The Department of Water and Sanitation has urged the agricultural sector and mining industry, and all Northern Cape residents to continue using water wisely and sparingly.<\/p>\n
\u201cReport all who are using water illegally, that is, those without a water use license, those who are abstracting more water than allocated, water thieves, and water and sanitation infrastructure vandals – by reporting them to the Department of Water and Sanitation\u2019s toll free number 0800 200 200,\u201d said department spokesperson, Sputnik Ratau.<\/p>\n
Ratau also warned that it is illegal to divert a water course or stream to store water for personal activities.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll water users are further urged to fix burst and leaking pipes and regularly monitor boreholes to adhere to recommended yields. Behavioural change in water consumption will contribute immensely towards sustaining water availability in the Northern Cape,\u201d Ratau said.<\/p>\n
According to the department\u2019s latest weekly state of reservoirs report, water availability in the Northern Cape is at 91.6% full.<\/p>\n
This means that the Northern Cape\u2019s Full Water Supply Capacity (FSC) of 146.3 million m3 (cubic metres) is currently at 134.1 million m3.<\/p>\n
The Vanderkloof Dam which borders the Free State and Northern Cape is at 63.08%, whilst Bloemhof Dam recorded 107.09%.<\/p>\n
In the Lower Orange River System, Prieska is at 69.6% and Blouputs is just below the Augrabies Water Fall at 58.52%.<\/p>\n
Water storage weirs decrease<\/strong><\/p>\n The report also noted that water storage weirs in the Northern Cape are on a decline, with Douglas Storage Weir decreasing from last week\u2019s 109.8% to 109.3%, Vaalharts from 85.2% to 83%.<\/p>\n Spitskop decreased from last week\u2019s 102.6% to 102.2%.<\/p>\n The Boegoeberg is at 72.5%, while the Karee Dam is at 19.2% this week.<\/p>\n Ratau highlighted that the Northern Cape has balancing dams, not storage dams.<\/p>\n \u201cThe difference being that storage dams\u2019 primary purpose is for long term water storage. Balancing dams are designed to act as multipurpose facilities by diverting water into canals, pipelines or they act as pump stations. Therefore, availability in the Northern Cape fluctuates and varies from week to week,\u201d he said. \u2013 SAnews.gov.za<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Department of Water and Sanitation has urged the agricultural sector and mining industry, and all Northern Cape residents to continue using water wisely and sparingly. \u201cReport all who are using water illegally, that is, those without a water use license, those who are abstracting more water than allocated, water thieves, and water and sanitation […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"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":[1],"tags":[38678],"class_list":{"0":"post-188752","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-sanews","8":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188752","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=188752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188752\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}