The eThekwini Municipality is developing a water cuts schedule that will see certain areas only receiving water on some days.
The City’s head of Water and Sanitation in the eThekwini Municipality, Ednick Msweli, revealed this on Thursday.
The City announced water curtailment measures earlier this week.
It initially only spoke of restrictors on meters and reduced pressure in taps but Msweli on Thursday said some areas should also expect to receive water only on certain days. He said in areas where water will be available on certain days, the residents will be informed in advance.
Msweli, eThekwini mayor Cyril Xaba and officials from Umngeni-Uthukela Water Board held a briefing with the media on Thursday.
The amount of water supplied to Durban residents is to be reduced after the Department of Water and Sanitation directed the Umngeni-Uthukela Water Board to reduce the amount of raw water it extracts from the water system.
Msweli said the City was tackling other issues that affect water supply such as non-revenue water.
He said the amount of non-revenue water has declined from 58% last year to 54% this year.
“It’s a reduction of about 4% from where we were at the end of June (last year’s financial year). There is a turnaround strategy, and this is an area of focus.”
Msweli said to mitigate against any loss of water, they were also assessing their system.
“We are analysing reservoir zones to see which one has the highest water losses, what we normally call night flows. At night, you should not be losing a lot of water; that is when people are sleeping, so you should be using the least amount of water. What we measure is what is happening in that reservoir zone at night. We will then target reservoir zones that have the highest losses.
“In the first instance, we want to go for the water that is being lost. Because if you save it, you are not impacting anyone. Our strategy will go after that first,” said the head.
He said Durban residents use a lot of water. “The report from National Water and Sanitation has always alluded to the fact that in eThekwini, the consumption is too high. Our people in eThekwini consume about 286 litres per person per day, which is much higher than the norm; the norm is around 173. With the restrictors, we would be going after that demand.”
Addressing concerns that some of the Metro’s systems were already strained and this could exacerbate the situation, Msweli said residents must expect some change.
“Either a reduction in pressure when you open your tap, the water does not come out as fast as before, or it could be that in some suburbs, you are now getting water on certain days. That will differ from suburb to suburb depending on the situation,” he said.
Mayor Xaba spoke said the water curtailment measures were pre-emptive action to prevent a disaster in the event of a drought.
“To provide context and background on the need for this curtailment, it is vital to explain that the Department of Water and Sanitation limits the amount of raw water that the Umngeni-Uthukela Water Board can abstract from the Umngeni water supply systems.
“This is to enable continued water availability, including during periods of below-average rainfall. The risk of not enforcing the abstraction limit is that should a drought occur, there would not be sufficient water in the system for Umngeni-Uthukela Water to continue providing eThekwini with a reliable water supply.”
He said if they implemented the gradual water reduction as planned, the water supply should remain stable even in times of below-average rainfall.
The Mercury