Cape Town - The lack of usual rainfall in Cape Town appeared to have had an effect on the dam levels, as the latest dam level report showed the Western Cape’s total dam capacity stood 66.5% storage.
This was a 1.2% decrease since last week and a 1.4% decrease from this time last year.
The City said the latest dam levels were healthy for this time of year, however, residents were reminded to be water cautious and remember that some water restrictions were in place at all times.
Previously, Local Government, Environmental Affairs and Development Planning MEC Anton Bredell said dam levels could drop if current predictions for the next few months were accurate, that less than normal rainfall was expected in the south-western parts of the province, which normally received significant rainfall during early winter.
“We will make decisions, with the lead coming from the Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS), on water restrictions at the end of October/beginning November – the end of the rain season,” Bredell said.
Water and sanitation mayoral committee member Zahid Badroodien said Cape Town was a water scarce region and rainfall patterns always remained uncertain.
Berg River dam was at 69.2% storage, Steenbras Lower dam was at 63.2% storage, Steenbras Upper dam was at 87.0% storage, Theewaterskloof dam was at 68.3 % storage, Voëlvlei dam was at 59.1% storage, and Wemmershoek dam was at 52.9 % storage.
Ntombizanele Bila-Mupariwa, the Western Cape provincial Head of the DWS, said the last hydrological report indicated a slight decrease in some dam levels across the Western Cape province.
“DWS continues to encourage all water users to use water sparingly,” Bila-Mupariwa said.
The City has also been dealing with increasing incidents of burst pipes that have resulted in numerous water outages and water supply disruptions.
Badroodien said teams from the Water and Sanitation directorate have been attending to emergency repairs of a massive pipe burst on the 375mm pipe that supplied water to Simon’s Town and surrounding area, for six days.
This case was proving to be severe, as the team discovered another pipe had burst after they had finished completing the initial repairs on the pipeline.