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The Nelson Mandela Business Chamber says there is a high risk that 40% of the Metro will have no water by the end of May.
Chamber CEO, Denise van Huysteen, said in a statement on Thursday that the City is fast running out of water, and there is no significant rainfall currently projected for the area.
“Reticulating water from the Nooitgedacht scheme throughout the municipal areas is wholly reliant on pump station operations. However, the drought has pushed operations to its limits, where stand-by pumps are in use as duty pumps,” she said.
Van Huysteen said in recent months, there have been several failures in pump station infrastructure and outages are therefore now more likely as the system has been under severe strain for months.
Furthermore, the KwaNobuhle pump station is still not operational, with new timing for completion of the project having been moved to the end of June.”
“When the dams run dry, many reservoirs will naturally be starved of water due to the high demand and will need to be shut down. With demand remaining around 280 megalitres per day (MLD), dry taps are inevitable as both the Kouga and Kromme systems serving the Metro will run dry,” she warned.
Van Huyssteen also stressed that an additional potential risk includes the potential collapse of the sanitation system is collapsing.
“From the end of May potentially 40% less water will go into the treatment works thus creating a high risk of blockages occurring. This in turn may pose various health risks for communities.”
The NMB Chamber cautioned that should there be no significant rainfall between now and the end of May, “the repercussions for businesses and communities would be severe.”
