Reader shows concern over water situation
The following e-Mail was received from reader Alison Bosch and it certainly is apparent, not only from this letter but from comments from others that some visitors are oblivious to our situation. Cape St Francis has poster on almost every available street pole but the same cannot be said of St Francis Bay.
“I have been agonising over this for days and haven’t known who to approach. Hopefully you will be able to get the message through to the powers-that-be.
The whole issue of our water crisis in this area is under-emphasised and wishy-washy, especially when compared to Cape Town. Very few people seem to be aware that we have a crisis. We really need to follow Cape Town’s example and get the message out strongly.
Allow me to describe one incident:
Recently we went to dinner with a family from Gauteng who have a holiday home in St Francis. There were 12 people for dinner with multiple courses, rendering a mountain of dirty plates and glasses. I watched in horror as the hot water was turned on full and each plate was thoroughly rinsed under this running tap (without a plug in the sink) before being placed in the dishwasher. When I mentioned the fact that we had water restrictions the family was surprised. They laughingly said that perhaps they should cut down on the leisurely baths every night.
My son visiting from Cape Town was asked by his children which level of water restriction we were on and his reply was that he didn’t think we had water restrictions. He hadn’t seen any notification. Needless to say, they stuck to 1 minute showers!
I have not yet found anyone in St Francis who is able to tell me exactly what our water quota is.
Regards
Alison Bosch”
I have to agree Alison. A number of our Neighbourhood Watch patrollers have noticed garden sprinklers operating early in the morning. Maybe they all have boreholes but nevertheless, they should be investigated.
I asked Barry Wild to ascertain whether his patrollers could note the addresses of the properties concerned, although this is not their function. The information gained should be passed to the municipal authorities.
The consequences of running out of water are horrific. We must not be apathetic towards this very real possibility.
Thanks for bringing this up Colin and Alison. I have been writing, talking and getting angry about this for some months now and still there is this half-hearted attempts to say that we have a major water crisis. We are going to hit DAY-ZERO before the Cape. People need to be woken up and proper policing done to stop wasting of water.
I must say that there were many of our visitors who happily stepped up to the challenge of using a minimum of water.
I sincerely hope that we will not get to a “No Water” situation because that is too terrible to even think about.
Let’s save as much as possible.