Cape Town Water shortage

[wesheltonj]

Have a side trip to Cape Town Planned?

From the points guy:

https://thepointsguy.com/2018/01/cape-town-is-running-out-of-water-in-three-months/

Cape Town will run out of water on April 22, according to officials, leaving South Africa’s second-most populous city, and major tourist destination, without access to running water for the foreseeable future.

In a firmly-worded statement, Cape Town Mayor Patricia De Lille emphasized the impact of current water consumption:

“I cannot stress it enough: all residents must save water and use less than 87 litres [23 gallons] per day. If we continue to use more than 500 million litres of water per day, we will reach Day Zero on 22 April 2018. We must avoid Day Zero, and saving water is the only way we can do this.”

Once Cape Town reservoirs dip below 13.5% capacity, city authorities will turn off the municipal water supply for nearly four million residents. Only hospitals and similar essential services will continue to receive on-demand access to water. All other Capetonians will have to go to one of 200 water sources throughout the city to collect a maximum daily water allotment of 25 liters (6.6 gallons).

Officials have raised the urgency of water restriction to level six priority, affecting all Capetonians. Under current restrictions, each person is limited to those 87 liters or 23 gallons of household water usage per day. In order to stay within these limits, most homes will have to recycle bath water; skip washing cars and watering gardens; limit showers to under 2 minutes; and avoid dishwasher or washing machine usage wherever possible.

TPG writer JT Genter experienced Cape Town’s water woes firsthand this past July during a week-long stay. His guesthouse host was extremely concerned about the water shortage, requesting all guests be mindful of their water consumption by limiting showers to five minutes’ duration or less, and to flush the toilets only when absolutely necessary

 

[wesheltonj]

Original TIME story:

http://time.com/5103259/cape-town-water-crisis/

By ARYN BAKER / CAPE TOWN
January 15, 2018
After three years of unprecedented drought, the South African city of Cape Town has less than 90 days worth of water in its reservoirs, putting it on track to be the first major city in the world to run out of water. Unless residents drastically cut down on daily use, warns Cape Town Mayor Patricia De Lille, taps in the seaside metropolis of four million will soon run dry. On April 22, to be exact. Here’s what to know:

The date is just a scare tactic, surely?
Nope. Day Zero, as it is called, is real, and is calculated every week based on current reservoir capacity and daily consumption. On Jan. 8 Mayor De Lille revised the date down from April 29, based on a citywide uptick in daily usage. The city won’t literally run dry; in most cases, reservoirs can’t be drained to the last drop, as silt and debris make the last 10% of a dam’s water unusable. City authorities have decided that once the dams reach 13.5% capacity, municipal water supply will be turned off for all but essential services, like hospitals.

What happens when the taps are turned off?
Cape Town enters Mad Max territory (well, almost). Residents will have to go to one of some 200 municipal water points throughout the city where they can collect a maximum of 25 liters (6.6 gallons) a day. Armed guards will be standing by to keep the peace and prevent anyone from taking more than their share. Of course, the truly wealthy will be protected. The local version of Craigslist is already full of listings for companies wiling to truck in tankers full of water from less drought-prone parts of the country, for a price.

What steps are residents taking?
The city has capped household water usage at 87 liters (23 gallons) per person, per day. For most homes, that means keeping showers under 2 minutes, no watering the garden or washing the car, refraining from flushing the toilet unless absolutely necessary, recycling bathing water where possible and severely limiting dishwasher and washing machine use. Water storage tanks are already on backorder, unwashed hair is now a symbol of upright citizenship, and public restrooms are festooned with admonishments to “let it mellow.”

Are the self-imposed limits working?
Not really. According to city statistics, only 54% of residents are hitting their target, one of the reasons why Day Zero was moved forward a week earlier this year. But the city has few options for punishing individual water abusers and ensuring compliance, so everyone pays the price.

Didn’t anyone see this coming?
Yes and no. City planners have long pointed out that Cape Town’s water capacity hasn’t kept up with population growth, which has nearly doubled over the past 20 years. Still, a three-year drought on this scale is a “once a millennium” event, say climatologists, and even the best-planned water system would have taken a hit under current conditions. Now the city is playing catch up, hastily (and expensively) installing desalination plants and looking into groundwater extraction. But it’s unlikely any of those systems will be brought online before Day Zero, or even before the rainy season is due to start up again in May (if indeed it does). These systems are unlikely to go to waste, however. Climate change researchers predict more frequent dry years and fewer wet years to come. More likely, they say, Capetonians are just getting a preview of the new normal.

 

[CAustin]

WOW sounds like Southern California a year ago!

 

[wesheltonj]

UPDATE:

Cape Town is currently in the midst of a severe drought crisis, the worst in over a century. In recent weeks, city officials implemented a water restriction policy which limited each resident to 87 liters (or 23 gallons) of household water usage per day.

Beginning February 1, Cape Town residents and visitors will be limited to a daily maximum of 50 liters (13 gallons) of water use per person. The Western Cape city is currently facing the reality of running out of water in three months.

With nearly 4 million residents, Cape Town is South Africa’s second-most populous city and the provincial capital of the Western Cape. If water levels continue to fall, the city will implement a water disaster plan known as “Day Zero,” for mid- April.

On this day, residents will be further limited to just 25 liters (6.6 gallons) of water, which they will be able to collect only from one of 200 stations. To put that into perspective, each collection point will have to accommodate the water needs of 20,000 Capetonians, according to CNN,


Cape Town residents queue to refill water bottles at Newlands Brewery Spring Water Point on January 30, 2018 in Cape Town, South Africa. (Photo by Morgana Wingard/Getty Images)
In addition to these restrictions, the government will enforced fines to households using excessive amounts of drinking water or have water-management devices installed on the properties, according to the city’s website.

Under this new restrictions, households are limited to the following:

H/T CNN.com

“It is quite unbelievable that a majority of people do not seem to care and are sending all of us headlong towards Day Zero,” the mayor’s office said in January. “We can no longer ask people to stop wasting water. We must force them.”

 

[BRICKBURN]

If you can believe this: TEMPORARY Desalination plant.

The start of the Strandfontein temporary desalination plant

"Phase one being an initial supply of 2ml (megalitres) a day - two million litres, and phase two, being a final supply of the seven million litres - the seven ML per day into the potable reticulation.


https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/...temporary-desalination-plants-online-20180201

 

[Hogpatrol]

^^^^ Hopefully that's until they get permanent ones built. ^^^^

When you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Looks like they're the poster boys for that saying.

 

[Hogpatrol]

I would tell the residents if they don't conserve water, the sewage plants are going to start recycling. That should get their attention.

 

[CAustin]

If you can believe this: TEMPORARY Desalination plant.

The start of the Strandfontein temporary desalination plant
View attachment 215941


"Phase one being an initial supply of 2ml (megalitres) a day - two million litres, and phase two, being a final supply of the seven million litres - the seven ML per day into the potable reticulation.


https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/...temporary-desalination-plants-online-20180201

No doubt this should have been done long ago!

 

[Pondoro]

The making of freshwater is nothing new in Africa. The brits installed a water distillation plant in Mombasa in 1896 that produced 12.000 gallons of drinking water from the sea.

 

[sestoppelman]

That sucks! Time to get a big desalination plant going. We used to drink water maker water on the tugs I was working on to save water on long trips. Taste way better than tank water. I don't know why this hasn't been done on a wide scale in places where water is a problem.

 

[Hunting Sailor]

That sucks! Time to get a big desalination plant going. We used to drink water maker water on the tugs I was working on to save water on long trips. Taste way better than tank water. I don't know why this hasn't been done on a wide scale in places where water is a problem.

It’s a great way to produce water using the heat from the engines on ships/boats by using an Evaporator.
Another story is to boil enough seawater to make enough potable water for a city.
The desalination plants here also use the Reverse Osmosis system and again it is quite expensive to run the plant with the filters and pumps needed etc. for such quantities needed.

I guess the costs involved has been the deciding factor to avoid making the correct plans for the water supply to the very fast growing cities.

The Port Elizabeth area has been down to 60L/day/person, so about 15 gallons, for quite some time now. Any water saving is appreciated and many great ideas have surfaced.

//Gus

 

[Pondoro]

I wonder if import of potable water by VLCC/ULCCs from water rich areas might be cheaper than running large scale evaporator/reverse osmosis plants..?

 

[Hunting Sailor]

I wonder if import of potable water by VLCC/ULCCs from water rich areas might be cheaper than running large scale evaporator/reverse osmosis plants..?

I doubt it. Say a VLCC is running $25K per day. PE would need about two per day, Cape Town Probably six each day. I don’t know how far they would have to sail, but let’s say a round trip would be four weeks.
That would be $4,2M for Cape Town for one month, or R50M in transport only, plus the cost to purchase that amount of water. $2/MT? Would make it $3,6M/day or R43M/day.....$108M or R1,3B per month.....
The numbers may vary a bit, but at least it is a ball park figure.

Not including sourcing a terminal that can fill the amount of water in potable pipes and tanks to store it, plus building the infrastructure to handle it on this side, it seems a less viable solution.
Most places where I have taken on water if we would get 100MT/h it was not bad, some places we have got 200MT/hr, but even that would be a long time to fill up a 300 000 MT VLCC.

This goes back to decades of not planning correctly with the influx to the cities as well as not doing proper maintenance on the existing systems and encourage people to save water and to reuse rainwater and grey water etc.

//Gus

 

[sestoppelman]

It’s a great way to produce water using the heat from the engines on ships/boats by using an Evaporator.
Another story is to boil enough seawater to make enough potable water for a city.
The desalination plants here also use the Reverse Osmosis system and again it is quite expensive to run the plant with the filters and pumps needed etc. for such quantities needed.

I guess the costs involved has been the deciding factor to avoid making the correct plans for the water supply to the very fast growing cities.

The Port Elizabeth area has been down to 60L/day/person, so about 15 gallons, for quite some time now. Any water saving is appreciated and many great ideas have surfaced.

//Gus

Actually IIRC, its been over 20 years, the water makers on the tugs I worked on were the reverse osmosis type, not evaporator.

 

[BRICKBURN]

I wonder if import of potable water by ........

I'm willing to try and work out an agreement.

It certainly makes me appreciate where I live.
Out of all the natural lakes in the world, more than 50 percent are situated in Canada.