TAPS are running dry in Graaff-Reinet, and residents are not impressed. This past weekend, hundreds of residents complained on Facebook about a lack of tap water, and expressed their anger at the Beyers Naudé Local Municipality.
While some households are faced with empty taps for two or three days at a time, for some residents, like those in the vicinity of Lingcom Primary School in Kroonvale, this has been a daily reality for two months.
Despite R30 million having been spent on consultants, nothing in terms of more groundwater seems to have been added to the town’s dwindling supply in existing boreholes. According to BNLM, high demand contributes to reservoirs’ inability to fill up.
“The municipality has been re-declared as a disaster area and the drought has an effect on the water supply and recharge of boreholes,” BNLM stated on their Facebook page this weekend.
Residents were cautioned to expect interruptions in the water supply, but BNLM promised to send water trucks to affected areas. This in itself, however, seems to be more of a pipe-dream than reality, since the number of affected households now far exceeds the capacity of water trucks to meet demands.
Mayor Deon de Vos recently admitted during a stakeholder meeting that BNLM does not have the budget to launch a water-saving campaign on a large scale, but in the meantime, residents with access to Facebook are cautioned to adhere to water restrictions.
These measures alone, however, do not seem to be enough to protect what little is left of dwindling water supplies. Among other restrictions, residents may not use municipal water to top up swimming pools and water features, yet hotels and schools are allowed to use municipal supplies for the same purpose.
In an attempt to improve town communication about water matters, BNLM and several stakeholders have formed a joint operations committee.
“The JOC will aim at increasing drought awareness within communities, while at the same time finding solutions to the problem,” BNLM spokesperson, Wilca Smith, informed Komani-Karoo Express.
