Save water or feel it in your pocket

Chronic water shortages in Gauteng need to be taken seriously. Managing households’ daily consumption must be first and foremost in everyone’s minds.

If we are not going to use water sparingly, the consequences are too ghastly to contemplate. After many warnings, it was inevitable that Joburg Water had to threaten punishment for excessive use.

Sadly, people need to feel before they act. And now Joburg Water have suggested the introduction of a “level one water tariff” for Gauteng residents, although details of the cost and how it would be implemented are thin as we grapple with limited supply.

Joburg Water’s Logan Moonsamy this week said: “There is no quick-fix solution for infrastructure upgrades in terms of pipe replacement and reservoir structure repairs. We are employing smart technology in the form of smart controllers. They reduce pressures at night when the pressures and losses are the highest.”

As of tomorrow, Joburg Water will implement associated level 1 water tariffs. Gauteng have already been slapped with level 1 restrictions from 1 September, which prohibit daily water-related activities for 12 hours daily between 6am and 6pm.

These include not being allowed to water gardens using a hosepipe, fill swimming pools and wash cars.

ALSO READ: Water restriction tariff could be coming for Joburg residents

Moonsamy warned if the current restrictions are not effective, they may be increased to level 2 or level 3.

Joburg Water say they are already “investigating pressure management, smart technology use, improved response time, leak detection, credit control, disconnections and isolation of bursts”.

It’s all good on paper, but we know how frustrating it is to see water leaking down the street for days before anyone does anything about it.

We also know how painful it is querying any municipal invoice when wrongly billed.

But the water crisis is real… As Scottish novelist Robert Louis Stevenson said: “Everybody, sooner or later, sits down to a banquet of consequences”.

We must listen and act before it’s too late.

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