: Matthew Savides
Source: iol

By: Jeremy Westgarth-Taylor – Founder of Water Rhapsody.  Inventor of all the Water Rhapsody Systems.

While the fear of water restrictions work in favour of those of us who are involved in water conservation, [...]]]> Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 23 January 2011

By: Jeremy Westgarth-Taylor – Founder of Water Rhapsody.  Inventor of all the Water Rhapsody Systems.

While the fear of water restrictions work in favour of those of us who are involved in water conservation, it would be preferable for all of us to have smoothed restrictions rather than an all or nothing scenario.  All of us mean the population at large, the municipality, the Department of Environmental Affairs as well as Water Rhapsody. Please let me explain…

Although the upper Steenbras is almost full the majority of this water is stored for electricity power generation

Cycle of drought

Six, seven years or perhaps even eight years may elapse between one and the next season of drought.  These years between drought cycles are winter months in Cape Town of higher than average rainfall, and the reverse in the northern regions of South Africa where we get summer rains. During these years of higher than average rainfall, all thought of the fact that we live in a water poor region of the world, is forgotten.  Forgotten is the notion of drought by the bureaucrats and politicians that run our city.  Drought is a long forgotten figment in the memory of the population at large as well.  Every drought season, virtually a whole new generation needs to be re-educated in our need to use less water, and how to use less of the precious stuff.  We should not forget what was written in biblical times that we have seven years of drought and seven years of plenty.  While some areas north of Cape Town are experiencing floods of the magnitude seen but forgotten, the floods normally coincide with drought in the Western Cape.

During the years of drought in the Western Cape from 2000 to 2004, Capetonians had restrictions and increases in water tariffs imposed the like of which we hadn’t seen before.  The city even appointed some officers to police water use, which officers disappeared into the woodwork (redeployed), and after higher than average rainfall fell in 2005 all restrictions were lifted with the exception of daily irrigation times(no watering between the times of ten till four 0’clock).  Laughable though it is, this is the only water restriction left, and no police to check on this.  It would be silly too to deploy a police force to check up whether or not you were watering your garden a 10.30 in the morning!

New drought cycle.

We are as I write going into a drought cycle in the Western Cape.  This is going to be the mother of droughts ever seen if the stacked reports from climatologists are correct.  We have been warned of this drought, and our Department of Water and Environmental Affairs should know of this too.  It is strange that the people who work for this governmental department have not applied restrictions in a bid to save water while we still have water in our storage dams. Within eight months there will be panic in local and higher ranking government when we have little or no water.  We will have poor rainfall in the winter of 2011, and 2012 and more than likely 2013. This will mean that the supply dams to Cape Town that are falling at record rates and are already getting low for this time of the year may dry up completely.   There are another three months of summer to go and if the dams continue to fall at this rate (2.8% per week), then expect the dam levels to be at around 45% of capacity by mid April.  It would take a year of higher than average rainfall to put the dams back to where they were at the start of this summer season.  But alas higher than average rainfall is not forecast.  Rainfall of below average is forecast, and perhaps the dams will rise but perchance to less than 80% of capacity.  This is the magic figure at which 30% restrictions get announced, and this decision would be taken in October.

The meaning of 30% restrictions by DWEA

30% restrictions merely mean that DWEA (Department of Water and Environmental Affairs) demand from the Municipality that they show a reduction in demand of 30% less than the volume of water that Cape Town is allocated by DWEA. It is up to Cape Town Municipality as to what restrictions they put in place to lower demand by the prescribed percentage.

Low Fruit

The low fruit has a couple of meanings here.  The first is the low fruit of supply generally, that of dam building and simply robbing rivers of their water. Hereafter desalination of water is the higher fruit as this comes at a price far higher than raw river water.  The second low fruit pertains to the dams, viz water quality in the dams differs from dam to dam, and some are much further away than others.  Also some are deep and others have a huge surface area delivering their yield to evaporation. Actually the aspect of evaporation is very serious.

The low fruit of dam water use has already been picked.  The low fruit of the water in the lower Steenbras dam which though in today’s terms is small, is close to Cape Town and is good quality raw water.  This dam is now below 50% of capacity, and there is precious little inflow to augment the yield.  Although the upper Steenbras is almost full (97%) the majority of this water is stored for electricity power generation. This power generation works under normal circumstances to level the graph of the daily amount of electricity needed for the City of Cape Town which has spikes in the morning and evening, and troughs in the middle of the day and during the night.  During these spikes, water is allowed to flow down to the Gordon’s Bay side through the mountain turning huge hydro electric generators, and in the period of low consumption the water is pumped back up to Steenbras.  However there is a large pipe from the lower dam to the sea, so if we had plenty of water in the upper dam, and needed some extra electricity, this could be used as a hydro electric generation plant until all the water in the dam was used up.  If  we have energy shortages, you bet much of the precious stored water in the upper dam will be used for energy consumption, or at least held in the upper dam for a ‘just in case’, which of course makes this water unavailable for domestic consumption but rather kept for energy generation.

Once the water in the lower Steenbras dams is consumed and it is going fast, then Cape Town Municipality must start to rely more heavily on the poorer quality water from Theewaterskloof and other outlying dams. This water is more expensive to process, and the lower the dam level gets, the worse the quality.

Politicians dam building and jobs.

Election fever has also gripped South Africa, and any immediate talk of water restrictions in the coveted Western Cape must be dispelled.  It seems so strange that the issue of drought which inevitable leads to water restrictions should be seen as bad political management.  The city politicians could not be more wrong.  There is a sense of camaraderie in times of shortages, and we all help each other, and in fact jobs are created during these times.  What is unpopular though is the loss of revenue to the Council when restrictions are imposed.  Revenue from the sale of water goes to the fiscal budget and profits are used wherever the bureaucrats and councillors like.  The less the volume of water that is sold by the municipality, the higher goes the tariffs, and in actual fact an escalation in tariffs is an excellent way of stemming demand for water.  In reality though the city staff who run water supply are well aware that when both tariffs and water restrictions are applied together, the average use per person per day drops which is absolutely logical.  What they don’t like is that the per capita usage once restrictions are lifted never returns to the same point as before the restrictions were imposed and prices escalated.  The following fact is not just surmise:  this is the reason why demand does not increase after restrictions are lifted shows that devices to save water are very effective. Once Water Rhapsody clients use our unique systems, there is no looking back.   The efficiency of the Water Rhapsody Systems goes on and on.  This very important fact was given to me by Dave Ramsay who was the chief water engineer for Cape Town a few years ago.  If only the authorities would realize what they could possible do for our environment by actually promoting water saving with all the tools at their disposal including the devices that Water Rhapsody supply and install.

Job creation through demand management

Far, far more permanent jobs are created during times of drought than the temporary jobs created during dam building activities.   It was so interesting to hear the engineers responsible for the building of the last dam possible in Cape Town, that of the Berg River Scheme, using job creation as a motive to build the dam.  They built temporary houses for their staff and housed them there.  After the dam building process was complete, all the staff were retrenched, and the houses were all sold.  So is it up to those who wish to conserve water to provide jobs?  The answer is an emphatic YES.

Politicians excuse

Of course the fact that there are floods in some parts of the country helps the politicians down play any need for water saving in the Western Cape.  We see daily jockeying for positions for Mayor, party elections, and promises regarding jobs etc.  There is simply no time to address items of so little importance as water, and nobody wants to take an unpopular decision like instituting water restrictions.

Cape Town out of water by 2012

I have stated regularly that the year 2012 will be the year that Cape Town runs out of water.  The debate now will be interesting as to who gets priority over supply of water.  Who will get water in times of outages?  Will farmers get their share?  When Theewaterskloof was built and filled, 90% of water from the dam was assigned for agricultural use.  The farmers though could not use all the water allocated to them and the then DWAF (Department of Water Affairs and Forestry) as it was known then decided that because the farmers did not take up their allocation, that this water would be allocated to Cape Town Municipality.  This gave Cape Town water security in the middle eighties, but since Cape Town has grown so rapidly, this will be insufficient in years of lower than average rainfall, which years we are now in.

Future augmentation – desalination

We have plentiful sea water for desalination purposes do I hear you say?  In order to desalinate enough water to provide one days supply, we will need six million kilowatt hours of electricity. We simply do not have enough energy nor will we be able to find this capacity in the near future. If say at worst we should run out of water completely like Beaufort West.  The average daily demand for water is 1.5 million cubic metres.  The amount of extra energy we would need to desalinate this volume of water would be a minimum of 6 million kilowatt hours every day, for the desalination process.  This water would need to be blended with some other water, most likely treated sewerage water for palatability, and pressurized to municipal pressure.  This would be expensive and with energy we simply won’t be able to find.  Until now all the supply water for Cape Town has been virgin raw water extracted from rivers.  The end to this luxury is nigh.

Water outages

Water outages are a blunt but absolute as an efficient demand management measure (to get people to use less water).  Will we have to endure water outages or wont we?

If everyone installed water saving devices as per the Water Rhapsody Systems of Conservation, we would have no need for measures as tough as outages, but this is not the case. The steps of what can be done culminate in the following:  Install the Water Rhapsody Grand Opus to provide rainwater to the whole household.  This unique system receives rainwater from roofs but is also augmented with municipal water to give all households an emergency supply seamlessly. Water Rhapsody fix the emergency supply from the municipal to your water tank/s for an emergency supply when, (not if) the Municipality turn off the water supply.  If you lived in Beaufort West and had installed the Water Rhapsody System, you would have a contiguous supply, and you would be unaffected by outages.  Secondly should you reduce your demand for water (without a change of lifestyle) you could reduce your water demand (usage) by half.  The reduction in demand is essential to get your precious saved rainwater to go so much further, and is done in five ways viz: by re-using grey water for irrigation purposes, or for toilet flushing, by re-using swimming pool backwash water and lastly by the use minimizing toilet flushing.

As restrictions bite, the municipality will quickly wake up to the erosion of their revenue, and will raise water rates.  These rates will represent the price of the next augmentation scheme, and the capital to provide enough energy for running the water augmentation, that is of course desalination.

All of these systems come at a cost, and the question is frequently asked, can we afford to install such systems?  Our answer is a rhetorical question: can we afford not to do these things?  Well the answer will be a resounding YES as soon as restrictions bite, and bite them surely will!

The Stellenbosch Municipality on Saturday urged Franschhoek residents to slash their water consumption by half.

Using a watering can in the garden can conserve water. Photo by Christopher Craig

Reservoirs in Boland and [...]]]> Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 09 January 2011

The Stellenbosch Municipality on Saturday urged Franschhoek residents to slash their water consumption by half.

Using a watering can in the garden can conserve water. Photo by Christopher Craig

Reservoirs in Boland and Peninsula were running on empty following heat wave conditions this week. Franschhoek peaked at 42 degrees Celsius on Wednesday afternoon.

The Stellenbosch Munincipality’s Brett Kayser said restrictions would be placed on water consumption.

“We urge residents to…immediately stop with irrigating of gardens and also to try and save water and be conservative with water,” he said. “We are going to have pamphlets delivered to homes on Monday.”

By: Graeme Raubenheimer
Source: Eyewitness News

The City of Cape Town appeals to Capetonians, and especially residents in the South Peninsula area known as the ‘Deep South’, to assist in conserving water – after low rainfall has left dam levels [...]]]> Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 19 November 2010

The City of Cape Town appeals to Capetonians, and especially residents in the South Peninsula area known as the ‘Deep South’, to assist in conserving water – after low rainfall has left dam levels lower than usual for this time of year.

The Lewis Gay Dam is only at 32% capacity after the winter rainfall period.

The lower than average rainfall this winter has particularly affected the southern catchment areas where the dams did not fill, including Steenbras, Table Mountain and Simon’s Town. Although Cape Town has experienced some later rains this year, dam levels are still low and water must be used sparingly.

The City has an integrated Bulk Water Supply System which allows optimisation of the water resources for the region, which means that that the low levels of the Steenbras and Table Mountain dams do not pose a problem.

The Deep South peninsula, however, cannot fully benefit from this integrated network, because of its position at the system’s extremity. The water in the Simon’s Town dams must therefore be conserved as much as possible in the coming summer season. While the supply to the Deep South is augmented from the main network via pipelines along the coast through Muizenberg and Fish Hoek to Simon’s Town, the dams above Simon’s Town play an important role in supplying certain areas in the Deep South.

Two dams in the southern catchment area have been worst affected, namely the Kleinplaas and Lewis Gay, with only 57% and 32% capacity respectively at the end of the winter rainfall period. The situation does not pose a risk for the coming summer season because the water in the two dams, combined with the augmented supply from the main supply network to the north, will suffice. However, if Cape Town experiences low rainfall again next year, the reserves for these dams will have already been depleted, and this is cause for concern. It is therefore very important to conserve as much water in these dams as possible, starting now. This can only be achieved in partnership with the community to ensure rigorous conservation efforts across the board.

The areas affected are those south of and including Fish Hoek, Clovelly, Sun Valley and Ocean View all the way to the southern end of the peninsular supply. The City will intensify its water conservation efforts in this region. All residents in these areas are requested to be especially conservative in their use of water in order to reduce the need for the introduction of restrictions.

“Although the situation has not yet reached a critical stage, it is more important than ever for residents in these areas to heed the City’s recommended conservation strategies. We are confident that if everyone pulls together we can avoid having to take more stringent measures. We have to save water now, while it’s still available,” said the City’s Mayoral Committee Member for Utility Services, Alderman Clive Justus.

Priority will be given to the implementation of pressure management in the Deep South as feasibility studies of the whole South Peninsula area have already taken place. These areas include: Retreat, Lavender Hill, Grassy Park, Marina da Gama, Capricorn Park, Steenberg and Tokai. Pressure management will be rolled out as funding becomes available, however, it will take several months before the first of these will be operational and the benefits felt.

In the meantime, the City urges residents and businesses in the Deep South to incorporate the following extra water conservation measures into their daily routine to lessen the demand upon the water resources:

• Watering of gardens, lawns, parks and public open spaces should be carried out for one hour or less, three days per week.
• The watering restriction can be relaxed for the purpose of watering plants in nurseries conducted for gain, nurseries owned by the City or state, collections maintained for research, cricket pitches or other sports greens or lawns, artificial turf fields and major sports stadia. Irrigation should, however, still be carried out in a responsible, water-efficient manner.
• Automatic-flushing urinals should be turned off in all buildings during times when they are normally vacated by the public and/or staff (i.e. weekends, evenings, holiday periods).

Residents across the whole city are reminded that the Water By-law stipulates that watering gardens, lawns, parks and open spaces with potable water is not allowed between the hours of 10:00 and 16:00.

The City will continue to intensify its water demand management projects, programmes and campaigns across Cape Town.

Source: City of Cape Town

Fears are growing that the current drought in the Eastern Cape may lead to poor citrus crops in the province’s Patensie and Sundays River Valley areas.

This would have a major impact on the [...]]]> Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 15 October 2010

Fears are growing that the current drought in the Eastern Cape may lead to poor citrus crops in the province’s Patensie and Sundays River Valley areas.

This would have a major impact on the province’s economy as the citrus industry is one of its driving forces.

Citrus Growers’ Association Patensie director Phillip Dempsey warned the industry would be in trouble if there was not sufficient rainfall by the end of November as there would be no crops available for export.

“There has not been sufficient rainfall this year, but the real problem will come in by the end of November and beginning of December as the summer months are the time that these orchards are most dependent on a lot of water,” said Dempsey.

He said about 10000ha of orchards required rain and most of the citrus fruit from these orchards was destined for the export market.

“This is where the real money for the area comes from. We export to Europe, the United Kingdom, Russia, the Middle East and the Far East. Sales to the local market are relatively small, so we rely on the export market. If the fruit looks unattractive, these markets will not buy our fruit and then we are in serious trouble,” said Dempsey.

He said not only did the drought affect the amount of fruit produced, it also affected the size, especially if there was not enough rain from December until February when the citrus required the most water.

“If there is no rain there is a chance these crops will fail and it will definitely affect the economy of the area. The water restrictions have also affected crops because we are planting fewer things like potatoes to use that water for the citrus, so there is some land which is bare, meaning we will receive no income from that land.”

He said the mood among the farmers was very negative, especially because they were uncertain about whether they would be able to sell their crops or not.

“This drought has affected the whole of the Eastern Cape, however the Sundays River farmers are not as hard hit as our farmers because they are not under water restrictions as we are. The problem is that we will not know until the end of November and by then there will not be anything we can do about it,” said Dempsey.

Sundays River Citrus Company technical manager Dave Gerber said that although the area still had sufficient water as they were supplied from the Gariep Dam, rain was still needed to ensure better quality citrus was produced.

“Production is always better in seasons characterised by good spring and summer rain, while fruit size also tends to be larger in wet seasons,” he said.

Although plentiful, Sundays River Valley water is not of great quality, resulting in the build up of salts in the soil profile. Good rains assist by leaching these salts, which are toxic to plants, out of the soil.

He said dry seasons were also characterised by higher levels of pests in the orchards, to which they migrate due to lack of food in their natural environments. These also “negatively influence fruit quality”