Cape Town cuts water usage limit by nearly half as 'Day Zero' looms

CNN ^ | Feb. 1, 2018 | Lauren Said-Moorhouse & G. Mezzofiore

[libstripper]

(CNN)Cape Town -- a city once at the forefront of Africa's green movement -- implemented new emergency water restrictions Thursday as the sprawling metropolis prepares for the day its taps run dry. (Emphasis added.)

Residents are now being asked to curb the amount of municipal water they use each day to just 50 liters (a little over 13 gallons). Only a month ago, level six restrictions had placed residents on a daily allowance of 87 liters (about 23 gallons), illustrating the severity of the looming crisis.

Officials estimate that if water levels continue to fall as expected, South Africa's second most populous city will run out of water by April 16, which is known as "Day Zero."

[libstripper]

I added the emphasis because I really wonder what "green" measures were taken by the Cape Town leaders that may have helped cause this crisis. For example, refusing to develop adequate reservoirs, as in CA, and refusing to develop an build adequate desalination facilities along with the necessary power generating plants, also as in CA. The authors of this article do nothing to describe the actions and inactions of Cape Town government that may have led to this ridiculous crisis.

[SJSAMPLE]

Well, that didn’t take long.

[Josa]

South Africa’s inexorable march toward third world status

[Jeff Chandler]

Don’t say it, Jeff. Don’t say it.

[BobL]

I’ll add that the pipes probably leak like hell - which is probably why they need a full shutdown. Getting rid of the whites pretty much turned the city into Soweto.

[LukeL]

I guess they have never heard of desalination. I guess they ran out of Krugerands to sell to investors.

[Red Badger]

https://dynaimage.cdn.cnn.com/cnn/animations/w_1100/180131131407-20180131-cape-town-reservoir-home-page.mp4

[gop4lyf]

Sounds like another shithole in the making.

[gaijin]

Meh, it’s part of Africa reverting to African ways.

Widespread death is, in fact, an African way.

[LukeL]

If there is no water how can we bless the rains down in Africa?

[pepsionice]

Cape Town had a population in 1955 of about 755,000 residents. In 1975, it’d grown to 1.335,000. In 1995, it’d grown to 2.4-million. And in the last five years, it’s figured to be around 3.7-million. You can ask the locals but they all believe that the rate will continue, and 4.3-million will occur by 2030.

All of this success has put a drain on resources which the city never really thought much about (especially the last twenty years).

Fresh water sources? Six dams...the last added in 2007 (Big River Dam). Consumption has gone beyond the capabilities in a fairly short period of time. Add to this...a long drought period. They would need two or three years of favorable/normal rainfall, to bring the water levels back to some norm. That simply hasn’t happened.

The one single project that is chatted about is the Voelvlei Dam project (originally supposed to be finished in 2024) is now pressed hard to complete by 2019.

If you follow local news, for months, there’s been political bickering going on, with meetings held and nothing ever decided upon. Leadership-wise, they’d basically need to fire the whole top level and start fresh.

My guess is that 5-percent of the locals will up and leave the local area by July if rainfall doesn’t come to delay this Day Zero business.

[Trentamj]

I was going to say that Cape Townies ought get in touch with the Israelis about desalinization because they have come crackerjack tech going on in this area. Then I remembered just who the Cape Townies were...Oh well!

[libstripper]

Thanks for your additional information. Too bad the article didn’t include it.

[libstripper]

Thanks for your additional information. Too bad the article didn’t include it.

[Steely Tom]

I’ll add that the pipes probably leak like hell - which is probably why they need a full shutdown. Getting rid of the whites pretty much turned the city into Soweto.

"It's the chance dangers that I'm afraid of — the senseless, unpredictable dangers of a world falling apart. Consider the physical risks of complex machinery in the hands of blind fools and fear-crazed cowards. Just think of their railroads — you'd be taking a chance on some such horror as that Winston tunnel incident every time you stepped aboard a train — and they'll be more incidents of that kind, coming faster and faster. They'll reach the stage where no day will pass without a major wreck."

"I know it."

"And the same will be happening in every other industry, wherever machines are used — the machines they thought could replace our minds. Plane crashes, oil tank explosions, blast-furnace break-outs, high-tension wire electrocutions, subway cave-ins and trestle collapses — they'll see them all. The very machines that had made their life so safe, will now make it a continuous peril."

"I know it."

[Sgt_Schultze]

When you're clearly one of a few beacons of light on a continent rife with $h!thole countries, how would you devise to join the holers?

Go green!

[bgill]

"It is quite unbelievable that a majority of people do not seem to care and are sending all of us headlong towards Day Zero," the mayor's office said in January. "We can no longer ask people to stop wasting water. We must force them."

Stupid, stupid people. When they run out of drinking water, it come to them like a total shock. They should have been forced to reduce usage long ago. Fine anyone who's utility bill is over X amount.

At collection points, no portage is available

Whaaa! These are truly stupid people. As if they don't have a wheel barrow or child's wagon.

Surrounded by water. Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink.

[HamiltonJay]

Nothing GREEN caused this crisis, SA has been in a very extreme drought for several years, driven by El Nino.... Much of the country has begun recovering as the multi year drought has been ending, but Capetown area has not yet.

[Governor Dinwiddie]

Once one of the only successful countries in Africa, now South Africa slowly descends into primitive tribalism. With every tick of the clock, the once modern infrastructure of South Africa incrementally breaks down. All the productive and technical class have been killed or have fled. All those capable of maintaining a modern society are gone. What is coming will make Haiti look like paradise by comparison.
 

[HamiltonJay]

Have you ever been to Capetown???

Given the complete ignorance of your post I am guessing not.

It is better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open ones mouth and remove all doubt.

You sir, have removed all doubt.