{"id":164935,"date":"2020-09-07T16:18:25","date_gmt":"2020-09-07T14:18:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/article\/after-drought-cape-towns-gushing-water\/"},"modified":"2020-09-07T16:18:25","modified_gmt":"2020-09-07T14:18:25","slug":"after-the-drought-cape-towns-gushing-water","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/after-the-drought-cape-towns-gushing-water\/","title":{"rendered":"After the drought: Cape Town\u2019s gushing water"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"article_body\" readability=\"62.193436960276\">\n<p><a class=\"bigger-image\" href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/media\/uploads\/images\/photographers\/Nathan%20Geffen\/bergriverdam-ng-20200907-2.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt class=\"warn_big\" data-pagespeed-url-hash=\"1486326354\" onload=\"pagespeed.CriticalImages.checkImageForCriticality(this);\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/after-the-drought-cape-towns-gushing-water.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">The Berg River Dam, which can hold 14% of Cape Town\u2019s water capacity, is full, so the sluice has been opened. Photo: Nathan Geffen<\/p>\n<p>In May 2017 we <a href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/article\/photos-cape-towns-water-crisis\/\">took photos<\/a> of Cape Town\u2019s dam levels at the height of the drought. This is what the Berg River looked like then:<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"bigger-image\" href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/media\/uploads\/images\/photographers\/Ashraf%20Hendricks\/WaterCrisis-201705\/BergRiver-0174.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt data-pagespeed-url-hash=\"3728621227\" onload=\"pagespeed.CriticalImages.checkImageForCriticality(this);\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/after-the-drought-cape-towns-gushing-water-1.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">Berg River Dam in May 2017. Archive photo: Ashraf Hendricks<\/p>\n<p>And this is what it looked like on Saturday:<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"bigger-image\" href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/media\/uploads\/images\/Third%20Party\/2020-09-05_dams_full_27.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt data-pagespeed-url-hash=\"295650119\" onload=\"pagespeed.CriticalImages.checkImageForCriticality(this);\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/after-the-drought-cape-towns-gushing-water-2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">The dam is full and water is being released through a sluice gate. Photo: Faizel Slamang<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen frameborder=\"0\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/KkMW2fLfqxc\" width=\"560\">[embedded content]<\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>And below is what Theewaterskloof, which can hold more than half of Cape Town\u2019s water at capacity, looked like in 2017:<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"bigger-image\" href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/media\/uploads\/images\/photographers\/Ashraf%20Hendricks\/WaterCrisis-201705\/Theewaterskloofdam-0116.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt data-pagespeed-url-hash=\"510281916\" onload=\"pagespeed.CriticalImages.checkImageForCriticality(this);\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/after-the-drought-cape-towns-gushing-water-3.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">Theewaterskloof Dam in May 2017. Archive photo: Ashraf Hendricks<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"bigger-image\" href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/media\/uploads\/images\/photographers\/Ashraf%20Hendricks\/WaterCrisis-201705\/Theewaterskloofdam-0090.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt data-pagespeed-url-hash=\"3417109253\" onload=\"pagespeed.CriticalImages.checkImageForCriticality(this);\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/after-the-drought-cape-towns-gushing-water-4.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">This is a particularly haunting photo from May 2017, showing how the retreating water levels left dying trees behind. Photo: Ashraf Hendricks<\/p>\n<p>It is now 95% full.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"bigger-image\" href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/media\/uploads\/images\/photographers\/Nathan%20Geffen\/theewaterskloof-ng-20200907.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt data-pagespeed-url-hash=\"3165859838\" onload=\"pagespeed.CriticalImages.checkImageForCriticality(this);\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/after-the-drought-cape-towns-gushing-water-5.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">Theewaterskloof Dam in September 2020. Photo: Nathan Geffen<\/p>\n<p>As of Monday, the Berg River dam and both Steenbras dams are full. Theewaterskloof, Vo\u00eblvlei and Wemmershoek are all well over 90%. The dam levels are at 96% of their total capacity, by far the fullest they have been in at least five years (source: <a href=\"http:\/\/resource.capetown.gov.za\/documentcentre\/Documents\/City%20research%20reports%20and%20review\/damlevels.pdf\">City of Cape Town\u2019s weekly dam report<\/a>).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"article-copyright\" readability=\"47.7\">\n<p>\u00a9 2020 GroundUp. This article is licensed under a <a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nd\/4.0\/\" rel=\"license\">Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>You may republish this article, so long as you credit the authors and GroundUp, and do not change the text. Please include a link back to the original article.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"article__next\" readability=\"13.68\">\n<p>\nPrevious:&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/article\/day-zero-water-stricken-mandela-bay\/\"><br \/>\nDay Zero in water stricken Mandela Bay<br \/>\n<\/a>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/after-the-drought-cape-towns-gushing-water.jpg\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/\">Source: GroundUp<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Berg River Dam, which can hold 14% of Cape Town\u2019s water capacity, is full, so the sluice has been opened. Photo: Nathan Geffen In May 2017 we took photos of Cape Town\u2019s dam levels at the height of the drought. This is what the Berg River looked like then: Berg River Dam in May [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":164936,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9928],"tags":[28001],"class_list":{"0":"post-164935","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-groundup","8":"tag-groundup","9":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/after-the-drought-cape-towns-gushing-water.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=164935"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164935\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/164936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=164935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}