Capital to expect water-shedding

Capital to expect water-shedding The City of Windhoek has introduced emergency water supply measures that will be implemented during this holiday and will result in a reduced water supply of about 10% of the demand being transferred from the Von Bach Dam.

The emergency measures that will be implemented from the middle of December onwards until the end of January will not only affect Windhoek residents, but also consumers in the greater Brakwater area.

The City said that the persistent drought has caused the near depletion of all available water resources for Windhoek from NamWater.

According to a public notice issued by the City due to the reduced supply of potable water from Von Bach to Windhoek, water supply interruptions and loss of pressure can be expected for certain periods during the day from mid-December onwards.

NamWater is aiming to match “live supply” to peak draw-off times and transfer times from the Von Bach have been scheduled from 04:00 to 09:00, 11:00 to 14:24 and 16:00 to 21:00.

This pumping regime is scheduled to prevail until the end of January whereafter the pumping time is expected to be further reduced if no significant inflow has been measured into the Von Bach Dam.

The City also urged affected consumers to provide onsite water storage but added that this should not exceed a period of 49 hours to ensure the minimum water quality criteria.

Despite some parts of the country that have received very good rainfall, Namibia''s dams remain at extremely low levels.

According to the latest dam bulletin the total of all the country''s reservoirs are currently only 23% full while in the central area dams are at a mere 5.8% - with no inflow recorded this entire season.

The three dams that make up the supply system of the central area of Namibia are as follows- the Omatako Dam is empty, the Swakoppoort Dam is at 6.2% of its capacity and the Von Bach Dam is at 10.4%. The Von Bach Dam is currently the only dam supplying water to Windhoek. Most of the available water is in the form of sludge.

In other regions such as the south where Namibia''s two largest reservoirs are based the total of the dams are 32.2%. This is in comparison to last year when the total stood at 45.1%.

Currently the Hardap Dam is only 23.5 % full and Naute Dam is 71.6% full.

The dams in the area of Gobabis are in total only 19.3 of the capacity, while at the same time last year it was 33%.



ELLANIE SMIT