Western Cape residents to meet over ‘water restrictions’

The Department of Water and Sanitation will meet with various water users of the Western Cape water supply system again this month to discuss the relaxation of water restrictions.

The parties met last month and agreed that water restrictions should not be relaxed yet.

The average dam levels for the province are currently at 51 per cent which is a great improvement from a few months ago but the department wants to give dams more time to recover from the drought. Department spokesperson, Sputnik Ratau says a lot of issues will determine the decision of the relaxing of water restrictions.

“The ideal is 85% but if it comes close to that, we can always work around it because it’s a number of issues that we are going to look at such as; firstly, it will be looking at the water levels. Secondly, it will be, what is the forecast in terms of the weather. Thirdly, it will be a question of what are the consumption patterns – have people reverted back to their old ways or are people still keeping within the reasonable kind of consumption patterns.”