The City of Cape Town says it has various plans in place to repair and replace critical water infrastructure that will assist with retaining water.
Authorities are calling for support from Western Cape residents to save as much water as possible, with the province having recorded below-average rainfall so far for this year’s rainy season.
Collective dam levels in the province currently stand at 63.6% full, compared to 76.6% a year ago.
Mayoral Committee Member for Water and Sanitation, Zahid Badroodien says the replacement and repairing of water infrastructure have been implemented since Day Zero in 2018.
“We are addressing this since we had day zero since the drought period where we have undertaken significant pipe replacement programmes, where we need to replace or repair pipes but also looking at our water meters making sure our water meters aren’t leaking also further introducing additional zones, into our city where we are able to control unexpected leaks where we can fix those pipe bursts as quickly as possible.”
Day Zero is the day the city has predicted for the taps to run dry.
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Meanwhile, the city has issued a precautionary boil notice for tap water in parts of the eastern, central and southern suburbs of the metro.
Badroodien says water in the distribution system coming from the Faure Water Treatment Plant is currently discoloured in some areas.
He says the city has issued an advisory to residents to boil their water before drinking or cooking with it as a precautionary measure until further notice.
He says the fault at the treatment plant is a direct result of load blackouts which have caused limited operational hours of the sludge handling process.
Badroodien says affected areas are mostly south of the N2 from the Strand in the East through Khayelitsha, Mitchells Plain, Philippi to Plumstead, and down into the Southern suburbs as far as Muizenburg.
