[imagesource: Mike Hutchings/Reuters]

Cape Town’s taps may still deliver water, for now, but that’s certainly not the case for many other parts of the country.

Harrismith, a town in the Free State, recently made the news after residents were forced to take matters into their own hands, and the plight of the Eastern Cape town of Graaff-Reinet has been well documented.

Whilst Capetonians avoided the worst-case scenario, the fear around a future ‘Day Zero’ has inspired authorities to enact a range of measures aimed at establishing a “rainless day fund” that could see the city’s residents through the next dry.

Over to Bloomberg:

The city plans to spend R5.8 billion over the next decade augmenting supply, because it fears the drought may have been due to climate change and dry spells will become more frequent. It’s also considering setting aside excess revenue to cushion consumers from higher costs when reservoirs run low…

The city plans to spend R1.65 billion on desalination plants and R1.36 billion boosting water reuse over the next 10 years, it said. Increased use of aquifers on Table Mountain is planned and more alien vegetation, which uses more water than indigenous plants, will be cleared. In total 347 million litres of new daily supply will be added, while current usage will be cut by 70 million litres by eliminating waste. Most of the water currently comes from rain-fed reservoirs.

Clearing alien vegetation is always a good call, but remember that planting spekboom in the Cape Floral Kingdom is a no-go.

Residents of the Mother City should be applauded for reducing our overall water use, down from a billion litres a day in 2015 to around 743 million a day now, but water usage is slowly creeping back up as the Day Zero fears become a more distant memory.

There has even been some form of recognition from city officials that it didn’t handle that panic as well as it may have:

The city conceded that the restrictions and the boosting of water costs sixfold for even minimal usage in 2018 imposed hardships on its residents.

“Looking forward, it may be more reasonable for the city, instead of its residents, to manage the financial risk of future drought-imposed restrictions,” it said. “The city could do this by designing a rainless day fund, in which reserves are set aside for city use in rainless years so that the entire burden does not need to be passed on to customers.”

Yeah, that would be nice.

Then again, the city alone doesn’t bear responsibility for that water crisis. The ease with which many residents changed to shorter showers, using water-wise showerheads, and other simple lifestyle tweaks proves that we had long become accustomed to being wasteful.

If the city can get the planning right, and residents can keep up the good work, hopefully the next Day Zero scenario doesn’t cause widespread panic and bring with it mascots that belong in horror movies.

Seriously…

[source:bloomberg]