Cii Radio| Sabera Sheik Essop| 08 September 2016| 06 Zhul Hijjah 1437
The City of Johannesburg has appealed for an immediate 15% cut in water consumption. Johannesburg Water said on Monday this was because of the drought and unusually high temperatures.
“We do not want to go to level 3 water restrictions. Residents are encouraged to start saving water immediately‚” Johannesburg Water said.
“If the residents of the City of Johannesburg do not reduce their water usage‚ there will be water shedding‚” it warned.
“Johannesburg Water will throttle the system in the evenings from 8pm-4am in areas where there is high demand when residents are sleeping.”
Level 2 water restrictions have been in place since November 2015‚ limiting watering of gardens in daylight hours and banning filling of swimming pools with municipal water.
Washing of cars with hose pipes is restricted and residents may not use sprinklers at any time.
Johannesburg Water said residents would be fined if they did not comply with water restrictions. Fines would be added to their municipal bills.
Mayoral committee member for environment infrastructure services Anthony Still said on Monday that the water levels in the Vaal River system had fallen below the 60% threshold level and the Vaal River was at 33.2%.
Still said that Johannesburg Water would continue with the rollout of low-flush toilets as they used significantly less water.
The Department of Water and Sanitation said at the end of August that water restrictions had to remain in place‚ although dam levels across the country were steady and some rising slightly due to recent rain and snow in the Western Cape and Free State.
“This very slight increase is still insignificant when compared to last year at the same time when the average dam levels were at 72.7%‚” the department said.
“The back of the drought is therefore still not broken.”
The department monitors the country’s 211 dams weekly. It said 13 dams were less than 10% full, 59 had water levels below 40% and 23 were above 100%.
Source : BDlive
