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Continued savings must remain part of our long-term strategy to avoid Day Zero

The City’s dashboard for this week shows a slight increase in water consumption. This bucks the recent downward trend of the last few weeks. Overall consumption as at 5 March 2018 was measured at 537 million litres per day (MLD) which is up from 516 MLD consumption recorded in the previous week.

Dam levels have dropped by 0,4% to 23,6%.  Please see http://coct.co/water-dashboard/.

The City now projects that, if there was to be no rainfall, Day Zero would arrive on 27 August 2018. As this date falls deep within the normal rainfall period, it is no longer appropriate to project the date without any consideration of rainfall. Thus, provided we continue our current water savings efforts, Day Zero can be avoided completely this year. It is now up to all of us. If we keep on saving, we will not have to queue for water this year.

I would therefore like to urge all Capetonians not to relax their savings efforts. While we are feeling more confident of avoiding Day Zero this year, we cannot predict the volume of rainfall still to come. If winter rainfall this year is as low as last year, or even lower, we are still in danger of reaching Day Zero early next year.

Now is the time to entrench our water saving habits and ensure that the behavioural shift we have undergone in the past months becomes second nature.

More and more Capetonians have met the challenge by lowering their consumption. Our water map shows a 5% increase in the number of households that used less than 6 kilolitres a month in January, as compared to December (see link below).

Our challenge now is to continue reinforcing these behaviour changes, and to spread the message among our communities, at the workplace, at home, at school. Everywhere we go, we have an opportunity to act as water ambassadors and ensure that each and every Capetonian is aware of the seriousness of the situation. There is no shortage of water-saving resources that can be distributed to ensure that everyone gets the message.

A range of online resources can be found on the City of Cape Town’s website (see link below).

These resources include videos, presentations, posters, community water plans, checklists, stickers, water-saving tips, guides to finding and fixing leaks, greywater guidelines, and more. I would like to urge all Capetonians to make use of these resources.

The City is continuing to roll out its pressure demand management programme, and installing water meters at the homes of high water users. Together with our residents, we can bring consumption down to the required 450 MLD. If we redouble our efforts to ensure that every single resident uses no more than 50 litres of water a day, we will not only beat Day Zero this year but also avoid it next year.

Please visit www.capetown.gov/thinkwater for all water-related information, including information on Level 6B restrictions and FAQs about Day Zero as well as tips to lower usage even further.

Also visit www.capetown.gov.za/watermap to see if your household is painting the city green to avoid Day Zero.

Note to broadcasters: audio clips are available for download.

For English: https://soundcloud.com/ct-media/2018-03-07-water-dashboar-eng

For Afrikaans: https://soundcloud.com/ct-media/2018-03-07-water-dashboard-afr

Issued by: Media Office, City of Cape Town

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