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

[spiff]

It's easier to remove a thousand little plastic balls from his pool when he wants to swim, instead of a single pool cover??

I call BS....

You can call it whatever you want.

They swim with them still in the pool. The 2 of them are to old now to piss about with pool cover on and off everyday.

 

[spiff]

I doubt that would count as a pool cover ?

I said clearly in my post it's to stop water evaporation and they swim with the balls still in the pool.

My shade clothe pool cover is a pain to undo & roll up just for a swim and then put back specially for 1 person.

For 2 old people it works well and has the same effect as a pool cover.

 

[daveza]

If they get checked for whether they have a pool cover, shade balls aren't going to help.

 

[noxibox]

9 ML per day from desal and 150 ML from the aquifers when we are using over 500 ML per day ?

25% of daily usage is a huge boost and will therefore make a major difference to dam levels.

 

[The_Right_Honourable_Brit]

Listeners to Cape Talk phoning in earlier saying the City shouldn't have announced the new Day Zero date because now people won't save.

What a bunch of clowns.

 

[The_Right_Honourable_Brit]

 

[daveza]

https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/fruit-farmers-opening-sluices-for-cape-town-20180205

The fruit growers of the Groenland Water Users Association (GWUA) in the Western Cape will begin the release of between seven to 10 million cubic metres of water on Tuesday to help Cape Town avoid Day Zero, GWUA chief executive Johan Groenewald said.

"We were blessed [with rain], even though it is not as much as usual," Groenewald told News24 on Monday after the group of deciduous fruit growers around Grabouw and Elgin agreed to the once-off release from their private dams.

The farmers will release their water into the Palmiet River and it will eventually wend its way to the Steenbras Dam, which is one of drought-stricken Cape Town's water suppliers.

How does water 'wend its way' to the top of a mountain ?

 

[zizo911]

I for the first time measures our water use, 70 litres a day for a family of 4.

 

[theratman]

I for the first time measures our water use, 70 litres a day for a family of 4.

Very impressive

 

[Geoff.D]

https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/fruit-farmers-opening-sluices-for-cape-town-20180205



How does water 'wend its way' to the top of a mountain ?

The water flows down the Palmiet river into the Kogelbergdam from where it is pumped into the Steenbrasdam (Upper)

 

[Gordon_R]

https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/fruit-farmers-opening-sluices-for-cape-town-20180205

How does water 'wend its way' to the top of a mountain ?

There are two major dams on the Palmiet River, the Eikenhof Dam above Grabouw, and the Kogelberg Dam lower down in the valley. The Kogelberg Dam is part of a hydroelectric pumped-storage scheme, and connected to the Rockview Dam, which is connected to Steenbras Upper Dam.

The diversion will work when the farmers release some of their water quota into the Palmiet River, which then flows into the Kogelberg Dam. From there it will be pumped up the mountain into the Rockview Dam, and transferred across to Steenbras Upper Dam, which will then release it into Steenbras Lower Dam, and hence onto the CoCT water filtration works above Gordon's Bay.

Edit: Interesting detail on Wikipedia:

Steenbras Upper Dam is also linked by an open canal and pipeline to the Rockview Dam that forms the upper reservoir of the Palmiet Pumped Storage Scheme, which is a separate pump storage scheme operated by Eskom and the Department of Water and Sanitation. The link allows water from the Palmiet River to be transferred to the dam.

Yes its complex (physically and politically), which partly explains why it took a while to get organised!

BTW, the Eikenhof Dam has enough water at present (63.9% at 29 Jan 2018), so Grabouw is not going to run dry.

Edit: The text in this one comment is about the same length (in total) for all 4 Wikipedia entries for those dams!? See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steenbras_Dam_–_Upper

 

[daveza]

Live and learn - thanks.

 

[Gordon_R]

Live and learn - thanks.

Well, I didn't know that till last week. This thread is a great example of the 'hive-mind' (sometimes).

Still need to get round to doing a FAQ for this sub-forum, and get it posted as a sticky...

 

[air]

Tom Brown -> https://showme.co.za/paarl/lifestyle/nature-outdoors/dams-latest-levels-winelands-and-cape-town-88/

 

[PeterBee]

Well, I didn't know that till last week. This thread is a great example of the 'hive-mind' (sometimes).

Still need to get round to doing a FAQ for this sub-forum, and get it posted as a sticky...

Another interesting (but rather technical) article from 2016, re Palmiet and Kogelberg.
https://www.kbrc.org.za/news/desalination-future-cape-towns-water-needs/

It seems this is not the first time that surplus water has been pumped from Kogelberg into the Steenbras dam.

 

[HeftyCrab]

So day zero was pushed forward to something like 11th of May. Was this because of the extra water coming into the system, or because people are actually saving more water? If its because of people being more water wise (according to the announcement by COCT) then Day Zero should actually be past 11 May?

 

[Rouxenator]

The article I read on that said :

How much water has been donated to Cape Town?
10 million cubic meters of water translates to 10 billion actual litres of water. With Cape Town’s current consumption rate at just over 550 million a day, the donation has the potential to last for 18-20 days.

The water will be released into the Upper Steenbras dam over the course of a month, being pumped in from the Palmiet River. This has been called a “one-off voluntary donation”, and the city should be incredibly grateful for this gift.

Source : https://www.thesouthafrican.com/western-cape-farmers-day-zero/

So all you naysayers that keep saying small dams are useless, think again, it does help and that time frame was derived from the media consumption figure (grossly over inflated to scare people).

 

[The_Mowgs]

So day zero was pushed forward to something like 11th of May. Was this because of the extra water coming into the system, or because people are actually saving more water? If its because of people being more water wise (according to the announcement by COCT) then Day Zero should actually be past 11 May?

Farmers no longer receiving water.

 

[Gordon_R]

Another interesting (but rather technical) article from 2016, re Palmiet and Kogelberg.
https://www.kbrc.org.za/news/desalination-future-cape-towns-water-needs/

It seems this is not the first time that surplus water has been pumped from Kogelberg into the Steenbras dam.

Thanks (hive-mind)!

The issue with the Palmiet River is that Kogelberg is a highly protected Biosphere Reserve (this was declared many decades ago). Water extraction can only be done under very strict conditions, otherwise Cape Town would have stolen all that water by now...

 

[saturnz]

just a comment on water wastage in informal settlements