Most people here seem to be in denial about the kind of life that awaits. Either people don’t think about it, or believe the official pessimism about the desalination schedule is a scare tactic to delay zero day and hence the cost of the eventual emergency desalinization measures the local government has waiting up its sleeve.
The alternative is unthinkable: a large percentage of the economy of this city is tourism, so imagine what happens when foreign guests cancel their hotel and airbnb bookings en masse.
A few days ago my apartment building installed three massive 5000 liter tanks of water storage. That’s enough to last all the tenants about 10 days at 25l/day/person. If those tanks are filled from the mains it just accelerates zero day for everyone else; if from rain water, well, there’s too little rain at the moment to fill them (and is roof water even potable?). Perhaps the idea is that it’ll be trucked in. No-one knows what is going on.
I suppose we’ll find a way to manage. In a way I’m glad I’m here to experience it, as it’s almost certainly a premonition of things to come in other cities later this century.
As I read the article, I tried to imagine such a scenario. I guess most of the time "it all works out", and the hope is that it will this time, too. OTOH, only 54% of residents are hitting the 87 liters/day target, according to the article. First off, I'm surprised that the taps don't just go dry after 87 liters; perhaps the tech isn't there. Regardless, if barely half are hitting the target, I guess plenty just aren't taking it seriously, as you point out. Wishful thinking, denial, or unwarranted optimism, I don't know.
I hesitate to raise a hot-button topic, but I wonder how many parallels there are to climate change. Wishing, denying, or hoping? Again, I don't know the minds of others. But if someone can got to the local reservoir, look with their own eyes and see that, indeed, Cape Town is running out of water, and then almost half the residents still don't cut back to the suggested level, I don't hold much hope for more global issues.
I suppose we’ll find a way to manage.
See, I'm torn. I hope you find a way to manage (rain, desalination, hopefully something comes online soon), but somehow the ones still watering their lawns have to go with parched throats and dirty clothes for a while to drive the point home.
Census data is inaccurate, and you have no concrete figures on the number of people per residence. Even if we had the tech (the new water meters we have are a step in the right direction, except when they break which is often and also maintained by quite a number of different contractors) you'd be hamstrung needing to ascertain correct figures per location. And then throw in all the apartment blocks in Cape Town, which all have a singular water main and meter, it becomes even harder (because do you punish all people in the block because one person is having a bath three times a day).
I hope you find a way to manage (rain, desalination, hopefully something comes online soon)
The local government has sadly mismanaged the situation terribly, for more than a decade. We're not going through a drought, we're experiencing a water shortage. The total population for the City of Cape Town (more than just Cape Town itself, it includes the surrounding areas) has been rapidly expanding over the last 15 years (more so in the last 5) due to semigration (people moving from other provinces, mainly Gauteng, due to the better quality of life in the Cape), and the underlying infrastructure has not been upgraded in step with the population growth. We have had warning since as early as 2007 (from official reports I'm aware of) that we needed to move forward with new water programs including desalination plants in order to accommodate for the growth.
We have a desalination company, GrahamTek [1], which had put forward tenders which could have brought in 450ML water a day within 18 months, but were largely ignored by the powers that be.
[1] https://www.iol.co.za/weekend-argus/news/city-of-cape-towns-...
