WITH the country experiencing drought, the eThekwini Municpality has started with installing water restrictors.
Head of the eThekwini Head of Water and Sanitation, Ednick Msweli, reported this at a talk that he gave at the Premier Hotel on the status of water supplies.
He said there had been many talks about water shortage and ways to save water in broadcast and print media as well as in the council structures.
“Most of the tips that we have shared for people to restrict their water have failed which is the reason we started installing water restrictors. The individual restrictors were installed to effect a 50 per cent curtailment. The restrictors have GPS so that when the drought that we are faced is over, they can be removed.”
Msweli said the Hazelmere Dam was the first dam to be hit by the drought as it is a small dam.
Umgeni Water constructed and commissioned an emergency scheme to pump water from the uThongathi River to Hazelmere Dam.
He said that they will be looking into the matter of people stealing the water, it could be by misusing standpipes or putting up illegal meters as 40 per cent of the water is lost that way.
Msweli added that the rain which has been falling for the past days has made some difference, although not that much. “If we can have more rainfall, things could eventually go back to normal and the last resort would be to implement water rationing.”
Arend Hoogervorst from the Eagle Environment said he believes that the water situation had not been taken seriously. “The issue of the drought has been known for years, why was there nothing done through the years? Why are the measures only taken now?
“I realise that we have a wide range of communities that have different abilities, but there are a significant number of communities who could afford to put in rain water tanks and could afford in this situation to fill their systems with rain water instead of portable water and make a significant difference.
“To me, that the kind of tip one needs to be using and perhaps facilitating the easier installations of those systems and the feeding of those ideas through that is what going to get the percent reductions in a short term and then get people to appreciate the value of water, maybe not financially.
“If you have got to carry a bucket, lugging 10 litres of water around the place, you will begin to realise this is not fun, especially when you have to do it in the middle of the night.”
Hoogervorst said people need to have more practical ideas which we feed through to all levels of the community to reinforce the fact that water is an important resource that need to be used wisely.
