Cape Town - As a possible Day Zero looms, water tanks are being installed in hospitals and clinics across drought stricken Nelson Mandela Bay to ensure that these lifesaving facilities do not run out of water.
Years of persistent drought which have resulted in depleted dams in the municipal area, which is made up of Gqeberha, Kariega and Despatch.
This is home to about 1.3 million people.
Dam levels were at a combined capacity of 14.7% – which includes Churchill, Impofu, Kouga and Loerie dams.
Usable water from this supply was only at 2.3%.
The municipality’s water usage target is 230 million litres per day (MLD) to avert Day Zero, however, usage was still 17 million litres over, currently at 257 MLD.
Spokesperson for the province’s Health Department, Mkhululi Ndamase said: “The Eastern Cape Department of Health has put contingency measures in place to ensure its facilities do not run out of water in the drought hit Nelson Mandela Bay.
These measures include installing water tanks (which are filled with carted water in the absence of rainfall) and drilling boreholes.
“We are working with relevant partners and stakeholders like the NMB Municipality, and the Department of Water and Sanitation, among others.
At Elizabeth Donkin Psychiatric Hospital, we have 2 ×10 000 litre Jojo tanks with pumps supplying the facility.
Working with the Gift of the Givers, we recently launched the functioning of a borehole at the facility.”
Facilities that have had 5 000-litre water tanks with electrical pumps include Rosedale Clinic, Laetitia Bam Community Health Centre, PE Central CHC, Zwide Clinic, Max Madlingozi Clinic, Motherwell NU2 Clinic, Korsten CHC and New Brighton Clinic.
Ndamase added the drought management team would monitor water quality in the tanks through regular testing.
Water stands for seven more clinics also in the works and donors have offered to assist the department with donations of 5 000-litre water tanks for Helenvale and Gelvandale clinics, respectively.
Gift of the Givers has also been on the ground assisting with boreholes at several schools and hospitals.
One such project at Malabar Primary School produces 24 000l of water per hour, set to serve four informal settlements.
According to experts, among the reasons for the water shortages were persistent dry weather conditions and an increased population.
South African Water Chamber founder, Benoît Le Roy said: “The increased population with insufficient increase in water resources coupled with a drought for the past seven years has led to this very preventable situation.
“Most of the metro’s water supplies now actually come from the Gariep dam in the Free State which in itself is as risky as the local dams that are simply unable to provide water security.”
South African Weather Services (SAWS) spokesperson in Nelson Mandela Bay, Garth Sampson, said some rain recently had helped.
“We were going to go onto a standpipe tap system for more than 100 suburbs but then we had a bit of rain.
The Churchill Dam has about 184 days left. The Kouga Dam is mainly being used for agriculture and smaller towns and Loerie has 27 days left.
“We are getting most of our water from the Gariep Dam but it cannot supply the whole city. At the moment, there are more augmentation projects coming online and it is going to help but it's not going to help without the intervention of the public. People must work together.
“There is no doubt we are in a hydrological and meteorological drought. Rainfall is below normal levels and there is just not enough water in our dams. Population growth is another contributing factor. The more people you have the more water you use, the more food you need, the more farmers need water,” he said.
According to Sampson, only a flood will change the course of the drought.
“At the end of the day, we do need a flood, and we are going to get a flood, but the question is ‘when’.”
He, however, maintained that usage patterns needed to change indefinitely.
“After the flood, there will be another drought and it will be worse because the population will have grown. People cause climate change. It will get worse and worse, the mindset must change, where every house has tanks, and is saving water even in the good times. There is only so much water available.”
Nelson Mandela Bay Joint Operations Committee on Drought Mitigation spokesperson, Luvuyo Bangazi, said the way things stood a possible
Day Zero had been averted. “We have two main supplies into the city, so we will never completely run out of water, however, there may be drying of taps in parts of the city, thats we are trying to avoid.
“Our western part of the city, 40% of where residents reside depended on the local dams. Those are the dams experiencing severe drought, while 60% of the city, receives water from Nooitgedacht treatment plant,” said Bangazi.
He said the Kwanobuhle Pump station at Chelsea Reservoir, launched recently, will enable a wider distribution of water from the Nooitgedacht Water Scheme to ensure that more communities have running water.
The plant is expected to pump between 30 and 60 million litres per day to augment supply.
Boreholes were also being drilled, expected to add about 30 MLD to the system, with the first one expected to be ready by end of July, said Bangazi.
Other plans included the fixing of water leaks and a tariff system which rewarded people with a discount for using less water and penalised those with excessive usage.
There had reportedly been some areas who had been without water.
Bangazi said these were new settlements, where water pressure had increased, because of the population size and infrastructure needed to be improved.
“In the case of improving infrastructure, there will be non availability of water for periods of time, however, we don’t leave people dry. We supply through water tankers.”
Cape Times