Cape Town city’s dam report for Monday 29 October indicates a significant increase compared to this time last year however the need to save water is the exactly the same going into the summer break according to executive deputy mayor of Cape Town, Alderman Ian Neilson said.
While the dam levels have increased beyond 70% on average, the Western Cape is heading into a lengthy hot season.
“If the students go on holiday outside of the province there is not much they can do for the Western cape. All the students who are presently on campus, they should inform the newcomers and say please restrict yourselves to 70 litres of water on campus as well as off campus per person a day,” says John De Wet, manager of facilities and management at Stellenbosch University (SU).
As of October 1 water restrictions for residents of the Western Cape have been lowered from level 6B to level 5, meaning each individual is entitled to use 70 litres daily per person.
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Theewaterskloof, the biggest residential water supplying dam in the Western Cape, has increased by 30.6% since last October. Photo: Jeremy Ryall
Steenbras lower was at 54.1% last October compared to 86.9% in 2018. Photo: Jeremy Ryall
The idea then is to continue to create a society within the Western Cape which is water conscious and water savvy so as to not fall into another crises according to Prof Eugene Cloete, Vice-Rector and head of Research, Innovation and Postgraduate Studies at SU.
“Of course there is always more that can be done. The overall response to the crisis was good and many companies and industries played their part. SU for instance systemically through technology, such as recycling of grey water to flush toilets in residences, installing water meters, installing reverse osmosis plants to purify water from quarries in Belleville to supply the USB and Medical campus, using rain water harvesting and drilling boreholes in strategic areas has contributed to a water saving of close to 30% over previous years,” says Cloete.
De Wet agrees, “We will be running huge awareness campaigns again in January and February. We are also busy putting in a grey water system which we started last week for the whole University. We capture water from the showers and the basins and used that in the toilet systems. With that hopefully we will be able to save up to 60% of the water we receive from the municipality.”