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Check if YOU are in a ‘RED ZONE’

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The NMBM has issued another urgent plea to residents and businesses to urgently reduce water consumption as low dam levels threaten water supply. See today’s Dam Levels HERE.

Due to the severity of the drought crisis in Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality, the City’s Drought Crisis Joint Operating Centre has resolved to reduce water abstractions back to the gazette levels and close public amenities in an effort to preserve and maximise the low water resources at its disposal.

This comes as the City’s total dam levels dropped again on Monday, 20 February 2023, to a low 12.38%. While the City is supposed to be drawing 230 Megalitres for water consumption, Executive Mayor, Cllr Retief Odendaal said the average of 290 Megalitres water consumption remained a major concern.

The NMBM will be adopting a phased implementation approach to reduce abstraction from Churchill and Impofu dams over the next three months. During the month of February, the NMBM will cut back water extraction to restricted 30 million liters per day, and balance water demand via reservoir storage. The city will also pump as much water the system allows from the Nooitgedacht scheme via booster pump stations to assist with meeting deficit.

“In order to reduce the over abstraction as a result of the high water demand and preserve the little water for as long as possible, the Joint Operation Centre of the NMBM has resolved to cut the abstraction back to the gazette levels. The effect of this is that should communities not heed the call to reduce water usage to 50 litres per person per day, water outages will be experienced on an ongoing basis and might become permanent should usage patterns not reduce,” said Executive Mayor Odendaal.

NMBM will be moving the barge 6km towards the Impofu Dam wall to access the last amount of water available.

“As the JOC we have also decided that boreholes must come up to maximum production as soon as possible. To this effect three sites on the Moregrove fault (Glendenning, Fair View and Fort Nottingham) are operational. In addition to this, the St Georges site testing was successfully completed, and it will be operational by the end of February 2023. The Bushy Park boreholes will be tested at the end of February and will be operational by mid-March 2023 while Coega Kop boreholes and treatment plant will be operational at the end of March 2023,” the Mayor added.

The city is also hard at work to address the water leak backlog. To date more than 50 000 water leaks have been repaired. The outstanding water leaks backlog of 2 241 shall be completed by first week of March 2023.

“The Deputy Mayor and I will be leading these public meetings as we engage with residents, businesses and media stakeholders to highlight the severity of our crisis. We need to reduce consumption urgently if we want the water we have left to last us beyond prediction that we will run out of water by July as we have been advised – seeing a third of the city without water. So we want to encourage everyone to join these meetings from 6:00 pm on 21 and 23 February,” said Mayor Odendaal.

The “red zone” areas include:

  • Central
  • Deal Party
  • Fairview
  • Greenbushes
  • Greenshields Park
  • Humewood
  • Kariega CBD
  • KwaZakhele
  • Lovemore Heights
  • Mill Park
  • Mount Pleasant
  • New Brighton
  • Newton Park
  • North End
  • Parsons Hill
  • Schoenmakerskop
  • St Albans
  • Summerstrand
  • Walmer

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Alan Straton

Chief Cook, Bottle Washer and Broom Mechanic at MyPE
Passionate about Port Elizabeth and definitely NOT packing for Perth. Alan's ethos is epitomised in the words of Nelson Mandela; "I have fought against white domination and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the idea of a democratic and free society. If need be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die." See more articles by Alan.