The Mopani District Municipality urges residents to utilise water sparingly as dam levels in the district continue to drop drastically due to the shortages of rain.
According to the municipal spokesperson, Neil Shikwambana, out of the nine main dams supplying water to communities in the district, eight of them have dropped below 50%. Two of these dams, Thapane and Merensky have been declared empty while Nsami Dam has reached 8%.
“Effectively, extraction of water from the Nsami Dam has since been stopped and the areas relying on it are now supplied from the Middle Letaba Dam which is also reaching worrying levels. Community members should also take note of the difficulty of relying on ground water (boreholes) as it is now proving difficult for boreholes in most of our area due to the depletion of the ground water table,” said Shikwambana.
He said working with the Department of Water and Sanitation, the Mopani District Municipality will enforce the implementation of drought operating rules at all dams including water restrictions for both domestic and irrigation use.
Dams to be affected by water restrictions are Middle Letaba, Nsami, Modjadji and Tzaneen Dams.
“Due to these restrictions, the Mopani District Municipality is also implementing water supply partitioning in the affected communities. Accordingly, the Mopani District Municipality would like to mobilise all sectors of the community to join hands in the battle of conserving the little available water,” said Shikwambana.
