The sustainability of Nelson Mandela Bay’s water supply is in the balance — while the supply dam levels are slowly and steadily declining, the metro is losing more than a third of its water supply to leaks, theft and inaccurate billing.
Technically, the eight-year regional drought ended in September and in terms of available water supply we are relatively fortunate here in the Bay compared to the high levels of water outages and shortages in several Eastern Cape municipalities.
As we move from a dry summer towards a winter seasonal forecast of below-average rainfall, we cannot allow ourselves to be lulled into complacency about reducing our collective water consumption.
The metro’s supply dams were last week at a combined level of 71.1%, with the Impofu dam, our main supply, at a worrying 42%.
Those levels have been steadily declining through a first quarter with little rain — a major concern in our region of summer rainfall. impacts of climate change in shifting weather and rainfall patterns, and must accept the reality of life in a water-scarce region.
At the same time, the metro We’ s are loss already of treated seeing water the stands at about 35% — this is clean, treated water that could be supplied and billed to consumers but is being “lost” to theft or illegal use, and technical issues of inaccurate metering and billing. The biggest culprit in non-revenue water, however, remains the problem of water leaks.
Achieving a sustainable water supply for the metro is going to take attention to both sides of the balancing act between supply and demand.
On the supply side, the high rate of water leaks must be reduced, and response times to reported leaks must be improved.
This will go a long way to raising customer confidence in the metro’s will to curb wastage of water and encourage consumers to play their part in saving water.
At the same time, it makes both financial and water-saving sense for businesses and residents to regularly check for and repair leaks within their own properties.
Leaks are largely the result of the failure of ageing infrastructure, deteriorating due to lack of infrastructure maintenance — of which the municipality acknowledges there is a “huge and ever-growing backlog ”— and compounded by rampant theft and vandalism targeting public infrastructure.
High levels of vacancies in service delivery departments (40% in the NMBM water services) along with underspent maintenance and capital budgets, bedevilled by procurement delays and cumbersome red tape, threaten the metro ’ s ability to clear repair and maintenance backlogs.
During a time when we are not (yet) in a water crisis, it would make sense for the municipality to be working to reduce the backlogs in infrastructure maintenance and leak repairs, building a more resilient water treatment, storage and supply system.
Progress is being made on augmenting the metro’s supply, with the completion of major projects including drilling of boreholes, the Coegakop water treatment works and the third phase of the Nooitgedacht treatment plant.
Earlier in March, the business chamber’s water and sanitation task team welcomed progress made in improving the performance of pump stations and wastewater treatment works, now operating at 75% availability across the metro compared with 30% two years ago.
We have seen how collaboration between the municipal water services and business chamber teams has been instrumental in these improvements, with technical experts from business working together with the metro officials to identify problems and develop solutions.
We are also seeing valuable skills transfer and exchanges of knowledge and best practice taking place, in both directions, through site visits to local companies’ operations.
Plant engineers and technical experts are also working with the metro team to develop asset care systems to ensure ongoing upkeep of new installations and strategic maintenance systems for water and sanitation.
Business has to date adopted 76 schools and clinics, to repair leaks and implement water-saving measures, making a substantial contribution to reducing water losses (schools account for 10% of the metro’s water lost to leaks) and raising awareness of water saving.
We would like to see this rolling out to more schools and other public facilities.
On the demand side of the water sustainability balance, we as consumers in our businesses and homes need to take responsibility for our water consumption. We need to implement water-saving measures, harvest rainwater, recycle greywater, and become as self-sufficient as possible.
By taking responsibility and acting together, minimising waste and reducing water consumption on both the supply and demand side, we can balance our needs and become the water-resilient metro that we need to be.