Despite intermittent rains over the last couple of months, dam waters in the Western Cape have dipped back to below the 20% mark.

This was revealed by City of Cape Town mayor, Patricia de Lille, who addressed a full council meeting today.

“The dam levels remain extremely low for this time of the year and it is disappointing that while many Capetonians and businesses have made great efforts to save water, there are still too many people who are not saving water,” de Lille said.

“The little rain we had in the past few weeks has had an insignificant impact on our dam levels and too many people have relaxed their water-saving efforts thinking the few drops of rain have saved us.”

As of this week, there is 17.4% useable water left in Cape dams compared with 37.6% at the same time last year.

Usage has increased with 643 million litres being used per day in the past week, well above the city’s 500 million max target.

“I am pleading with people to please limit their water use to 87 litres a day in line with Level 4b restrictions so that we can meet our new target of 500 million litres of water per day,” de Lille said.

“Those stubborn people who are carrying on as if it’s business as usual are playing with all of our futures. The drought is the “New Normal” and requires all of us to radically change our thinking, planning, our over-reliance on rain water and, importantly, our behaviour towards this scarce resource,” she said.

[Image – CC PS Photography]