The City of Cape Town is proud to announce that the temporary desalination plant in Strandfontein is now delivering high-quality, treated desalinated water into our supply system.

This plant is injecting 4,7 million litres per day into the reticulation system and is being delivered to customers. It is foreseen that full production of 7 million litres will come online during June 2018.

The reverse osmosis desalination plant in the Waterfront area is close to producing two million litres of drinking water per day while progress on the desalination plant at Monwabisi is also progressing well, with first water expected to be delivered by June and full production to be reached by July, if all goes according to plan. This plant is also set to produce 7 million litres per day.

It is important to note that these projects provide only a small contribution of our daily water requirement as a city. It forms part of our efforts to make additional water available without only relying on rainfall to fill our dams. However, our most effective tool to keep Day Zero away is to continue to reduce our usage. We have done well so far, and we must keep up our savings efforts during winter and in preparation for Summer 2018/19. We must continue to stretch our existing water supplies as we simply do not know what the actual winter rainfall will be.

The desalination projects, in conjunction with our groundwater and water re-use programmes, are part of our efforts to make our city more resilient to future drought shocks and to ensure that we thrive despite climatic uncertainty. To get through the current drought, however, it remains essential that we reduce our water usage and manage the water that we have left in our supply system through the City’s pressure management programmes and our continued emphasis on fixing leaks to reduce water losses.

The resilience programme, which came into effect in May 2017, has evolved considerably over the past year – with each evolution better reflecting the current reality based on the latest information as it becomes available. Substantial changes to the initial programme were announced in December/January 2017/18 and further amendments have been made since February and March, culminating in the New Water Programme.

The City’s augmentation programme has achieved in four months what would usually take two years in terms of project development and progress.

The intention is to produce close to 100 million litres per day of additional water available by December 2018 and to ramp this up to over 150 million litres per day by April 2019.

Going forward, the City will continue to work together with water users to reduce water usage while also doing everything we can to conserve and diversify our water resources.

The fifteen members of the team representing the Avela Foundation are back in South Africa after a challenging yet extremely rewarding trek to Everest Base Camp (EBC). “All our hard work and preparation have paid off”, says Cami Palomo, founder of Avela Foundation that helps children with serious burn injuries on their emotional and physical road to recovery. “The efforts by these group of determined people prior and during our trek resulted in Avela raising nearly R1.85million that will be used to kick-start our U-Matter program and help refurbish the Kimberley Hospital’s burn unit”, says Palomo. (U-Matter is a psychological support network for burn survivors and their families.)

Writer Lanie van Reenen, one of the six Capetonians who took part in the nine day hike to EBC, describes how the trek started in Lukla where they were surrounded by lush green valleys and crossing rickety bridges suspended high over the ice-blue waters of the rivers below. “We had breathtaking views of the snow-covered peaks of the Himalaya-mountains.”

Van Reenen is quick to add though that all was not fun and games – on the contrary: “A few days in we reached the ‘above the trees’ part of the mountains. It is then when every member of our team had to confront our bodies’ reaction to altitude. It affects people in varying degrees and you are unprepared for the first onset – a vice-grip headache, nausea, sluggishness, sleeplessnessand a lack of appetite. We had to dig very deep to find that strength within ourselves in an effort to continue. Failure was not an option as were embarked on this journey not for ourselves, but for the thousands of South African children who are in such desperate need of burn care.”

She describes the welcoming tea houses where their weary bodies could rest every day, the sense of wonder with the first glimpse of the highest mountain in the world and the team’s joy and pride upon reaching their goal. “We were on top of the world!”

Van Reenen says completing the expedition was also a personal achievement for every single member of the group – ordinary people that decided to embark on an extra-ordinary adventure for a noble cause.

The triumphant team may be back in their comfortable homes after having to endure true hardship but that is not where it ends. “We have raised the funds and have come together as a team; we have collected memories that will last a lifetime and we have formed solid friendships. That is however only the beginning,” says Palomo. “The hard work will now truly start.”

One thing is for sure: together they gave in line with Avela’s motto: Together to give.

The EBC trek was undertaken in collaboration with the Smile Foundation. Please read more about this wonderful organisation by visiting their website http://avelafoundation.com/