Grabouw and Elgin farmers are planning to donate water to Cape Town as the city’s worst drought in years continues.
EWN reported that the Groenland Water Users Association (GWUA), made up of fruit growers around Elgin and Grabouw, will deliver 7 to 10-million cubic metres of water to the city.
The donation will be a “once-off” thing, with the water coming from the GWUA’s private dams.
The water will be supplied to Cape Town today in hopes to help the Mother City evade Day Zero.
“We were blessed [with rain], even though it is not as much as usual,” GWUA’s chief executive Johan Groenewald told News24.
The donated water will be released into the Palmiet River today, and will make its way to the Steenbras Dam.
The City of Cape Town said yesterday they were pushing back Day Zero to mid-May, due to the agriculture industry using less water.
In a statement, the city said, “Agricultural usage is therefore likely to drop significantly over the next weeks. Currently, the agriculture sector is drawing about 30% of the water in the supply scheme. This should fall to approximately 15% in March and 10% in April. It must be noted that the City does not have any control over agricultural releases, so this is the best estimate we can make with the information at hand.”
The water crisis has affected the agriculture sector severely, Agri Western Cape announced that their water supply has been reduced between 60% and 87%.
Many thanks to ‘farmers with private dams in the Palmiet River area, who have had plentiful rain, and are transferring enough water to the Steenbras Dam to push back Day Zero by 20 days.’ Great news!
— Nell Whiteside (@scividence) February 5, 2018
At around 600 mega litres per day Cape Town is using half the water that it it normally uses. This is a massive effort and we should try for even lower. Boreholes will add 150 Ml/d from May. In meantime Palmiet water transfers and less agricultural use helps. We’ll get thru this
— Anton Eberhard (@AntonEberhard) February 1, 2018
This water will be transferred from the Palmiet-Kogelberg dam, which is full. An initiative from the farming community of the Elgin-Grabouw valley.
Thank you ?
— #DefeatDayZero (@Defeat_DayZero) January 30, 2018
Picture: Facebook
