Cape Town, South Africa is
set to run out of water by April 12, 2018, sooner than previous
predictions.
Andrea
Willmore/Shutterstock
Cape Town, South Africa has moved
up its predictions for when the city will run out of water,
with officials now saying they'll likely have to shut off the
taps in early April.
The city is urging people not to shower for more than a
minute or two, but politicians say water usage in the city is
up lately, not down.
They're worried about "anarchy" if "Day Zero"
arrives.
Cape Town is officially on track to turn off the faucets
earlier than anyone predicted.
Breweries that normally bottle beer are switching to spring
water, and private hotels are rushing to bring
pricey desalination plants online as the city struggles — in
vain — to get people to use less water.
On Monday, the
City of Cape Town announced that the day when they will have
to shut off the faucets, which they're calling "Day Zero," has
been moved from April 21 to April 12.
The coastal city, one of Africa's most popular tourist
destinations, is grappling with the worst drought conditions it
has faced in over a century. Dam levels have decreased 1.4% since
last week, according to new official reports, and city dams are
now 27.2% full. When they reach 13.5% capacity, the city says it
will be forced to turn off the taps and move to a
bucket-brigade-style system.
natsmason/Instagram
If that happens, the only way Capetonians will be allowed to get
water from the city will be through a pre-industrial-style
network of 200 water distribution points. Thousands of people
will line up at those taps around the city to collect their
allotted 25 liters of water each day, then haul it home to
shower, clean, flush, and do everything else that requires fresh
H2O.
"I personally doubt whether it is possible for a city the
size of Cape Town to distribute sufficient water to its
residents, using its own resources, once the underground
water-pipe network has been shut down," Western Cape Premier
Helen Zille wrote Monday in the
Daily Maverick.
Premier Zille has asked President Jacob Zuma to declare a
national disaster for the city, since Cape Town may need more
police and military personnel if Day Zero arrives to "defend
storage facilities" and deal with disease outbreaks as sanitation
worsens. She also said officials hope to store some emergency
water at military bases "for safety."
Cape Town officials say efforts to get people to cut back on
their water usage haven't been working. The city has been
urging every resident to consume less than 50 liters of municipal
water a day, and to collect what they use when showering and hand
washing and re-use that "grey water" to flush toilets and water
plants.
Capetown, a city of 4 million, welcomes
more than 1.5 million tourists a year, Deutsche Welle
reports. The beach and sea-sport lover's haven is also a short
distance from safaris and wine excursions.
Jonathan Garber/Business
Insider
Restaurants and hotels are asking tourists and visitors to do
their part to conserve, too. At the One & Only Cape Town
hotel, the staff removed bath plugs and started using recycled,
filtered water in the pool. They've also installed water-saving
shower heads and are encouraging guests at the five-star resort
to "save like a local" and keep their showers to two minutes or
less.
Some hotels are also contemplating spending
hundreds of millions of dollars to install their own
off-grid desalination plants so they can turn ocean water into a
usable drinking and washing source.
South Africa's national
weather service says it can no longer predict how long this
drought might last, since "previous forecasting models
have proved useless in the era of climate change." Although
there's a thunderstorm
in the forecast on the Western Cape, it's expected to
drop less than half an inch of rain.
Meanwhile, city officials are still holding out hope that
they can avoid "Day Zero" if consumers shift course and cut their
water usage. Zille urges that "no one should be showering more
than twice a week."
But many residents have started to stock up on water just
in case. Pictures posted on social media show lines of shoppers
already lining up to buy industrial-sized water jugs.
nomuckmedia/Instagram
Source link
No comments:
Post a Comment