Mayor Patricia de Lille wants Cape Town to be declared an emergency disaster area.
“We are in a very serious crisis,” said De Lille, adding the average dam level was at 23% on Monday.
She says despite tough water restrictions, some Capetonians were min gespin.
“Just last week we were still issuing fines to people washing their cars with potable water, people using a sprinkler to water their gardens outside of the designated times, and people using drinking water to wash down hard surfaces,” De Lille skelled.
The next step to avert dry taps would be putting treated wastewater back into the system, and to start drawing water from the Cape Flats and Table Mountain aquifers.
In the long term, the City would build a R15 billion desalination plant with Eskom, that would cost R1.2bn a year to operate, which would hike water prices up by at least 50%, she said at the civic centre yesterday.
She hopes national government will provide funds for short-term emergency plans.
Currently, water consumption was at 837 million litres, far above the 700 million litre target, and 20 000 water wasters were to blame for this.
“We have 121 days left of usable water in our dams,” warned De Lille.
The City has also identified its top 100 water abusers.
The worst culprit lives in Haywood Road, Crawford, using a whopping 702 000 litres a month.
This is closely followed by people at a residence in Manenberg Avenue, Manenberg, who used 655 000 litres.
No.3 was a house in Boundary Road, Lansdowne – 557 000 litres.
Fourth was a homeowner in Upper Hillwood Road, Bishop’s Court – 554 000 litres.
Next was another Bishop's Court residence in Norwich Drive – 500 000 litres.
De Lille will now ask Western Cape Environment MEC Anton Bredell for the city to be declared a disaster area, so that it can institute emergency measures.
“Please help us. We are in this together and we are going to suffer together,” she said.
She warned that if dam levels dipped below the 10% mark, water shedding would be implemented, similar to what Eskom did when it was battling to provide enough electricity.
The City was already reducing pressure from the Faure reservoir.
She said the 3B restrictions would be intensified, meaning all garden watering will be stopped, and exemptions would be withdrawn.