Durban - EThekwini residents and visitors to the province need divine intervention from the water gods, or drastically reduce their water consumption in the next three weeks to avoid facing cuts – similar to load shedding.
eThekwini Municipality issued a barrage of messages on social media on Friday, urgently warning residents to reduce their consumption. The warning came as thousands of holidaymakers begin to arrive in Durban, uMhlanga Rocks and Ballito for their annual holidays.
“URGENT NOTICE: We will continue to monitor the water consumption over the course of the week and should the situation not improve, we will then be left with no option but to impose water curtailment as indicated on this schedule. #SaveWater”, said a message on the municipality’s official Facebook and Twitter accounts.
A schedule of affected areas, which includes King Shaka International Airport, Sibaya Casino, Verulam CBD, La Mercy, the LIV School, Canelands Industrial area, Westbrook, Desainagar and hotels along that stretch of the beach, has been posted online and distributed in public areas.
In an emergency meeting earlier this week, the Joint Drought Planning Committee, which includes Umgeni Water, eThekwini Metro, iLembe District Municipality and Sembcorp Siza Water, agreed in principle to institute a “time of use” curtailment measure to stop Hazelmere Dam from falling to 35 percent, which is the lowest it can afford to go to before water supply reaches its most critical stage. As of Friday, the dam was sitting at 40 percent and the level of Hazelmere Dam is reducing on average by 1 percent every seven days.
The time of use measure was only agreed to at the emergency meeting earlier this week after the initial calls to save water, of up to 30 percent, did not materialise.
At least you get some potable water.