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What Do Capetonians Really Think About Day Zero? Residents Have Mixed Feelings About the Looming Water Crisis
By Michael Badrock
If Cape Town is to avoid Day Zero it will not be because of a silver bullet from the government. It will only happen if Capetonians completely change the way they use their water. These past few weeks I’ve been asking locals what they think about the water crisis and Day Zero. It’s easy to tune into what is happening in the news – but what is filtering through to the people?
I have spoken to a small sample of just under 100 people and most of them believe that Day Zero will not happen. Not only do they think it will not happen – they think there is not one iota of a chance. The likelihood of Day Zero has been laughed at, waved away and dismissed.
Theewaterskloof dam in the Western Cape supplies most of Cape Town with water and it is only at 12.5%. Photo: courtesy of Cape Air Water
When I asked one gentleman named Abid about Day Zero he seemed unperturbed. ‘This drought thing – I’m not so sure. What do we actually know?’ His attitude was that this was another case of the government trying to make money. ‘How do we know that the drought is actually that bad?’ he offered. After all, Abid continued, I’ve driven past the dams many times and has seen plenty of water.
A lack of trust in the government and what they were saying seemed to be prominent amongst the people I spoke to. So what do we actually know?
First of all, if Cape Town reaches Day Zero it would not be because the dams literally ran out of water. If the municipal water is to be turned off it will be because the Western Cape Water Supply System has been reduced to a level of 13.5%. This is because once the dams reach a level below 10% this would make the water difficult to harvest. So if we were to reach 13.5%, how long would the remaining 3.5% last? If every Capetonian was to use the 25 litres per day, as Day Zero stipulates, this would give us at least three months of water supply. This would allow for Cape Town to push through to the rainy season and give the dams a chance to replenish.
Secondly, Day Zero is calculated based on the collective amount of water left in our dams divided by the consumption rate of residents in the city. Adding on to that is the impact agriculture has on reducing water as well as the speed of evaporation from other factors such as wind and sun. Our dams are currently at 25.8% of its capacity meaning as things stand the date for Day Zero is May 11.
That is what we know.
What we don’t know for sure is how much rain Cape Town will experience this upcoming winter. I spoke with a woman named Brenda who pointed to other parts of South Africa as a rebuttal saying, ‘We will get rain – look at Johannesburg. They had no water and then poof – floods!’
It is true that Johannesburg has been receiving a great deal of rainfall however in an address to the Cape Town Press Club in late January, Minister Mokonyane stated that the current drought is a result of ‘the impacts of climate change.’ This means that typical weather patterns are being disrupted and forecasting traditional weather patterns has become increasingly perilous. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has projected that it is ‘very likely’ that annual rainfall will continue to decline over the course of the 21st century.
But if Mokonyane is heralding the effects of climate change than does this mean we can rely on government to provide a solution to an impending Day Zero? Another resident Patrick seemed to think so. ‘No sir, Day Zero will not happen. The government will fix this thing.’
The problem with this argument is that the national government, who controls bulk water supply, has not offered any immediate solutions. In late January, Mokonyane recently presented a four-pronged plan implementing groundwater systems in Zandvlei and Cape Flats, due for completion in June – additional systems won’t be operational until 2019. On top of that the Berg River Voelvlei Augmentation System won’t be functional until 2018. This means that if Cape Town is to avoid turning the taps off it will only be because of a significant contribution from its people – Capetonians will be the number one factor.
Because of this, all levels of governments are preaching that Capetonians must band together and drastically changing the way they use water. This is where there can be some cause for optimism. For Cape Town to avoid having its taps turned off it must reduce its water use to 450 million litres per day. Currently, the city consumes, on average, 580 million litres of water per day. To put that into perspective, Cape Town has previously reached the heights of 1.2 billion litres of water per day. This gives good cause for hope as there is a definite downward trend in the city’s water usage. It seems that people are beginning to wake up to the actuality of a world where water must be preserved and used wisely.
Muhammad agreed with the idea that we need to change the way we use our water. He says, ‘I tell my son, save water today and you can use that water tomorrow.’ Muhammad told me that every day he talks to his family about saving water and he is ‘always grateful’ to be living in the Mother City.
Last week I was in an Uber chatting to the driver about the drought. Muhammad agreed with the idea that we need to change the way we use our water. He says, ‘I tell my son, save water today and you can use that water tomorrow.’ Muhammad told me that every day he talks to his family about saving water and he is ‘always grateful’ to be living in the Mother City. Cape Town is a place that, in his opinion, has ‘everything you could want – except water’.
This must be the attitude of every Capetonian moving forward. It is undeniable that we are currently seeing a great deal of forward momentum and this should be celebrated. However, celebration should not lead to complacency. Day Zero is not something to be laughed at or waved away. It is clear that rainfall is something that can no longer be relied upon and for that reason it is time to see a permanent change in our relationship with water – preservation before consumption. Gone are the days of unconsciously using water, we must be conscious of every drop – doing so will defeat Day Zero.
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