Joburg by-laws to restrict water use

Boreholes and retrofitting water-saving toilets are some of the plans Joburg Water is implementing to save water.

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Johannesburg - There is good news and bad news for Gauteng residents. Eskom has announced there will be no load shedding until Easter next year, but Joburg Water said if dam levels continued dropping as predicted, it could impose water restrictions in January.

At a press conference on Wednesday, Joburg Water announced that although there were currently no water restrictions, Rand Water was predicting that dam levels could drop to about 27 percent by January, if there was not sufficient rainfall, so restrictions could be imposed.

As a precautionary measure, the utility would be announcing new by-laws next month which would permanently ban the watering of gardens between certain hours, said Joburg Water managing director Lungelo Dlamini.

“Although the water situation in Gauteng is currently fine, we are not down-playing the gravity of the emerging risk or threat of a water shortage. We are constantly monitoring both our own reservoirs and those of Rand Water. We have a control centre which monitors all the reservoirs on a 24-hour basis,” he said.

Although there were no formal restrictions in place, Joburg Water was asking people not to irrigate their gardens or fill their pools between 6am and 6pm.

“Should the situation deteriorate further - that is, that we experience higher-than-normal temperatures persistently and there is a lack of rainfall - in consultation with both the Department of Water and Sanitation and Rand Water, we will announce restrictions, should they be warranted,” Dlamini said.

Joburg Water had a large storage capacity, Dlamini said, and that was why it had not experienced shortages.

“Looking at the city reservoir storage supply space compared with the daily demand, we have been able to meet the daily demands. As a matter of fact, our demand for water has been lower during this period as compared with the same months in previous years,” he said.

However, the utility was taking several precautions which, at this stage, were not drought restrictions, but mitigating measures.

The new set of by-laws to restrict the hours of watering gardens and filling swimming pools would be presented to the City of Joburg for approval at the end of this month. “We already have existing by-laws for restrictions but these can only be enforced if there is a declared drought and not during normal times. The new by-laws will seek to enforce restricting the watering of gardens throughout the year. We are hoping to change people’s behaviour in this way on a permanent level,” he said.

Another measure being taken was that the utility was working with the Borehole Water Association of Southern Africa to produce a hydro-geological map to promote the responsible drilling of boreholes within the city. An announcement was expected on this soon.

In addition, Joburg Water was working with water conservation and demand management programmes under the jozi@work initiative at 500 schools to fix plumbing and leaks in ablution facilities. This would be underpinned by an education and awareness outreach programme, said Dlamini.

Joburg Water was also looking at replacing about 10 000 toilets in older houses in township areas that used 9 litres of water with one flush, with those that use 4.5 litres of water a flush.

“We are in talks to make sure this becomes standard in all new constructions,” he said.

The utility was also in talks with the private sector about using grey water for the irrigation of estate gardens and golf courses.

Meanwhile, Eskom has announced that its R9 billion summer maintenance plan, combined with a decrease in demand for electricity, would allow it to carry out repairs at power stations.

Chief executive Brian Molefe told Parliament this week that while maintenance had been increased, it had managed to prevent load shedding for over 80 days. He said the parastatal had succeeded in doing maintenance without load shedding.

Maintenance would be stepped up next month, while many people were on holiday, to catch up on the backlog.

Eskom was not anticipating any load shedding until at least the end of April.

anna.cox@inl.co.za

The Star

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