ETHEKWINI Municipality held its first Drought Relief Business Indaba on Wednesday, 18 May, which looked at practical ways the City’s business sector could assist in saving water.
The City’s Senior Manager for water operations Ashan Nandlal said despite the recent heavy rainfall the dam levels remained low. “The recent rainfall was not within the catchment area of the dam, therefore it made no difference to the dam levels,” he said.
Nandlal said despite plants such as the Durban Heights, Wiggins, Maphephethwa, Midmar and Amanzimtoti being affected by the drought, the City had managed to save water usage from the plants by 4.59 per cent.
He said 180 000 water restrictors had been had been installed to domestic water meters and installations would continue. He added that the City was also looking at a long term drought strategy which included remixing the usage from different plants and the re-usage of recycled water. City stakeholders from the business sector were also given a chance to interact with officials and offer solutions.
Warwick Hayes and Bryan Maytham, engineers from Fulfil Energy, gave a presentation on how the business sector could follow their example by saving water through stricter water usage and practical solutions.
EThekwini Speaker Logie Naidoo said saving water should be a joint initiative and residents and the private sector should also play their role. “The Drought Relief Business Indaba is a platform where we can all jointly come up with solutions to the drought that continues to affect all of us. Everyone should champion the change,” he said.
Dumile Cele, CEO of the Durban Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said a school of thought exists that the 3rd world war will be fought over water and food. “
Looking at the rate of global warming effects on our water reserves, I am beginning to subscribe to this construct. Even if you don’t believe this prediction, the drought all around us calls on all of us to take serious action to save this precious resource – water. The drought facing KZN and the rest of the country has severely impacted on government’s ability to provide water services, but the Durban Chamber of Commerce and Industry is happy to see that eThekwini Municipality has gone an extra mile to ensure both residents and business are not as affected as could have been witnessed without proper management of the situation,” she said.
Cele said the various interventions by the city to restrict water flow all points to constructive efforts in ensuring water supply in the long term for all users in the municipality, and though this may have been perceived in a negative light, ultimately citizens are all still getting water services in spite of the drought.
“Roughly 60 per cent of our municipal water use is from residents and the rest commercial and industrial uses. We would like to commend the awareness and education initiatives undertaken by the city to sensitise residents of water saving and conservation. We would also like to encourage business, to lead the way in providing water saving solutions to residents as well as adopting water saving systems as discussed in the earlier presentations. Our culture of water use will be reflected in the ability of coming generations to have water security and is also tied to larger health and sanitation issues,” she said.
