[imagesource:flickr/6000.co.za]

The dams in the Western Cape have been flourishing since the heavy rains filled them up almost to capacity.

But with the ‘Day Zero’ water crisis that did a number on us from mid-2017 to mid-2018 in mind, water officials of Cape Town are asking residents to still make water-wise decisions.

Rainfall data recorded since the beginning of June at dams that supply the city shows rainfall has exceeded the long-term averages for this time of year. Last year at this time, Cape Town’s dam levels were at 72,6%. Now they’re sitting pretty at 97,1% thanks to the significant rainfall received over the last month.

We might be holed up inside lamenting the cold weather, but at least we have water. The only thing is, we should still sometimes let the yellow mellow, persuade ourselves to do the dishes by hand and reuse bath and shower water whenever possible.

The City’s Mayoral Committee Member for Water and Sanitation, Councillor Zahid Badroodien said via Cape Town ETC that “While we appreciate the heavy rain that has been filling our dams, we cannot allow this to give us a false sense of water security for the future”.

“This is because we need more than just dams to ensure our water supply is resilient for years to come as clearly highlighted by our customers during the drought, to help navigate future climate shocks. For this reason, the City is making every effort to ensure that its plans to bring an extra daily 300 million litres of water online by 2030 progress.”

“Our water resilience is important for our residents and for economic growth in Cape Town. We want to thank our residents for contributing to building our water-future be it from paying their water bills to making water-wise decisions in their daily lives,” said Badroodien.

That being said, just because Cape Town’s dams are more than 90% full, we still all need to pay the water tariffs. That’s because the tariff is used to recover the cost of supplying a reliable water service.

The water tariff is made up of both a usage (or variable) charge, which depends on how much water is used, and a fixed basic charge. Cape Town residents are currently paying on average between 5c – 8c a litre for tap water.

The fixed basic charge helps to cover the operational cost associated with the establishment of major infrastructure catchment and treatment of water, operation of the distribution systems as well as repairs and maintenance of infrastructure:

The fixed basic charge creates stability and reliability in the Water and Sanitation Directorate’s revenue forecast which is used to fund the directorates operating expenditure and the operational cost associated with the Capital Expenditure Programme. This includes projects such as the New Water Programme (NWP), the Water Pipe Replacement Programme and other projects that will help build a resilient service.

Regardless of the dam levels and one’s volumetric usage, the tariffs are set to recover the cost of providing the service and therefore remain fixed.

Cape Town has learnt with climate change that we cannot solely rely on dams for water security in the future. This is why the city is investing in its New Water Programme (NWP), which includes projects such as desalination, groundwater schemes and reuse.

“This is part of the City’s long-term Water Strategy to help reduce Cape Town’s dependence on rainfall and dam storage as our primary water supply to navigate future climate shocks and droughts.

“We are working towards increasing supply by an extra 300 million litres of new water every day by 2030. Each of the projects is at different stages of development. This is over and above the current interventions to ensure optimal water use and will assist in enabling Cape Town to become resilient to climate change.”

It’s good to know that there are contingency plans in place so that we can avoid another water crisis. In the meantime, we can all do our bit to be more water-wise, regardless of the season or the status of our dams.

[source:capetownetc]