Water – what’s the situation?

RESIDENTS and businesses in Vryheid, Bhekezulu and Lakeside, are going to have to “bite the bullet”. The water level in the town’s dams has reached critical levels, and current consumption simply cannot continue.

Bloemveld Dam is all but empty. Grootgewacht Dam, which has been held back as a strategic reserve (and still looks beautifully full), will probably have its waters released this week to partly replenish Bloemveld. It is not known how many week’s consumption Grootgewacht’s reserves represent, but it is “guesstimated” to be maybe, perhaps, possibly three or four weeks.

Klipfontein Dam, which Vryheid does not have the exclusive use of, was 34.4% full on October 5, and loses about 1.5% of its capacity per week.

Further restrictions are to be expected.

And these restrictions might have to be extended well into the rainy season. Some meteorologists are predicting that South Africa could feel the effects of the major El Niño event.

El Niño, a phenomenon occurring in the seas of the Pacific Ocean, has global repercussions.

There are apparently indications that any summer rainfall that is received will be well below average, and that normality (in the sense of average rainfall) will only reoccur in the season of 2016/17.