Cape Town drought: City beyond ‘point of no return’ and will run out of water in April, warns mayor The executive mayor of Cape Town has warned citizens and prospective visitors that the city is “very likely” to run out of water in April.
Calls to limit individual consumption to 87 litres per day have, say the authorities, been ignored by three-fifths of the people living in greater Cape Town – which has 3.7 million people.
“Day Zero is the day that almost all of the taps in the city will be turned off and we will have to queue for water,” says the city council.
For tourists as well as locals, coping with the water shortage is becoming a daily struggle.
“A true nightmare scenario is developing before our very eyes.” Jamie Bowden, a long-stay UK visitor to the city, told The Independent: “The water crisis is the only topic of conversation.
Arriving passengers at Cape Town airport are met with a huge banner on the drive out of the airport imploring visitors to shower for just two minutes.
“The tourism infrastructure is working – hotels, bars and restaurants are doing a roaring trade as always.
“There will be water for tourists’ essential daily needs including access to drinking water and for personal hygiene.
Meanwhile a black market in drinking water is taking shape, according to Mr Bowden: ”I went to a warehouse that stocks large plastic water containers and the place is just being stripped every day.
They know the value of stored fresh drinking water will soar in coming weeks and getting thousands of litres of it now for free is likely to be extremely profitable.” From 1 February, the limit per person falls from 87 to 50 litres a day.

Conceived in 1987, this major irrigation project was to be completed in 1992.
If the project is completed after 28 years of delay, it will join 16 other such irrigation projects in Maharashtra that have been hanging fire for over two decades.
But the fact that such delayed projects dot Maharashtra would certainly rankle the finance minister.
Information sourced from his ministry shows that these multi-decade delays in completing minor and major irrigation projects across Maharashtra have cost the government a lot of money over the years.
These projects that should have been completed at an estimated cost of Rs 9 billion will now end up costing more than Rs 50 billion.
If that wasn’t enough, in 2015 and 2016 severe droughts again hit the state.
Reports suggest that the state’s farmers sought insurance to the tune of Rs 41 billion for crop losses due to drought in 2016.
While Jaitley might be inclined to announce new irrigation projects for Maharashtra, the Narendra Modi administration might do well to ensure that irrigation projects scheduled to be completed this year and the ones hanging fire for more than two decades see the light of the day first, without suffering the same fate as other projects like the Lendi irrigation project.
Finance ministry data show that at least six irrigation projects in the drought-hit state are scheduled to be commissioned in 2018.
Although conceived at a cost of Rs 7 billion, their revised completion cost 20 years later exceeds Rs 27 billion.

DROUGHT conditions across the southern parts of the country persist despite sporadic rainfall recorded since the start of the rainy season.
But it is not enough, according to farmers.
According to Wasserfall, he has already lost about 300 sheep as a result of prevailing drought conditions and stock theft.
“All elements are against us,” he stated.
However, the farmer was optimistic about rain next month.
Drought-hit communal farmer Otto Apollus has appealed to government to intervene and assist farmers with supplementary feed.
“We can’t sell to reduce our livestock numbers because many have died due to prevailing drought conditions,” he said, pointing to the marketing scheme government introduced last year to ease the impact of drought on communal livestock farmers.
He suggested that government provide farmers with animal feed, especially during droughts, instead of buying resettlement farms, of which many remain unproductive.
“If government doesn’t reintroduce the supplementary feed subsidy to communal farmers, we will remain losers,” he said.
Resettlement farmer Berra Mungunda said he has lost 52 cattle so far due to the dry conditions, and echoed the sentiments of others calling on government to subsidise farmers with livestock feed in times of drought to keep their animals alive.

Zambians will not go hungry despite a disappointing rain season the country has experienced so far, the Minister of Agriculture has assured.
Ms. Dora Siliya said some parts of the country have been particularly affected with crops that were earlier planted going to waste due to poor rainfall.
The Minister was speaking in an interview Monday in Berlin, Germany, on the sidelines of the German/Africa Business Association meeting called for African countries to share their investment prospects in the agricultural sector with the German business community.
The Minister noted that as expected the country has seen more rains in ecological zone three consisting of parts of northern regions of Zambia, the Copperbelt, Central province and parts northwestern province.
“However, it is in these areas where the soil is quite acid and you don’t really expect a lot of return on the hectares in terms of harvest”, the Minister regretted.
Ms. Siliya said going forward government is expected to increase its investment in harvesting rain-water and the construction of dams thereby reducing dependence on rain-fed agriculture.
Ms. Siliya said her Ministry is monitoring the situation to ensure food security, food that is accessible and food that is affordable.
“We have asked all the districts to continue giving us reports so that in the next few weeks, we assess the impact of the partial drought and that of the army worms”, said the Minister assuring Zambians that government is on top of things.
Ms. Siliya said last year the Zambian government made some tough decisions that affected the private sector so that the food security of its citizens was assured.
Experts have warned that climate change will continue to affect food security and energy supply unless countries adopt measures to mitigate their impact.

Cape Town officials are tightening water restrictions amid claims the city could run out of water by April 21.
After three years of intensive drought, officials say residents are bracing for "Day Zero," the day water could stop flowing.
South Africa’s second-largest city would be the first major city in the developed world to run out of water, if residents do not heed new stricter water measures.
Starting Feb. 1, Cape Town will force residents to cut their water consumption to 13.2 gallons per day, down from 23 gallons.
This means limiting the amount of water you drink, limiting the showers that you take."
"We can no longer ask people to stop wasting water.
The mayor also announced the city moved "Day Zero" up a day because of the overuse of water.
But other experts say city planners failed to anticipate that the city’s six dams, which are sourced by rainfall, would run out of water as drought worsened and the population grew, Fihlani says.
Dam levels have dropped to 15.2 percent capacity of usable water, down from 77 percent in Sept. 2015, according to The Los Angeles Times.
As The Los Angeles Times notes: Western Cape Premier Helen Zille and provincial authorities have accused the national African National Congress government of failing to build and maintain new infrastructure and send adequate emergency drought relief.

Dam levels in Gauteng stand at 94.3%‚ at 66.1% in the Free State and 80% in the Vaal Dam.
The worst dam levels are in KwaZulu-Natal (49.6%)‚ the Eastern Cape (59.6%) and Western Cape dams (26.6%).
These figures will be updated by the department on Tuesday.
“We encourage people to adhere to the restriction imposed by municipalities.
The latest projected date is April 20‚ but many experts believe it will arrive much earlier.
But it is not just the City of Cape Town that is facing water problems.
Zille informed the press on the current situation the City of Cape Town faces in terms of… Ratau said the department would continue to provide support to municipalities‚ depending on each council’s needs.
“Unless and only when consumers reduce consumption‚ will we be able to see a difference in consumption patterns.
We are a water scarce-country.
Secondly‚ the impact of climate change is real.”

There is a drought, of course.
But there are also other reasons brought up in the public discourse, particularly on social media, such as population and water demand growth, unreported agricultural use, invasive species sucking out water in catchments, poor planning and mismanagement of water supply system, and lack of foresight in development of new water sources.
It appears that nine stations have data available for recent years, but four are located in the region of the WCWSS dams, and have no significant gaps or systematic errors from 1981 through 2017.
We know that before that there were droughts in the 1920s and 1970s.
If available SAWS data are screened in a similar manner as the DWS data were (i.e. for continuity and consistency of record), we get five stations with data covering the period 1933 to 2017.
This is how plots for this station look: Again, the 2017 rainfall for that station, and importantly the mean of 3-years prior to 2017 were lower than in any period experienced by this station since 1920.
So the long-term SAWS data from the WCWSS dams region shows that 2017 and the period 2015 to 2017 were the driest since 1933.
The drought, as manifested by rainfall in the region of WCWSS dams, is indeed very rare, and very severe.
Importantly, the analyses reveal that the drought was likely less severe in the coastal plains and in Cape Town itself.
In summary – the analyses presented above, based on the best rainfall data available at this time, show that the drought, manifested through low rainfall in 2015 to 2017, was very rare and severe.

Facts are few, opinions plenty, on the cause of the water crisis Editor’s summary Piotr Wolski, a water scientist at UCT, has used the latest rainfall and best available weather station data to compare the current drought to past ones.
There is a drought, of course.
But there are also other reasons brought up in the public discourse, particularly on social media, such as population and water demand growth, unreported agricultural use, invasive species sucking out water in catchments, poor planning and mismanagement of water supply system, and lack of foresight in development of new water sources.
It appears that nine stations have data available for recent years, but four are located in the region of the WCWSS dams, and have no significant gaps or systematic errors from 1981 through 2017.
If available SAWS data are screened in a similar manner as the DWS data were (i.e. for continuity and consistency of record), we get five stations with data covering the period 1933 to 2017.
This is how plots for this station look: Again, the 2017 rainfall for that station, and importantly the mean of 3-years prior to 2017 were lower than in any period experienced by this station since 1920.
So the long-term SAWS data from the WCWSS dams region shows that 2017 and the period 2015 to 2017 were the driest since 1933.
The drought, as manifested by rainfall in the region of WCWSS dams, is indeed very rare, and very severe.
Importantly, the analyses reveal that the drought was likely less severe in the coastal plains and in Cape Town itself.
In summary – the analyses presented above, based on the best rainfall data available at this time, show that the drought, manifested through low rainfall in 2015 to 2017, was very rare and severe.

Embattled Cape Town mayor Patricia de Lille is not going down without a fight after the city council voted to strip her of her powers to lead its response to the drought.
De Lille said on Sunday she was consulting the city’s legal team to establish whether Friday’s move to strip her of her powers was permissible and had followed due process.
"I am seeking clarity and I hope to have a response tomorrow [Monday]….
We need to [understand] what the impact of such a decision is," said De Lille.
Earlier in January, DA leader Mmusi Maimane shifted the city council’s drought response from De Lille’s office to her deputy, Ian Neilson, and mayoral committee member responsible for water Xanthea Limberg.
Maimane argued that since the mayor was involved in disciplinary hearings, she would not be able to give crucial water projects her full attention.
De Lille was hauled before the party’s federal disciplinary committee on charges of maladministration and ignoring misconduct and tender irregularities.
She was, however, allowed to remain in her position as mayor, pending the disciplinary process outcome.
During a council sitting on Friday, De Lille was taken by surprise when Neilson introduced an amendment calling for her powers to handle drought matters be shifted to the mayoral committee.
Party insiders said this was a clear indication that De Lille had lost the support of the DA caucus in the Cape Town council.

The City of Galveston reported that the frozen pipes caused major leaks in many of the residents pipes which led to low water pressure.
"We’ve received over 5,000 calls for broken water lines," said City Marshal Michael Gray.
The freeze is impacting neighborhoods all over Galveston.
Stage 4 of the Drought Contingency Plan restricts residents and businesses from all non-essential water use.
Repairs and shut offs on the customers side of the meter are typically the customer’s responsibility, however, due to the nature of the event and the limited availability of plumbers locally, City crews are working diligently to assist citizens across the Island with simply turning water service to their home off.
Things You Can Be Fined for During Stage 4 of the Drought Contingency Plan Irrigation of landscaped areas can only be done on Mondays and Thursdays for customers on the East side of them City (east of 103rd Street), and Wednesdays and Saturdays for water customers on the West side of the City (west of 103rd Street).
Further, such vehicle washing using potable water at commercial car washes and commercial service stations shall occur only between the hours of 6:00 a.m. and 10:00 a.m. and between 6:00 p.m. and 10 p.m.
The following uses of potable water are considered non-essential in Stage 2 and are prohibited unless services are being provided by a third party for profit company: 1. wash down of any sidewalks, walkways, driveway, parking lot, tennis courts, or other hard surfaced areas; 2. use of water to wash down buildings or structures for purposes other than immediate fire protection; 3. use of water for dust control, except as permitted by the Director of Municipal Utilities All restaurants are prohibited from serving water to patrons except on patron request.
City crews will assist homeowners with turning the water to their home off, however, repairs and turning the water back on will need to be made by a licensed plumber.
This type of team of effort is what we need to help us identify the issues that are causing our water losses.” Residents help by reporting the leaks online at http://www.galvestontx.gov/freeze, emailingcustomerservice@galvestontx.gov, or by calling 409-797-3550.