The City of Cape Town said in a statement on Monday that the amount of water it has access to is less than the dam levels reported because of the difficulty in extracting the last 10% of water in dams.
“With the last 10% of a dam’s water being unusable, city supply dam levels could be seen as effectively around 29.2%,” the city said in a statement.
Dam levels dropped to 39.2% on Monday, a decrease of 1.3% from last week.
Capetonians consumed an average of 807 million litres per day, more than the 800 million litres target.
“We are still 7 million litres above the daily water usage target, irrespective of the recent rainfall that has been experienced,” the city said.
In the statement water and waste services and energy councillor Xanthea Limberg said residential properties used 65% of the city’s water supply.
Increased water restrictions
High water usage areas included Athlone, Newlands, Newfields, Manenberg, Constantia, Lansdowne, Somerset West and Kraaifontein.
“It must, however, be emphasised that there are high water users in all suburbs across the metro,” Limberg said.
The City of Cape Town approved increased water restrictions (Level 3B) on Thursday.
This means the watering and irrigation of gardens may only take place on Tuesdays and Saturdays before 09:00 or after 18:00, for not more than one hour a day, and only with the use of a bucket or watering can.
Residents can report contraventions by sending an SMS to 31373, or by sending an email to water.restrictions@capetown.gov.za.
[Source: News]
