Department celebrates National Water Week
The Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) will mark its annual celebration of National Water Week 2015 with the handing over of IMvutshane Dam to the iLembe District Municipality in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) as well as the handing over of 7 houses, a community sportsfield and the community gardens to the local community. Various water conservation projects such as the War on Leaks and Adopt-a -River will be launched across the country as a way of educating the public on ways to save and protect water resources. The handover of Imvutshane Dam will be led by the Deputy Minister of DWS, Mrs Pam Tshwete, and the Provincial Premier, Senzo Mchunu.
ILembe is among the 10 district municipalities in the province that are experiencing a severe drought which has forced the provincial government to declare them disaster areas. Consequently, most of these municipalities have introduced water restrictions in their respective areas in an effort to cope with the consequences of the drought.
The DWS is participating in the intervention plan to minimize the debilitating effects of the drought in the province. As such, the department has set aside R352,4 million to help struggling municipalities to deal with the drought in the province.
DWS head in the region, Mr Ashley Starkey, said the the region was experiencing low rainfalls for the first time in 10 years. Ilembe and Ugu district municipalities on the north and south coast were the hardest hit by the drought.
“All the dam levels in the Umgeni Water operational area are currently below the levels they had been in the corresponding period in previous years. The drought’s devastating effects are quite palpable. “During the middle of the festive season the city of eThekwini and surrounding areas experienced an unprecedented heat wave.”
Starkey said as a short term intervention the allocated money would be used among others to:
- Provide water tankers at Hazelmere
- Procure generators
- The fast fast-tracking of Weza System water use license
- Refurbish ailing boreholes at Umzinyathi
Long term measures will include the augmentation of the South Coast Pipeline in Ugu District, the fast-tracking of the upgrading of Kwabani Dam, the improvement of the Lower Thukela weir extraction capacity. Also, feasibility studies will be done with a view to building a desalination plant in the north of Durban.
National Water Week 2015 comes at a time when the drought is beginning to spread to other provinces such as the Free State and North West where crops are dying. Metereologists and climate change specialists have attributed the drought to climate change.
DWS has lined up a host of other events throughout the country to celebrate the awareness campaign with municipalities and water stakeholders. A detailed calendar of events will be available next week on the departmental website.
For more information contact:
Sputnik Ratau, DWS Director, Media Liaison
Cell: 082 874 2942
