The drought deepens as the dams shrink

NORMALLY with such heat as we’ve been having, we expect it to lead to a build-up of clouds, great big cumulonimbus, full of thunder and lightning and rain. We have had some such build ups, but then… nothing, a few drops maybe like on Sunday and Monday evenings, just enough to dirty your windscreen.

And so the water situation gets more and more serious.

The problem with transferring the Grootgewacht Dam contents to Bloemveld Dam, from where it can be extracted, purified and fed into the system, had not been resolved by Tuesday morning this week.

The broken pipe between the two dams has been located but it lies under over a metre of mud and cannot be isolated for repair. It will be repaired at some point, possibly this week, but it is still not known how many weeks’ consumption the contents of Grootgewacht represents.

Meanwhile, the Department of Water Affairs latest published figure for Klipfontein Dam, dated November 2, have it at 28.3% full, having fallen 2% from the previous week.

Based on that rate, on Monday this week, Klipfontein Dam was 26.3% full. This time last year it was 67.5% full.

A visit to Klipfontein Dam is alarming. The Vryheid pumping tower appears to be close to the water’s edge. Inkamana’s pump station is high and dry, as far out of the water as it’s ever been.

Huge areas of dam bottom up towards the Besterspruit, which should be under water, are being grazed by cattle. More of the dam’s bottom will be exposed as the water retreats by human consumption and evaporation.

It has been expected for weeks that the municipality would implement further restriction, but so far… nothing. It has been expected too that the unlimited access water points, such as the Post Office parking lot’s toilets in Mark Street, and other informal car washes, would be closed but apparently not.