New water restriction tariffs hit Cape Town: what you need to know

f2wohf

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While I have no doubt that things could get very bad in terms of crime and civil unrest (even though every other town in this country that's run out of water indicates otherwise), the idea that the water situation could lead to civil war is a load of doo doo. We're more likely to head that way with the JZ situation than we are with water, and even then it's extremely low.

Anybody tried protesting and conducting riots without water?
 

xrapidx

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Sadly - I had my gardener pull all our non-water wise plants yesterday, even from pots - they weren't taking the drought well, and we weren't generating enough grey water.

Now I have a empty garden, and empty pots... and a not so happy wife :p
 

Geoff.D

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That was a it of a drastic move!
What if DAY zero does not happen? What are you going to do then?
 

Tinuva

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Sadly - I had my gardener pull all our non-water wise plants yesterday, even from pots - they weren't taking the drought well, and we weren't generating enough grey water.

Now I have a empty garden, and empty pots... and a not so happy wife :p

Lucky for me, I never really had non-water wise plants. For the past 5 or so years focused on the water wise plants, mostly because I am too lazy to water the plants. You can still have good looking garden if you focus on water wise plants.
 

PeterBee

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https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/...-drop-in-water-pressure-soon-maimane-20180130


Maimane also announced that the City had secured an additional 67 million litres a day for a period of approximately 60 days, starting from early February.

The target had initially been an extra 120 million litres by May.

"But now, more than half will be available from early February. This water will be transferred from the Palmiet-Kogelberg dam, which has had excellent rainfall and is full.

I'm going to have to stop reading these statements by the DA drought "leaders" (there seem to be more leaders than ever before). They always raise more questions than they answer and leave me scratching my head. Regular, transparent and fact-based communication is everything in a crisis like this.

"The target had initially been an extra 120 Ml by May" - what target? Desalination and aquifer? Will it still be available from May? In addition to the 67Ml per day from Kogelberg Dam? Why was Kogelberg not identified earlier, or did they just not remember it was there? Surely day zero now improves? Or is the 67Ml already calculated into the new day zero?

Kogelberg Dam, 8km south east of Steenbras, can pump surplus water into Steenbras Dam. Maimane says Kogelberg had "excellent rainfall and is full". So Steenbras suffers a 100 or 1000 year (take your pick) worst drought for 3 consecutive years, but 8km away, rainfall has been just excellent?

The dam is full. Full? 100%? Somebody just noticed it now? Not in 2016 or 2017? Did the excellent rains cause it to overflow, into the sea?

Interesting article on Kogelberg
https://m.news24.com/MyNews24/cape-town-water-crisis-could-palmiet-save-us-from-day-zero-20180126
 
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Geoff.D

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Was thinking the same. I left my plants in, most are dead and dying anyway.

What we did when we had water restrictions up here in Gauteng is we applied a rationing process to the plants as well. ALL got water, but not nec enough to make them flourish. We only lost two plants. I installed a drip system for all the pot plants, fed from a simple elevated tank that could be filled with normal water supply or with grey water. That simple setup is now connected to the rain collection setup I have as well.

So it is not a pressurised drip irrigation system, but still works very well.
 
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Archer

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Kogelberg Dam, 8km south east of Steenbras, can pump surplus water into Steenbras Dam. Maimane says Kogelberg had "excellent rainfall and is full". So Steenbras suffers a 100 or 1000 year (take your pick) worst drought for 3 consecutive years, but 8km away, rainfall has been just excellent?

The dam is full. Full? 100%? Somebody just noticed it now? Not in 2016 or 2017? Did the excellent rains cause it to overflow, into the sea?

Interesting article on Kogelberg
https://mybroadband.co.za/vb/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=21046279

Calm your horses
Steenbras = 37mil m³ and 67km² catchment area
Kogelberg = 19mil m³ and 179km² catchment area

So Kogelberg is half the size, and with more than 2.5x the catchment area. So it being full is not some miracle. Also, national water uses this dam primarily for agriculture. Since farmers have essentially used up their allocation for the year I suspect only now is national water allowing CoCT to use this dam
 

SlinkyMike

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I'm going to have to stop reading these statements by the DA drought "leaders" (there seem to be more leaders than ever before). They always raise more questions than they answer and leave me scratching my head. Regular, transparent and fact-based communication is everything in a crisis like this.

"The target had initially been an extra 120 Ml by May" - what target? Desalination and aquifer? Will it still be available from May? In addition to the 67Ml per day from Kogelberg Dam? Why was Kogelberg not identified earlier, or did they just not remember it was there? Surely day zero now improves? Or is the 67Ml already calculated into the new day zero?

Kogelberg Dam, 8km south east of Steenbras, can pump surplus water into Steenbras Dam. Maimane says Kogelberg had "excellent rainfall and is full". So Steenbras suffers a 100 or 1000 year (take your pick) worst drought for 3 consecutive years, but 8km away, rainfall has been just excellent?

The dam is full. Full? 100%? Somebody just noticed it now? Not in 2016 or 2017? Did the excellent rains cause it to overflow, into the sea?

Interesting article on Kogelberg
https://mybroadband.co.za/vb/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=21046279

AFAIK Kogelberg is kept full (pumped from Steenbras) as it is used to run various parts of the infrastructure.

There lots of pundits around right now with just enough info to be dangerous. I'm probably one of them.
 

Archer

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AFAIK Kogelberg is kept full (pumped from Steenbras) as it is used to run various parts of the infrastructure.

There lots of pundits around right now with just enough info to be dangerous. I'm probably one of them.

Yes you are dangerous, Steenbras Upper is kept full by Steenbras :p
 

Gordon_R

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Regular, transparent and fact-based communication is everything in a crisis like this.

[snip]

Interesting article on Kogelberg
https://mybroadband.co.za/vb/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=21046279

Broken link!

Facts would help with pressure reduction! We have residents ready to riot, and blaming trustees for cutting off their water.

Posted on the other thread: Pressure down to 50kPa, barely a trickle on ground floor, nothing above that level...
 

Other Pineapple Smurf

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That was a it of a drastic move!
What if DAY zero does not happen? What are you going to do then?

This will only happen through collective effort and all the preparation as still worth it. We are not out of the woods come winter, not for many years, actually never. Cape Town is water stressed and as service delivery rolls out, it will become more water stressed.

The days of cheap water are over for us.
 

Nanfeishen

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Apr 8, 2006
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Sadly - I had my gardener pull all our non-water wise plants yesterday, even from pots - they weren't taking the drought well, and we weren't generating enough grey water.

Now I have a empty garden, and empty pots... and a not so happy wife :p

Garden - go zen, gravel and stone.

Pots - Cacti
 
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