Our average collective consumption over the past week was 516 million litres of water per day. This is good going, Team Cape Town. This week’s usage is 5 million litres lower than the previous week’s usage but is still 66 million litres above the required usage target of 450 million for Cape Town. Dam levels decline by 0,5% to 21,5% over the past week.
In supporting the efforts of our residents to lower their water usage, the City of Cape Town’s advanced pressure management programme is yielding results with 50 million litres of water being saved on average per day through the tireless efforts of our Water and Sanitation Department staff. Our first-phase target for this programme was to save 52 million litres per day and we have achieved this ahead of schedule.
We are constantly seeing water-saving world-firsts in the making and we must continue our efforts to stretch our water supplies. We have to continue to strive to meet our 50-litre target. Judging from what we have achieved thus far, we can do it. We must use only 450 million litres per day to stretch the available water supplies through the rest of the year, come rain or shine.
The City has also been expanding its roll-out of pressure testing with the purpose of using the results to implement more automated pressure zones across the metro in an effort to help reduce water usage to 50 litres per person per day. Work on establishing additional zones continues. This lies at the heart of our advanced pressure management programmes. By creating automated pressure zones, has been ongoing for many years and which we are ramping up at present, the City is able to adjust water pressure remotely and work more efficiently as it implements pressure management. This technology reduces the pressure of the flow of water and thus helps to reduce water usage as well as bursts and leaks.
We have successfully tested areas including the Cape Town CBD, Green Point, Paarden Eiland, Woodstock, Salt River, Epping, Delft, Brooklyn and Dunoon. Testing is happening across the metro.
As part of our drought relief efforts, our programmes for additional water augmentation continue. For instance, the first water has been delivered at our Waterfront desalination plant which has a capacity for producing two million litres per day. Work also continues at our other desalination plants and on our aquifer programme as we strive to bring additional supply online.
Water management devices continue to be installed on the connections of high water users who are in contravention of water restrictions, and additional teams are working around the clock to detect and repair leaks.
All of these efforts, as well as those by our residents, will help to ensure that we stretch our water supplies and make new water sources available to face an expected harsh summer in 2018/19 and to ensure that we are all ready to act in the face of low and unpredictable rainfall.
Please visit www.capetown.gov.za/thinkwater for all water-related information.
