The water curtailment measures in eThekwini Municipality have resulted in the City being able to save between three to five megalitres of water each day.
Mayor Cyril Xaba welcomed the progress and expressed hope that the savings will increase as the curtailment measures gain momentum. He spoke to “The Mercury” this week as the City launched its festive season campaign.
eThekwini has been implementing water curtailment measures for the past few weeks, following a directive from the Department of Water and Sanitation to the uMngeni-UThukela Water Board, which supplies bulk water to the City, to reduce the amount of water it extracts from the uMngeni system.
There is a concern that failure to curtail water supply would negatively impact the network and could have a disastrous effect in the event of a drought. eThekwini and Msunduzi Municipality have had to implement these measures.
Concerns have been raised that eThekwini is losing water through leaks, with non-revenue water standing at close to 50%.
Xaba noted that while the savings from these measures were small at this stage, the campaign is still in its infancy and he hoped the savings will grow as the campaign matures.
“The community is responding very well; I have not received any complaints since we started the curtailment measures programme in the City.
We have said that as we implement these measures, we will try not to undermine the supply of water because we also generate revenue from supplying water to households,” he stated.
“We are focusing on areas that show higher water losses and have started applying measures after hours. By intervening in those areas, we can reduce water loss during the night, allowing us to maintain higher volumes during the day.”
“There are areas where we stop supplying water from 9 PM to about 4 AM. Nobody will feel the impact if we do that. In some households, we have actually reduced the supply. For example, I have experienced this myself: if you have one tap open, you cannot use water from the other taps until you close the one that is open. These are measures we are implementing without affecting livelihoods and without interfering too much with living conditions in households.”