Cape Town authorities have reduced the water pressure in parts of the city – which at last count consumed roughly 864-million litres a day – to curb spills from burst pipes.
The use of pressure-reducing valves has reduced the pipe burst rate significantly‚ saving millions of litres of water‚ mayoral committee member for utility services Alderman Ernest Sonnenberg said.
Capetonians are still not heeding the call to conserve water as dam levels across the municipality dropped below 50%‚ despite stringent level 3 water restrictions being in place‚ TMG Digital revealed on Wednesday.
The city set a consumption target of 800-million litres per day but last week residents and businesses used an average of 864-million litres.
“Water pressure has been reduced in a number of areas‚” said Sonnenberg. “Alongside the city’s pipe replacement programme‚ the rollout of pressure reducing valves has reduced the burst rate from 63.9 bursts per 100km of piping in the 2010/2011 financial year‚ to 31 bursts per 100km according to the latest statistics‚ and saved millions of litres of water in the process.”
Asked whether authorities anticipated a sharp increase in water consumption over the festive season‚ with the arrival of tourists and holidaymakers‚ he said: “Water restrictions apply to all.
“In terms of the impact of tourists‚ this is difficult to quantify. One must also remember that many local residents also go on holiday during December‚ and these residents in many cases will have a much larger ‘water footprint’ than your average tourist.”
He appealed to residents to keep summer water consumption in line with lower winter consumption to ensure dams were not drawn to dangerous levels.
– TMG Digital
Just R20 for the first month. Support independent journalism by subscribing to our digital news package. 