Last Few Drops

Taps will run dry in the South African metropolis of Cape Town in two months. Hundreds of cities across the world are nearing a similar breakdown. Can they avoid a collapse?

- Shreeshan Venkatesh,Subhojit Goswam,Sushmita Sengupta

THE WATER conservation maxim, “If it’s brown flush it down, if it’s yellow let it mellow,” adorns the walls of hotel rooms in Cape Town, one of South Africa’s richest cities. Its implication becomes clear as one enters Springs Way, the road leading to the city’s most popular natural springs. Here, “ubers” or flatbed trolleys that are used to haul water cans to waiting cars can be seen everywhere. Under the watchful eyes of the local law enforcement authority stationed on the streets, people jostle for space around a three-inch PVC pipe at a spring water collection point in their mad rush to fill bottles, buckets and jerrycans. The precious water flowing out of the numerous pipe holes has become the city’s lifeline as a dry and waterless future stares at the city’s residents. There are already strict restrictions in place to budget water. The municipality has introduced skyrocketing tariffs and penalties if water usage exceeds 6,000 litres per household per month (50 litres per person per day). Last year in September, the limit stood at 87 litres per person per day.

Once an idyllic street located in the upper middle-class suburb of Newlands, Springs Way has turned into a crowded place ever since Cape Town realised it was running dry. “We have been coming here almost every day to supplement the 50 litres of water per person we get from the municipal pipes,” says Louise, a Cape Town resident. Though there is no limit as to how much water one can collect from the spring, a daily limit of 25 litres per person is likely to be imposed when Day Zero hits on July 15, 2018, and the municipal taps run dry. When that sets in, residents will have to queue up to get water ration from collection points under armed guards. Twenty-five litres is a pitiable amount. A toilet flush generally uses about 9 litres of water.