Increasing numbers of people are coming to Newlands to collect water from the natural spring at Newlands Brewery. This comes amid lowering dam levels and tighter water restrictions being implemented by the City of Cape Town in an attempt to conserve water.
“I hate seeing water go to waste!” exclaimed Carol Bulter from Pinelands, a regular at Newlands spring, while waiting in a queue she said has become much longer over the past few months.
“I use this water for drinking and sometimes watering my smaller plants, I’ve also stopped filling my pool,” said Bulter.
Janus from Fish Hoek makes the 30km trip on a weekly basis to collect water at the spring. He said he uses it as drinking water and has stopped watering his garden altogether. “My grass is dying but if it means saving water, I’ll do it,” said Janus.
Dozens of people wait in queues to collect spring water at Newlands Brewery spring in Newlands, Cape Town on 28 April 2017. The amount of people collecting water here has increased in the past few months as water restrictions tighten and some complain of the taste of tap water. PHOTO: AIDAN JONES
Max Sangoma from Ottery started collecting water at the spring two weeks ago. “My family noticed the tap water tasted strange a few weeks ago, so my wife suggested we come here to get water.
“I personally drink at least two litres of water a day and this water is soft and tasteless, which is good,” said Sangoma.
Deon Taft from Wynberg started collecting water at Newlands spring a month ago and comes once a week. “Our tap water has started to taste funny so we get our drinking water here,” said Taft.
His family of four is also concerned about the water crisis and he said they have managed to halve their household’s water consumption over the past month. “We use grey water for the garden and have buckets in the shower,” said Taft.
Newlands Brewery owns the land on which the spring is located and has placed security on site. The security officer on duty (he asked not to be named) said this is to control the increased flow of people into and out of the spring as well as the queuing and filling procedures.
“It is busiest on Saturday mornings. I often have to step in to calm people down and control the queues and amounts of water people take,” said the security officer.
Signage at the spring indicates a 25-litre limit on the amount of water one can collect per visit.
The City of Cape Town lowered the municipality’s daily water consumption target to 600-million litres last week as dam levels continue to drop. The latest figures from the Department of Water and Sanitation state that the Western Cape’s dam levels are at 23.3%.
–Aidan Jones