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One of Nelson Mandela Bay's main water supply dams will reach day zero by the end of June, according to the Democratic Alliance.
The Kouga Dam, one of four key supply dams, is currently sitting at 10.38% of total capacity.
The DA said in a statement on Tuesday that the Municipality could counteract the shortfall by not extracting water from the Dam.
Provincial leader, Nqaba Bhanga, said other measures include using demand reduction, reducing the water pressure and maximising water extraction from the Nooitgedacht Water Scheme.
“The Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality must immediately cease all extraction of water from the Kouga Dam if the residents of the Kouga Municipality and the farmers of the Gamtoos Valley are to survive,” he said.
“It has been calculated that the Kouga Dam will be at 5.6% of capacity by the end of June. Furthermore, 3.1% of this total is dead capacity, as it cannot be extracted from the dam,” Bhanga said.
He said the party would be writing to the Minister of Water and Sanitation, Lindiwe Sisulu and the acting mayor of Nelson Mandela Bay requesting them to act.
Bhanga said the Metro must also put into action its so-called “Plan B” for mitigating the water crisis, which entails building or upgrading water infrastructure to ensure that water from the Nooitegedacht Water Scheme can also be reticulated to the Western and Southern regions of the Bay.
He also said that the Department of Water and Sanitation had confirmed that NMB’s daily consumption had increased to 329 megalitres in March, much more than the recommended 250 megalitres per day.
“With this in mind, the DA has launched the “Let’s defeat Day Zero in NMB!” webpage.
This page is a one-stop site and residents can go to https://www.da.org.za/defeat-day-zero-in-nmb to get all the water information that is critical to saving our supply dams from Day Zero,” Bhanga said.
