Hallelujah and praise the Lord!

While everyone’s scrambling for solutions to the current water crisis (icebergs, anyone?), a little relief has finally arrived for Capetonians (apart from today’s rain, of course): the city’s first desalination plant in Strandfontein is now up and running.

No joke, friends. It’s actually in existence.

News24 reports that it’s the first of three temporary facilities, which is expected to augment the City’s water supply over the next two years.

Emphasis on “temporary”, so don’t overdo the showers and whatnot now just because the plant is standing there.

The purpose of the plant is to extract water from the sea, treat it before getting it into Cape Town’s water system, and then return the brine water back into the sea.

Take a gander at this video to see what the facility looks like on the inside:

Looks good, but does it deliver the goods, AKA good quality water?

On Monday, Deputy Mayor Ian Neilson had an opportunity to taste of the first three megalitres (ML) being produced there.

“Everything is now working,” he said, after a “blind tasting” of bottled water, desalinated water and tap water.

Neilson said operations at the plant, which went online last Tuesday, were “functioning fully”.

Awesome stuff.

We’ll be waiting with bated breath – and thirstiness – for when that water starts being piped in.

[source:news24]