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People from Govan Mbeki Township in Port Elizabeth collect water from a tanker. Zero-day has reached several areas of Nelson Mandela Bay.
- Several areas in Nelson Mandela Bay have already passed Day Zero, the point where municipal taps no longer supply water.
- Dam levels are below 19%.
- In addition to the drought, the terrible situation is due to the fact that the municipality did not replace or repair the old infrastructure or did not sufficiently reduce leaks.
Many residents of Nelson Mandela Bay Township are already experiencing Day Zero, with tanks delivering water to them on a daily basis. The situation is worse in western areas like St Albans and in KwaNobuhle, Uitenhage. Residents of these neighborhoods are blaming the municipality for mishandling the situation, GroundUp reported.
The constant need to repair deteriorating infrastructure, slow response to fix leaks, and residents recklessly pumping water from tanker trucks are making the situation worse.
On September 17, the National Department of Water and Sanitation issued a statement of concern about the water supply in the Eastern Cape, but nevertheless “was confident that the stored water will keep the communities in the province until the rains of the next summer”. Nelson Mandela Bay receives most of its rain from September to April, with a typical peak in November.
Kouga is the largest dam that supplies Nelson Mandela Bay. It is below 9% of its capacity.
On the same day, the department issued another statement on drought interventions in the local municipality of Kouga, adjacent to Nelson Mandela Bay, and where three of the five dams that supply water to Nelson Mandela Bay are located. The department announced that it had transferred R92 million to Kouga Township “to ensure a continuous and uninterrupted water supply in the area.”
Interventions include drilling and leak repairs. The department expects them to be complete by the end of the month.
Residents of the informal settlement of St Albans, which has around 1000 people living in shacks, share five tanker trucks with a capacity of 5000 liters of water each.
Nolumanyano Windvogel has a family of four. He said that water problems have plagued the area for the past 18 months. But Day Zero came on September 4. That’s when the taps were replaced by tanker trucks.
READ | Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality Rejects Claims of Looming Water Crisis
Windvogel complained that the tank was not supplying enough water. The supply, he said, was finished in less than three hours.
“Then we are forced to let our children wear their dirty white shirts for three days or keep them at home. Sometimes we skip two days without bathing,” he said.
She said that collecting rainwater was helping her a lot. “When the clouds get dark I get excited and pray for the rain to fall. I collect rainwater with my drum. “
“When our communal water tanks are dry, I drink that water. I also wash my pile of stinky clothes that I have been trapped in for three weeks,” she said.
Impofu is the second largest dam that supplies the city. It is at 19%.
Zuko Mbinda, a tanker driver, had a difficult Wednesday. He pleaded with residents to use water sparingly in Govan Mbeki Township. But many ignored it and more water was wasted. This, as the municipality was busy repairing a damaged pipeline along Daku Road in KwaZakhele.
“People please don’t come with dirty containers and wash them here with too much water. Thousands of liters are being wasted because water is not being drawn properly from the tanker. This is a 6,000 liter tanker and this is my third trip today but there are many people who have not received the water, “he said.
“Only those with buckets should come to the truck. For bottle containers, use the hose.”
Masixole Zinto, a former Mayco member for Infrastructure and Engineering and currently DA municipal spokesperson for infrastructure and engineering, blamed the mismanagement.
“Yes, we have a drought. But our municipality does not have the capacity to manage the water that we have. The water consumption is too high, around 290 to 300 megaliters per day. The permanent committees are not making supervision visits to see and investigate by themselves the reality Cause of the problem We rely on reports We also have leaks all over the city taking too long to fix due to staff shortages due to retirements.
“When we were in government we managed to reduce water consumption from 290 megaliters to 248 megaliters,” he said.
“We have to identify the hot spots … We need to have valves about 200 meters apart from each other. So whenever we have a burst pipe we can easily shut down and fix the problem without leaving many people without water.”
By comparison, Cape Town, which has a population four times the size of the Nelson Mandela Bay area, at the height of the water crisis a few years ago was consuming less than 500 megaliters per day, which is equivalent to consumption per person much less. The city of Cape Town also made a concerted effort to reduce leakage, which was a great help in avoiding Day Zero there. However, on August 6, the Nelson Mandela Bay Township announced that it had a delay in repairing 936 leaks.
A sign in Kouga conveys the sad situation.
On September 14, the five dams that supply Nelson Mandela Bay were at drastically low levels:
- The Kouga dam, the largest, has a capacity for 126 million cubic meters of water, but was at 8.4% of this. The same week last year, it was 40%.
- The second largest dam, Impofu, has a capacity of 106 million cubic meters. It was 18.5%, similar to 19% last year.
- The Kromme / Churchill dam, with a capacity of 35.3 million cubic meters, was at 55%, up from 92% last year.
- The Groendal dam, with a capacity of 11.7 million cubic meters, stood at 22.8%, compared to 48.1% last year.
- The smallest dam, Loerie, with a capacity of 3.1 million cubic meters, stood at 33%, up from 59.7% last year.
Altogether, the capacity of the dams is just under 19%.
The bay’s water supply has been increased by the Nooitgedacht water system, which transfers water from the Gariep Dam in the Free State. But infrastructure failures and delays in upgrades have hampered supply.
The municipality issued water saving petitions on September 1, when Councilor Mongameli Bobani, head of the Infrastructure and Engineering portfolio, “urged residents to reduce water consumption by using 50 liters per person per day.”
Senior Director of Water and Sanitation Barry Martin reported that “KwaNobuhle and Uitenhage [supplied from the Kouga Dam] they are currently challenged by constant water supply interruptions … If the levels of the dams drop at any of the dams that supply the city, it means that a certain part of the city experiences Zero Day. “
Meanwhile, on Friday, protests over water broke out in parts of the city.
Loerie is the smallest of the dams that supply Nelson Mandela Bay. Photo: GroundUp
Churchill Dam is 55%. Unfortunately we were unable to obtain permission to photograph Groendal because, according to the municipality, it is too dangerous to go there.
