Parched - The Cape Town Drought Story 3030788881, 9783030788889

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Gisela Kaiser

PARCHED

The Cape Town Drought Story

Parched - The Cape Town Drought Story

Gisela Kaiser

Parched - The Cape Town Drought Story

Gisela Kaiser Water Globe Consultants Cape Town, South Africa

ISBN 978-3-030-78888-9    ISBN 978-3-030-78889-6 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78889-6 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: Parched earth at Theewaterskloof dam, drawing by Emma Kaiser This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

To Kirsten and Emma

Foreword

I recall attending an executive leadership course hosted by the national treasury’s Cities Support Programme, along with a number of mayoral committee members and executive directors from other metropolitan municipalities. This was early in March 2017, and while dam levels were dropping at an alarming rate, the weather data pointed to higher-than-average rainfall during winter, which was just around the corner. The course sought to foster accelerated transformation in the municipal space, with a strong focus on sustainability. On the second or third day, the consortium of politicians and executive directors were tasked with some structured introspection to reveal our dominant personality types and in turn better understand how they influenced our individual leadership styles. This was to be revealed by means of the Insights Discovery psychometric tool based on Jungian principles. It codes four distinct personality types into colour categories. I will never forget that Gisela was classified as possessing a “sunshine yellow” personality type. Sunshine Yellow leaders are described as enthusiastic, optimistic and dynamic. They are often able to envision and paint compelling pictures of new possibilities and believe in inclusivity, encouraging the active participation of others. They are also incapable of dishonesty—even in instances where they opt not to communicate verbally, their facial expressions and body language give away their true feelings. Gisela’s drought story is brutally yet respectfully honest about how politics and relationships influenced the City administration’s response to the worst drought in living memory. It provides true insight into the inner workings and background of how and why things played out in the way they did. It also addresses controversial narratives that developed during the drought. As the executive director responsible for water and sanitation, she was present every step of the way, and her views remained as constant as her scrupulous record keeping. This first-hand account reveals the chronological unfolding of events, and the truth that was at times inconvenient to the public narrative.

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Foreword

It is not only a Cape Town drought story. It offers a compelling snapshot into understanding global water systems, and how this relates to national urban water systems, against the backdrop of legislative and policy environments. It is also about learning from common experience, the importance of building personal resilience, and shaping a different and better future—a task the demonstrative and energetic nature of Sunshine Yellow leaders are beyond capable of. On the last day of the executive leadership course, while we were still in Johannesburg, Cape Town was officially declared as being in a state of local drought disaster. Little did we realise just how bumpy the ride ahead would become and the toll the drought of 2017/2018 would take on all of us. Cape Town

Xanthea Limberg

Preface

During a lesson on the throat chakra at my local yoga practice, I was struck by the importance of the three gates of speech: Is it true? Is it necessary? Is it kind? Some people track the expression back to Socrates, some attribute it to Sufism, but the first mention one can find on the web appears to be in the book “Miscellaneous Poems,” by Mary Ann Pietzker (1872). IS IT TRUE? IS IT NECESSARY? IS IT KIND? And if ‘tis true, for I suppose You would not tell a lie: Before the failings you expose Of friend or enemy: Yet even then be careful, very; Pause, and your words well weigh, And ask if it be necessary, What you’re about to say. And should it necessary be, At least you deem it so, Yet speak not unadvisedly Of friend or even foe, Till in your secret soul you seek For some excuse to find; And ere the thoughtless word you speak, Ask yourself, “is it kind?” When you have ask’d these questions three True, - Necessary, - Kind, Ask’d them in all sincerity, I think that you will find, It is no hardship to obey The command of our Blessed Lord, No ill of any man to say; No, not a single word.

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Preface

When it comes to commentary on management of the drought in the City of Cape Town municipality, very little of what was written in the public fray met any of these requirements, let alone all three. I am well aware that memory is subjective and that stories can be retold from different points of view. The story of the Cape Town drought has been difficult to frame without apportioning specific blame, but it is an honest account told from meticulously taken notes as well as my recollection of a traumatic time. I don’t think that anyone I mention in the book, nor in the rest of the administration, had the specific ill intent to have Cape Town run out of water. But the pervasive conflict and lack of trust meant that we spent far too much energy focussed on distractions, avoiding well-worn, practical solutions. On 18 January 2018, Mayor Patricia de Lille issued a statement that Cape Town would likely run out of water and do so in slightly more than 3 months. The news that Cape Town could be the first major global city to run out of water grabbed the world’s attention—international news channels and print media lapped up the story of Day Zero that the national press had been running with for months. That a city like Cape Town could run out of water was a warning signal to the rest of the world. It could happen to them too, especially given uncertainties around climate variability. For many months, reports on the bungling of the drought response occupied local media headlines. The blame was cast widely—to Cape Town’s political and administrative leadership, the Democratic Alliance, the Western Cape provincial government and the national department of water and sanitation. The public was certainly not happy with the City of Cape Town’s leadership: in July 2017 they were told, “don’t worry, we have it in hand” (the media slogan being that a well-run city does not run out of water, after all), through to December 2017, when messaging changed to blame the public for using too much water. Only shortly thereafter, in early 2018, to be told, “we know you’ve been using less, but that’s why you have to pay more”. For those of us at the centre of water management in the city’s administration, the worst of the drought appeared to conjure up the perfect storm. Dam storage levels were dropping at an alarming rate, the public was in a panic stoked by inaccurate media releases, and the political turmoil in the Cape Town council was out of control. How close did Cape Town really come to running out of water? Record low rainfall aside, what other factors contributed towards exacerbating the low dam levels? Did politics play a part? How did we eventually calm down the panic and reduce demand by a record-breaking magnitude? My intention in writing this drought story was to relate what really happened from within the administration of the City of Cape Town. Cape Town’s Day Zero is still mentioned so often in news reports and areas of water scarcity worldwide, that it merits a consolidation of the multifaceted story. In answer to the multitude of questions over time, and the inaccuracies that still linger even as dams now spill over, I attempt to cover all the pertinent aspects of water supply and demand in Cape Town and how we eventually navigated the drought. I first set out to explain the value of water and how water supply is managed in South Africa. How the regional water supply system evolved in serving the greater Cape Town region leading up to the first dry year in 2015 follows on from

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this. Over the next couple of chapters, I recount the escalation of the drought crisis as dam levels fell, political tempers frayed and public outrage reached fever pitch, towards the end of 2017. The crisis reached its peak in January 2018, with the announcement of Day Zero, which also saw a change in the political leadership of the drought. The next chapter details the measured, practical response we followed in 2018 to navigate critically low levels of water storage, reducing demand and accelerating augmentation projects. I then explore the reality of our continued reliance on rainfall with reference to the uncertainty introduced by climate change. Finally, prior to concluding, I present the myriad of lessons we learnt. In telling this story I hope to provide some insight that may be helpful to other cities as we move towards an increasingly uncertain future climate. This is not a mystery novel. Anyone who has heard of the Cape Town drought knows that Day Zero did not come to pass. That three years of exceptionally low rainfall was followed by reasonable rainfall in 2018 that left dams at a passable 75% of full capacity in the spring of 2018. For those of us closely involved in the drought, it provided a multi-layered journey to an unknown destination. Many of us will be forever connected by the intensity of all that we experienced. I wish to pay tribute to all the loyal, hard-working and trustworthy public servants out there. It is often a thankless task, and satisfaction needs to be drawn from knowing you’re making a difference. Our drought response was not perfect; mistakes were made. But in the end Cape Town survived a period of severe water stress, despite lack of understanding and frustration resulting in many questionable decisions. When fear is the motivator, it’s every man for himself. And at its peak, the fear of running out of water must have affected close to all of Cape Town’s estimated 4.5 million residents. Cape Town, South Africa

Gisela Kaiser

Acknowledgements

Writing a book is not a mission undertaken lightly, and I am not sure I would do it again if given the chance. Nonetheless, I felt compelled to write the story of what really happened. It was a strange time with fake news and social media often drowning out reality, so I felt it was important to tell the true story and provide a fair reflection of a difficult time from inside of the administration. Some people may be disappointed that the book is not more personal, while others may find it to be not technical enough. I have tried to keep a balance and include all the relevant aspects without getting lost in detail. Being an executive in local government is not for the meek. It is a vicious environment, the role carries huge responsibility, and the risk of putting a foot wrong does not ebb over time. It is a lonely path in many respects, but I have always tried to surround myself with good people to consult with. I was lucky to have a small army of loyal and hard-working staff members who provided much support. So many members of my staff made it possible to stay the distance—and also for me to leave the City’s employment when I was ready. The water and sanitation department especially worked long hours under immense pressure. I cannot name them all individually, and I apologise to anyone not mentioned here by name—it does not diminish my appreciation of the role you played. From office assistants through to meter readers and repair crews, everyone worked together under the additional strain of the drought. Thank you firstly to my Director of Water and Sanitation Peter Flower, a true boy scout, and the ideal ally in crisis. From a distinguished career at the City of Cape Town, Peter’s deep knowledge of the bulk water system was priceless during the drought. Even though he had been appointed as director only in 2013, he pulled together the water and sanitation managers into a capable, cohesive and responsive team. Peter displayed endless energy and the capacity to absorb an irrational workload escalation, while always remaining calm and composed, even in the most arduous of situations. In the thick of things as manager of the bulk water branch, Barry Wood was a core member of my water team. He and his bulk water team worked tirelessly on squeezing every last drop of efficiency out of bulk water operations while xiii

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developing the multitude of augmentation projects introduced during the drought. Barry’s even temperament complemented his sound water engineering principles, while he often played devil’s advocate by introducing into the conversation factors no one had considered. Bertus Saayman managed water and sanitation finances, through the tumultuous time when revenue evaporated even faster than the water stored. But he always found something to joke about. The pressure was intense not only to keep the business going and corporate interaction often reached boiling point. I could rely on Bertus to always be online and available for work over weekends and enjoyed calmly collaborating in the early morning hours, when email slowed down and we could catch up on the week’s outstanding work. I moved Pierre Maritz from his day job of managing the reticulation branch no fewer than three times during the drought. Pierre’s remarkable energy and can-do attitude inspired confidence in even the most impossible of situations. He achieved the impossible by moving hundreds of households after the fire in Imizamo Yethu during the second half of 2017. Then, in 2018, he managed to drive record-breaking savings running the demand management programme. In 2019 he was tasked with stepping in to transform customer relations after the havoc caused during the drought. To the rest of Peter’s management team, Kevin Samson, Zolile Basholo, Mossie Mostert, Mpharu Mhloyi, Conrad Frehse, Lucretia Adams and Mangaliso Sofiso— thank you for all your hard work and always being willing to go the extra mile whenever I asked. Kevin Balfour, Mike Greener, David Allpass, Rajan Moodley, Anic Smit, Melissa De Souza-Alves, Nichillis Tredoux, Sarah Rushmere and the other engineers and non-engineering staff in water who kept such a fabulous sense of humour while working crazy hours to do the impossible, thank you for the immense value you added. My water team’s membership morphed to suit the changing requirements, but all of the abovementioned were actively involved at one time or another. Many outside experts provided support and advice during the drought. As regular members of the water team, special thanks to Neil Macleod and Rolfe Eberhardt. Rolfe always focussed attention on being useful, being brave and challenging convention. He was an amazing strategic advisor and sounding board to me, for many months. Neil’s integrated advice built on practical experience managing a water utility was invaluable, as was his warmth, support and compassion for the tough times we were going through. To the ad hoc support group generally convened at the offices of GreenCape, thanks to Mike Mulcahy and Claire Pengally. Thanks also to Tim Harris and Mike Spicer from Wesgro, for your respect and advice, and Bronwyn Nortje for working throughout the end-of-year holidays, not to mention your friendship. I’d also like to acknowledge Trevor Balzer, for the helpful relationship with DWS we established later on in the drought. To the consultants who had the (mis)fortune of having been appointed on term tenders and had far more work and pressure than they could have hoped for, thank you for the countless hours and endless meetings. Most of all, thank you for shaping

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and sharing the vision we had in navigating the drought and for working together rather than quibbling about the small stuff. Thank you to the direct support in my office, for all the long hours, hard work and trying to keep calm while a storm was raging outside our little corner of the Civic Centre. Nobby, my office manager, in charge of my managing my unmanageable mailbox, always quietly operated behind the scenes to find solutions to problems before they arose, communicating on WhatsApp during all our waking hours to find ways to make the office move more mountains. Jacqueline, my secretary, juggled my diary to an impossible schedule, while fielding calls and filtering out noise. Hilda, managed all services complaints that escalated to my office with such patience and aplomb and kept us grounded to our true purpose through front-line service delivery. Thank you to Andrea De’Ujfalussy, not only finely tuned into political nuance and communication requirements but also a joy to work with, and who has become one of my best friends. Thanks to my support staff, Nqobile for his consistency and patience, Amina who left the public sector but sacrificed her freedom to come back to help in the drought. Also thank you to Barry, Ntombekhaya, David, Aasim and everyone else on the ninth floor. On the political side, I’d like to thank my Mayco member, Xanthea Limberg and her wonderful staff. As a politician, Xanthea displayed the unusual characteristic of integrity, while being dauntless despite usually being the smallest person in the room. Thank you also to Caitlin Montague, always providing a breath of fresh air, for her magical mastery of the English language, quick wit and enduring friendship. To Emma Powell who has since moved on to become a member of parliament and shadow minister of human settlements, water and sanitation, Yogi and Anita for helping to coordinate our schedules. Working with Xanthea’s office was always a pleasure. For my friends who assisted in advice and editing, thank you. Tom Brown, you are a daily example that some people should never retire, with your endless enthusiasm, thirst for knowledge and patience in editing. Also to my mentor Eugene Heeger who provided priceless advice when I needed it most. To Peter, Sarah, Bertus, Pierre and Raj, for checking facts in technical sections. Thank you, Linda Cilliers, for bearing with me through my final content iterations, and in the end, editing at great speed. Thank you to my daughter Emma, not only for the illustrations and photographic choices in the book, but mostly for being a daily ray of sunshine in my life—even in the time of COVID-19. Finally, thank you to my employer, Nikolay Voutchkov and Water Globe Consultants, for your encouragement and for providing the space and time for me to complete this project.

Contents

1 Introduction����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    1 References��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    8 2 The Value of Water����������������������������������������������������������������������������������   11 References��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   19 3 Setting the Scene��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   21 3.1 Water Management in South African Government��������������������������   23 3.2 Cape Town Metropolitan Municipality��������������������������������������������   25 3.2.1 Water in the City of Cape Town Administration������������������   29 3.2.2 Water Finance ����������������������������������������������������������������������   31 3.2.3 Water Metering ��������������������������������������������������������������������   33 3.2.4 Transformation and Legislative Reform ������������������������������   35 3.2.5 Informal Settlements and Backyarders ��������������������������������   38 References��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   45 4 Cape Town Water Supply������������������������������������������������������������������������   47 4.1 A Brief History ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������   47 4.2 The Western Cape Water Supply System������������������������������������������   54 4.3 Supply Schemes and Dams��������������������������������������������������������������   57 4.4 Operating Rules��������������������������������������������������������������������������������   65 4.5 Reconciliation Strategy��������������������������������������������������������������������   66 4.5.1 System Water Availability����������������������������������������������������   67 4.5.2 Water Demand����������������������������������������������������������������������   71 4.5.3 Reconciliation ����������������������������������������������������������������������   73 4.5.4 Augmentation Schemes��������������������������������������������������������   73 4.5.5 Relevance of Status Updates������������������������������������������������   81 4.6 Urban Demand Management������������������������������������������������������������   82 References��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   85

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5 The First Two Dry Years��������������������������������������������������������������������������   87 5.1 The Water Situation: 2015����������������������������������������������������������������   87 5.2 The Water Situation: 2016����������������������������������������������������������������   92 5.3 Elections and Organisational Change ����������������������������������������������   94 References��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   99 6 A Tumultuous Start to 2017��������������������������������������������������������������������  101 6.1 The Water Situation: January to May 2017��������������������������������������  101 6.2 The Mayor’s Office Takes Over��������������������������������������������������������  103 6.2.1 Strained Relations ����������������������������������������������������������������  104 6.2.2 Municipal Functions and Service Delivery Continues in Parallel ������������������������������������������������������������  108 6.2.3 High-Consumption Households��������������������������������������������  110 6.2.4 Disaster Declaration��������������������������������������������������������������  112 6.2.5 Augmentation Trumps Demand Management����������������������  114 6.3 Losing Trust in a Dry Autumn����������������������������������������������������������  114 References��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  118 7 An Impossibly Ambitious Political Response����������������������������������������  121 7.1 The Water Situation: June to October 2017��������������������������������������  121 7.2 The Water Resilience Programme����������������������������������������������������  122 7.3 The Augmentation Plan��������������������������������������������������������������������  128 7.4 The Disaster Management Plan��������������������������������������������������������  130 7.5 Panic Intensifies��������������������������������������������������������������������������������  133 7.6 Further Breakdown in Trust��������������������������������������������������������������  135 References��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  139 8 A Change in Direction ����������������������������������������������������������������������������  141 8.1 The Water Situation: November to December 2017 ������������������������  141 8.2 The Prohibitive Cost of Augmentation ��������������������������������������������  142 8.3 Desperation Grows����������������������������������������������������������������������������  145 8.4 Crafting a Media Strategy ����������������������������������������������������������������  146 8.5 External Review��������������������������������������������������������������������������������  148 8.6 Flawed Assumptions Exposed����������������������������������������������������������  153 8.7 The Water Situation: 2018����������������������������������������������������������������  155 8.8 Another Change in Water Leadership ����������������������������������������������  157 References��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  162 9 Science Prevails����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  165 9.1 Managing Water Storage������������������������������������������������������������������  166 9.2 Managing Demand����������������������������������������������������������������������������  172 9.2.1 Tightening Belts—Water Restrictions����������������������������������  175 9.2.2 Water Wasters Must Cough Up—Punitive Tariffs����������������  182 9.2.3 Spreading the News—Communications ������������������������������  185 9.2.4 Changing Gulps to Sips—Household Flow-Restriction ������  192 9.2.5 Cutting Through Waste—Pressure Reduction����������������������  196 9.2.6 Preparing for Climate Change—Adaptation������������������������  201 9.2.7 New Habits, New Risks, New Benefits��������������������������������  203

Contents

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9.3   Managing Augmentation����������������������������������������������������������������  204   9.3.1   Considerations on Augmentation����������������������������������������  208   9.3.2   Programming of Schemes ��������������������������������������������������  209   9.3.3   Water from the Ocean ��������������������������������������������������������  212   9.3.4   Water from the Ground ������������������������������������������������������  220   9.3.5   Water Should Be Reused����������������������������������������������������  230   9.3.6   Other New Water Sources ��������������������������������������������������  233   9.3.7   More Surface Water������������������������������������������������������������  235 References��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  237 10 Emerging from Crisis������������������������������������������������������������������������������  239 10.1 The Missing 18%����������������������������������������������������������������������������  239 10.2 Drought Recovery Plan������������������������������������������������������������������  242 References��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  244 11 Anticipating Climate Uncertainty����������������������������������������������������������  245 11.1 Climate Change������������������������������������������������������������������������������  245 11.2 Rainfall in the Western Cape����������������������������������������������������������  249 References��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  255 12 Lessons We Learned��������������������������������������������������������������������������������  257 12.1 Reliance on Rainfed Dams��������������������������������������������������������������  258 12.2 The Human Side of Drought����������������������������������������������������������  259   12.2.1   Building Trust Relationships��������������������������������������������  260   12.2.2   People Are at the Centre ��������������������������������������������������  261   12.2.3   Respecting Employees������������������������������������������������������  262   12.2.4   Collaboration and Diversity����������������������������������������������  262   12.2.5   Availability and Transparency of Data������������������������������  263   12.2.6   Effective Communication ������������������������������������������������  265 12.3 Good Governance ��������������������������������������������������������������������������  265 12.4 A New Relationship with Water�����������������������������������������������������  267   12.4.1   Behaviour Change������������������������������������������������������������  267   12.4.2   Respecting the Environment ��������������������������������������������  268   12.4.3   Innovation ������������������������������������������������������������������������  269 12.5 Formalising the Water Strategy������������������������������������������������������  271 References��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  279 13 Conclusion������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  281 References��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  285 Annexure A: Expert Assistance����������������������������������������������������������������������  287

About the Author

Gisela Kaiser  is a registered professional civil engineer with 30 years of experience in the development and management of diverse infrastructure projects and programs in South Africa. She has excelled in transformational development within various sectors including local government, industrial development, higher education, and retail. As the City of Cape Town’s Executive Director of Utilities, Dr. Kaiser balanced the demands of providing basic services (encompassing water, sanitation, electricity and solid waste management) to a deeply stratified population competing for scarce resources. This naturally came with a host of challenges, all of which were exacerbated when the region was hit by a 1:600 year drought, peaking in 2018. Dr. Kaiser served as the technical lead of the team that successfully steered the City through the water crisis, earning the City international acclaim for being the World’s Number One Water Saving City. Throughout this period, Dr. Kaiser immersed herself in all aspects of the drought response and embraced the diversification of supply sources.

xxi

Abbreviations

AG Auditor General ANC African National Congress BOOT Build own operate transfer BRVAS Berg River Voëlvlei augmentation scheme CBD Central business district of the City of Cape Town CFA Cape Flats aquifer CFO Chief financial officer CIBD Construction industry development board CMA Catchment management agency CoCT City of Cape Town CPPM Corporate project portfolio management CRO Chief resilience officer CSAG University of Cape Town’s climate systems analysis group DA Democratic Alliance DBO Design, build operate DEADP Department of Environmental Affairs and Development Planning DWAF Department of Water Affairs and Forestry DWS National Department of Water and Sanitation EDP Economic Development Partnership EIA Environmental impact assessment GDP Gross domestic product GHG Greenhouse gas ICI Industrial, commercial and institutional IPCC Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change kl Kilolitre MAR Mean annual rainfall Mayco Mayoral committee MCM Millions of cubic metres MFMA Municipal Finance Management Act Ml Millions of litres MLD Millions of litres per day xxiii

xxiv

Abbreviations

NASA National Aeronautics and Space Administration NEMA National Environment Management Act NRW Non-revenue water NWP New water programme ODTP Organisational development and transformation plan OECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development PAIA Protection of Access to Information Act PR Public Relations REIPP Renewable Energy Independent Power Procurement Programme RFI Request for information RSE Riviersonderend RWSA Raw water supply agreement SAB South African Breweries SDG Sustainable development goal SPU Strategic policy unit SWRO Seawater reverse osmosis TMG Table Mountain Group (aquifer) UN United Nations US United States of America V&A Victoria & Alfred waterfront VAT Value added tax WCWDM Water conservation and water demand management WCWSS Western cape water supply system Wesgro Western Cape Tourism, Trade and Investment Promotion Agency WHO World Health Organization WMA Water management area WMD Water management device WRP Water resilience programme WRPM Water resource planning model WRYM Water resource yield model WTW Water treatment works WWF World wildlife fund WWTW Wastewater treatment works

List of Figures

Fig. 1.1 Theewaterskloof Dam at 10.9% of storage capacity, 7 March 2018���������������������������������������������������������������������������������    4 Fig. 1.2 Steenbras Upper Dam at 50% storage capacity. (Photo courtesy of Bruce Sutherland, City of Cape Town)�����������    7 Fig. 2.1 Steenbras Lower Dam (to the left) and Upper Dam (to the right)�����������������������������������������������������������������������������������   14 Fig. 3.1 DWS water management areas (Department of Water and Sanitation n.d.)������������������������������������������������������������������������   25 Fig. 3.2 Typical density of structures in an informal settlement�����������������   39 Fig. 3.3 Monthly water consumption in informal settlements��������������������   41 Fig. 3.4 Washing troughs in Masiphumelele����������������������������������������������   42 Fig. 4.1 Cape Town’s water supply history from 1834�������������������������������   48 Fig. 4.2 Woodhead Dam with Hely-Hutchinson in background. (Photo courtesy of Peter Flower)���������������������������������������������������   50 Fig. 4.3 Hely Hutchinson Dam�������������������������������������������������������������������   50 Fig. 4.4 Table Mountain dams: Woodhead and Hely-Hutchinson in the foreground, Alexandra and Victoria behind, and De Villiers in the background. (Photo courtesy of Peter Flower)���������������������������������������������������   51 Fig. 4.5 The Western Cape Water Supply System and dams����������������������   56 Fig. 4.6 The supply system overview���������������������������������������������������������   57 Fig. 4.7 Theewaterskloof Dam��������������������������������������������������������������������   58 Fig. 4.8 Voëlvlei Dam. (Photo courtesy of Bruce Sutherland, City of Cape Town)�����������������������������������������������������������������������   59 Fig. 4.9 Wemmershoek Dam����������������������������������������������������������������������   60 Fig. 4.10 Berg River Dam�����������������������������������������������������������������������������   61 Fig. 4.11 Steenbras Dams. (Photo courtesy of Peter Flower)�����������������������   62 Fig. 4.12 Annual rainfall measured at the major dams (mm)�����������������������   63 Fig. 4.13 Monthly rainfall distribution measured at the large dams�������������   64 xxv

xxvi

List of Figures

Fig. 4.14 Variation in calculated system yield in reconciliation strategy updates from 2007 to 2016����������������������������������������������   69 Fig. 4.15 System yield and water requirements��������������������������������������������   72 Fig. 4.16 Evolution of reconciliation strategy additional schemes 2010 to 2016����������������������������������������������������������������������������������   75 Fig. 4.17 Population growth and water use efficiency����������������������������������   82 Fig. 4.18 Non-revenue water and water loss�������������������������������������������������   83 Fig. 4.19 Cape Town per capita water use 2006–2018���������������������������������   84 Fig. 4.20 Water Mains—bursts per month and bursts per 100 km���������������   84 Fig. 5.1 Fig. 5.2 Fig. 5.3 Fig. 5.4 Fig. 5.5 Fig. 5.6 Fig. 5.7

Dam storage volumes from 2000 to 2015�������������������������������������   89 Average and 2015 actual inflow����������������������������������������������������   89 Cape Town water produced in MLD, 2013–2015�������������������������   90 Dam storage volumes 2000 to 2016����������������������������������������������   92 Average and 2016 actual inflow����������������������������������������������������   93 Cape Town water produced in MLD, 2014–2016�������������������������   94 Organisational structure as approved in August 2016�������������������   97

Fig. 6.1 Fig. 6.2 Fig. 6.3

Dam storage volumes 2000–2017�������������������������������������������������  102 Average and 2017 actual inflow����������������������������������������������������  102 Cape Town water produced in MLD, 2015–2017�������������������������  103

Fig. 7.1 Dam storage volumes 2000–2017�������������������������������������������������  122 Fig. 7.2 Pilot Site Point of Distribution 16 November 2017. (Photos courtesy of Pierre Maritz)������������������������������������������������  131 Fig. 7.3 Storage projections from 1 November 2016 versus actual storage���������������������������������������������������������������������������������  134 Fig. 7.4 Selected rainfall scenarios modelled for 2018�������������������������������  137 Fig. 8.1 Dam storage volumes 2000–2017�������������������������������������������������  142 Fig. 8.2 Runoff range over time based on 90-year records�������������������������  154 Fig. 8.3 Emergency programme: water delivery estimate (City of Cape Town 2017)�������������������������������������������������������������  155 Fig. 8.4 Dam storage volumes 2000–2018�������������������������������������������������  156 Fig. 8.5 Average and 2018 actual inflow����������������������������������������������������  156 Fig. 8.6 Cape Town water produced in MLD, 2016–2018�������������������������  157 Fig. 9.1 Annual inflow into the WCWSS from 1928 to 2018���������������������  168 Fig. 9.2 System outflow—unrestricted and restricted (MLD)��������������������  168 Fig. 9.3 Comparison of Actual vs Estimated evaporation���������������������������  169 Fig. 9.4 Projected Day Zero graph as on 22 January 2018�������������������������  170 Fig. 9.5 Day Zero graph as on 18 May 2018����������������������������������������������  171 Fig. 9.6 Cumulative weekly usage of City and Agriculture from WCWSS versus planned (restricted) usage��������������������������  171 Fig. 9.7 Construction of berm at Theewaterskloof Dam emergency pump scheme, March 2018������������������������������������������������������������  173 Fig. 9.8 Cape Town water use 2015/16�������������������������������������������������������  174

List of Figures

xxvii

Fig. 9.9 Introduction of restriction levels against Cape Town water production, July 2015–June 2018����������������������������������������  176 Fig. 9.10 2017/18 Domestic tariff—restriction levels and consumption steps�������������������������������������������������������������������  183 Fig. 9.11 Non-domestic volumetric tariff per restriction level���������������������  184 Fig. 9.12 Restriction level communication campaigns. (Courtesy: City of Cape Town)������������������������������������������������������  186 Fig. 9.13 Change in household consumption February to June 2017�����������  193 Fig. 9.14 Notifications reported for various faults����������������������������������������  195 Fig. 9.15 Pressure management to critical point�������������������������������������������  199 Fig. 9.16 Total savings in drought compared to pre-drought demand����������  204 Fig. 9.17 Equivalent annual inflow (MCM)��������������������������������������������������  205 Fig. 9.18 Estimated cost ranges for treated water by source (R/kl)��������������  206 Fig. 9.19 Augmentation programme—January to May 2018�����������������������  210 Fig. 9.20 Augmentation schemes and projects—locality map���������������������  211 Fig. 9.21 Strandfontein temporary desalination plant under construction. Looking south. (Photo courtesy of Bruce Sutherland, City of Cape Town)����������������������������������������������������  218 Fig. 9.22 Construction of SWRO plant inlet and outlet in False Bay—transporting anchors. (Photo courtesy of Bruce Sutherland, City of Cape Town)����������������������������������������������������  219 Fig. 9.23 Geophysical survey launched in November 2017. (Photo courtesy of Bruce Sutherland, City of Cape Town)�����������  221 Fig. 9.24 Geological cross section through Atlantis Aquifer������������������������  223 Fig. 9.25 First drilling on CFA, January 2018. (Photo courtesy of John Holmes)��������������������������������������������������  226 Fig. 9.26 Pumpstation designed to blend in with the environment. (Photo courtesy of Stephan Kleynhans)����������������������������������������  229 Fig. 9.27 Eradication of pine plantation at Wemmershoek Dam, 2018��������  234 Fig. 10.1 Fluctuation in dam storage in the summers of 2014, 2015 and 2016����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  240 Fig. 10.2 Actual versus simulated storage of the six major dams of the WCWSS������������������������������������������������������������������������������  241 Fig. 11.1 Long-term average rainfall at various locations����������������������������  251 Fig. 11.2 Box plots of anticipated rainfall at major dams�����������������������������  252 Fig. 11.3 Mean annual rainfall merged from 40 stations, from 1981 to 2017. (Courtesy of Piotr Wolski, UCT Climate Science Action Group)�����������������������������������������������������  254 Fig. 12.1

Scale and timing of the new water supplies����������������������������������  276

Fig. 13.1

Theewaterskloof Dam spilling, October 2020�������������������������������  284

List of Tables

Table 3.1 Domestic water tariff structure during the drought������������������������   32 Table 4.1 Storage capacity additions supplying Cape Town since 1860���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   49 Table 4.2 Capacity of large and small dams in the WCWSS�������������������������   67 Table 4.3 Existing lawful water use of the City of Cape Town����������������������   69 Table 4.4 Permitted abstractions and allocations for the urban sector (MCM)�����������������������������������������������������������   70 Table 7.1 Water Resilience Programme in October 2017������������������������������  129 Table 9.1 Table 9.2 Table 9.3 Table 9.4 Table 9.5

Usable water in WCWSS dams������������������������������������������������������  172 Summary of all restrictions imposed 2016–2018���������������������������  177 Approved tariff 2017/18 (Rands, ex VAT)��������������������������������������  182 2017/18 Rand value water bill (including VAT at 15%)�����������������  183 TMG licensed yields����������������������������������������������������������������������  228

Table 10.1 Proposed restriction trigger points for 2018/2019 hydrological year����������������������������������������������������������������������������  244

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Chapter 1

Introduction

Life in us is like the water in a river –Henry David Thoreau

Abstract  The Cape Town drought captured the world’s attention at the beginning of 2018 with the announcement of Day Zero: the day that Cape Town’s taps would run dry. The way the water system had evolved was understood by very few, and failure in trust and communication meant that the public was left with a sense that water resource planning was completely absent. In the eye of the storm a host of factors contributed to the panic and rapidly falling dam levels. Cape Town is located in the Western Cape, the only one of nine provinces in South Africa governed by the official opposition. Politics was exceptionally conflictual. Interaction between spheres of government responsible for various aspects of water supply was far from perfect, with public perception and media frenzy driving a focus on matters that played a very small part in the effort not to run out of water. The combination of the anticipation of change in water storage impacted by daily rainfall and demand, and the political drama simultaneously unfolding made for an exhilarating journey. In a modern city in the twenty-first century, it is virtually inconceivable that water can run out. But this is exactly what was threatened in Cape Town at the beginning of 2018. It was mid-summer, with many hot, dry months ahead before relief could be expected from winter rainfall.1 Communication from the City administration had vacillated between complete ownership of the water situation and assurance that Cape Town would not run out of water, to extreme tariff increases and admonishing residents for wasting water. Then the mayor issued a clear message: Cape Town was

1  The Southwestern Cape has a Mediterranean winter rainfall climate, with a rainfall mainly between May and September.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 G. Kaiser, Parched - The Cape Town Drought Story, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78889-6_1

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2

1 Introduction

likely to run out of water, and that it was likely to happen in a mere three months, by mid-April 2018 (City of Cape Town 2018). Day Zero had been technically calculated as the day when dam levels would reach 13.5% of storage capacity, and this was a critical yardstick that had been announced three months earlier. Once that 13.5% level was reached, continued supply at 50 litres per person per day2 would reduce dam levels to 10 percent of capacity in three months. Thereafter, a further three percent of capacity could be extracted from dams with relative ease and minimum intervention, ostensibly adding a further three months of supply. The final seven percent was calculated to be dead storage, which would need to be pumped from normally inaccessible pockets of the dams, thereby possibly stretching supply in extremis by another three to six months. This means that Day Zero was announced in Cape Town at least nine to twelve months in advance of the date on which the dams were expected to truly run dry. In contrast, during the drought in Sao Paulo in 2014/2015, few dramatic announcements were made on running out of water. This despite the city pumping dead storage from reservoirs for four months, with less than a week’s water remaining, when rain began to fall (McKenzie 2018). Panic was the natural human response to the announcement of Day Zero: if municipal supply dried up, it would be every man for himself. Drill rigs were in peak demand to exploit groundwater and reduce dependence on municipal water sources for those who could afford it. Grey water was repurposed and recycled, no longer allowed to drain into the sewer system. There was a waiting list for rainwater tanks, even if summer months see little rainfall, the thought of precious rainwater running down stormwater drains was too much to stomach. Stockpiling of bottled water seemed like a logical response, as did queueing at collection points for spring-water. Water is life and affects each one of us personally. The prospect of not being able to rely on water running when we open a tap, or not being able to do something as mundane as flushing the loo is not something we want to contemplate today. However, humanity has always been vulnerable to water scarcity, with so little fresh water on the planet and variations in weather. Now, with ever growing demand on natural resources and the additional uncertainty that climate change introduces, few cities are completely free of the risk of running out of water. The Cape Town water story tells of one City’s response to an exceptional drought.3 Cape Town relies on rainfed dams for its water supply. Dam levels rise principally from runoff from rainfall in catchment areas, and to a lesser degree from

2  Daily volumes of water at the scale of the system are usually reflected in millions of litres per day, abbreviated as MLD. Annual volumes at the scale of system storage are referenced in millions of cubic metres or MCM. Household consumption is usually measured in cubic metres per month, or kilolitres (kl) where 1000 litres is equal to 1  kl. Individual daily use is measured in litres, and reflected as litres per capita per day, abbreviated as lcd. 3  A drought is an event of prolonged water shortage. The water supply system serving Cape Town had abnormally low rainfall over 3 years, especially in the dam catchment areas, leading to a water shortage.

1 Introduction

3

streams flowing into, and rainfall over, the dams. In the face of climate change, worldwide weather patterns have changed, and the regional catchment areas in Cape Town have seen their worst drought on record. The drought that began in 2015 was much more severe than a one in 50 drought event, for which the system was optimised. Climate scientists analysed the statistics and by the beginning of 2018 posited that “the best estimate of the return interval of the meteorological drought in the region of the Western Cape water supply system dams is 311 years, with 90% confidence that it actually ranges between 105 and 1280 years” (Wolski 2018). This was later refined to suggest that the combined low rainfall over the three-year drought represented a return period of 590 years, meaning that it should occur at worst twice per millennium. That the region didn’t run out of water as threatened was fortuitous but not purely attributable to human effort. Had it not rained when it did, the dams would eventually have run dry. Through the efforts of the City of Cape Town (the City) and the public, demand was reduced dramatically, which was a success widely lauded. And while not creating new water, it did mean that we stretched the water stored in dams to the maximum. Rainfall in 2018 and 2019 remained below the long-term average, but the dramatic reduction in demand helped dams recover substantially and avoid further short-term risk. As it happened, dam levels at the beginning of 2017 had only ten percentage points less in storage than the year before (at 46% vs 56% of full capacity). But the combined levels of the six major dams were falling at between one percent and two percent of full capacity per week, and the City’s communication emphasis was that the last 10% of storage was not usable.4 With an average drop of one-and-a-half percentage points a week, and with little chance of rain prior to winter that occurs in the middle of the calendar year, 10% of capacity would be reached in 24 weeks (see Fig. 1.1). So, it was imperative to reduce drawdown to below this each week since there was no certainty around when winter rainfall would arrive. We were using system-wide rainfall records dating back to 1928 to model anticipated storage levels. Some weather stations date further back to the late 1800s, and in every record, winter rainfall was recorded. This provided some comfort that while we didn’t know how much it would rain, it was fair to assume that it would rain—if only a little bit. Climate scientists agreed that expecting a winter rainfall region to collapse having no rain within only one season was just not plausible. This notwithstanding, the response from the City by mid-2017 was to stop relying on surface water within a year. The simple equation was for Cape Town to reduce demand down to 500 megalitres a day (MLD) while crafting plans to produce 500 MLD to match—this formula may have seemed logical to the layman and was easy to understand. The problem is that the plan was poorly conceived, because of a breakdown in trust between the mayor and the City’s water engineers. The approach to navigating the drought thus forked into two distinct paths: the mayor

4  10% was a rough and conservative estimate of the average across dam levels when it would be difficult to extract water.

4

1 Introduction

Fig. 1.1  Theewaterskloof Dam at 10.9% of storage capacity, 7 March 2018

chose to take full control, eliminating reliance on rainfall to ensure that Cape Town did not run out of water, while the engineers in the water and sanitation department relied on proven demand management strategies to weather the storm. To provide clarity in relating the drought story I need to distinguish between the two distinct ideologies in the City administration at the time. I refer to ‘the mayor’ as the champion of the water resilience programme, and all that entailed. To represent the view held by myself, my office as executive director of the water and waste directorate, and senior management of the water and sanitation department, I refer to the ‘water team’. It was never going to be possible to produce 500 MLD of additional water in the space of less than a year. Furthermore, the plan completely ignored the fact that Cape Town was part of a broader supply system. The supply system is mainly managed by the national Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS), though the City owns some of the dams, and the parties jointly operate it. If it didn’t rain again, the entire region would have run out of water long before any new water was produced by the City for its own purposes. Contemplating the impact of disaster is easier when the event can be envisaged to happen soon. With dam levels in dire need of replenishment from winter rainfall, the remote possibility of it not raining captured the imagination. That the probability of it not raining was close to zero, did not counter the visceral response of fear of it not raining, or hardly raining at all. To counter this pervasive fear, the political response was to craft a plan to take control and somehow eliminate uncertainty. The cost of completely controlling risk through insurance is mostly unaffordable. Changing one’s mind, and course of action, when new information comes

1 Introduction

5

about is a far better response in the face of uncertainty (Kahneman 2011). It is unfortunate that many people in positions of power see this as weakness. Cape Town is situated in the Western Cape province, the only one of nine provinces in South Africa ruled by an opposition party, the Democratic Alliance (DA). In the 2014 provincial elections, the DA won nearly 60% of the vote in the province. Nationally, the African National Congress (ANC) retained control of the country with 62.15% of the vote. That the City of Cape Town was the only metropolitan municipality, in the only province led by an opposition party introduced many challenges, on top of a fanatical ambition for clean governance. The Western Cape does not have any international or national drainage basins, and the relationships governing water supply and consumption are thus wholly domestic, only complicated by a different political party ruling national government with the main opposition in charge of provincial and local government. Allegations of poor planning were rife in the media and even within the City administration. Decisions on future increases of supplies in the Western Cape water supply system had indeed been delayed—sometimes for good reason, sometimes not so much. With lower-than-expected growth in demand across some prior years, augmentation could be pushed into the future while the system remained in balance. Some desirable programmes were also hampered by procurement difficulties and funding challenges. Typically, engineers love building. Given half a chance, they will design and construct superb infrastructure—the bigger, the better. But there is the consideration of cost that comes with operating the system, and when resources are scarce, infrastructure is usually built in the nick of time. In the City, capital projects were funded mostly by loan funding, which had to be repaid, with interest, from the utility tariff. In effect, the only ‘free’ money was national government grants from tax revenues, since these didn’t have to be repaid, nor did they accrue interest. Some grants are conditional, but first prize is grants that are unconditional for a municipality to apply to enhance the general management and affordability of its services. The national DWS is responsible for provision of bulk water and as such, the burden of funding and constructing infrastructure to augment supply would be theirs. But the water team was practical in approach to which sphere of government should pay for water infrastructure. As the largest urban user in the Western Cape Province, the city would end up footing most of the bill for new infrastructure provided by national government. This payment would be through the bulk water tariff charged by the DWS for water supplied to the municipal water services. And that, in turn, would be translated to all customers in Cape Town through rates and tariffs. If the City provided the infrastructure, the City had control over the project cycle. In our experience, the City water department would be able to implement projects more efficiently than national government, resulting in Cape Town consumers paying less in the long run. My water team had its own incentive to reduce costs in general: agreeing annual tariff increases is a brutal process. The decision on percentage increases is influenced by facts, but overarchingly, it is political in nature. Requiring increases higher than inflation is frowned upon, which does not leave much room for improvement

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1 Introduction

in service delivery or growth. Timing is also a factor—building too far ahead of a need when there are so many pressing projects competing for funding cannot be tolerated. Funding is not the only scarce resource when it comes to major infrastructure. Many of the experienced engineers and technicians working in the water supply space nationally are in (or close to) the last decade of their careers. The national DWS had been known as a world class institution over many decades. It had been an exemplar in water resource management, using world-class system models to guide water management. Engineering skills, particularly in government, have eroded in recent decades past, in part to low university enrolment and graduation but also due to high attrition to more lucrative career paths. Technical posts in government often remain vacant for extended periods, and in times of austerity, get cancelled. Both the national DWS and Cape Town water engineers witnessed many changes in organisational priorities and governance systems since 1994. While much has changed in the country and in government departments responsible for water supply, there remains a passion shared by water engineers to provide sustainable solutions. Common ground hasn’t always been easily found among technocrats especially between different spheres of government with conflicting priorities, but mutual respect generally prevails at the technical level. Resolving engineering problems can seem dead simple as compared with political conflict and, throughout the drought, my water team worked with provincial and national government towards finding solutions rather than resorting to political grandstanding. Joint management of the water system also meant that we purposefully did not want to be confrontational towards the national DWS, but rather cooperate and follow set protocols established over many years. Demand management was a significant contributor in reconciling the water supply system. Practical water planning prevailed for several decades before environmental lobbies protested the construction of new dams, leading to a focus in demand management (Muller 2018). The Berg River Dam was the last to be completed in the supply system consisting of six large dams (see Fig. 1.2) In Cape Town, gross per capita consumption fluctuated between 200 and 220 litres a day for the ten years prior to the drought. Compare this to more affluent countries such as the United States (US) and Australia, where per capita water demand is much higher. In times of drought, there is plenty of scope for reducing demand, for example in California, where a 20% reduction was achieved by reducing daily per capita consumption from 500 to 400 litres. Water is often inexpensive enough for users not to attach much value to it, especially when it is abundant. Large water savings are therefore often possible in times of drought without necessarily introducing punitive tariffs or harsher restrictions. In theory, the City administration should have entered a period of relative stability in 2017: the mayor had completed a successful first term leading the City from 2011 to 2016, and the DA won more than 63% of support in the local government elections in August 2016. In her second term, the mayor set out to build on the foundations established in creating a more equal Cape Town for all its citizens. With

1 Introduction

7

Fig. 1.2  Steenbras Upper Dam at 50% storage capacity. (Photo courtesy of Bruce Sutherland, City of Cape Town)

Achmat Ebrahim appointed again as City manager for another term, and an executive management team constituted by only four out of 11 of the same executives, complemented by some internal and external appointments, the stage was set for a what proved to be a tumultuous term of office. The mayor’s strategy included transforming local government, driven by progressive policy implementation and innovation, and positioning Cape Town as a truly world-class city. In March 2017, the mayor was appointed as interim chair of the Global Parliament of Mayors, and she remains an honorary member (Claymore 2017). Cities have historically acted as centres of creativity and growth, the first line of response to the social contract between government and people. Cities signal hope that democracy can prevail, and problems be solved pragmatically (Barber 2014). That said, the bureaucracy that defines a metropolitan municipality is not to everyone’s liking, but when one starts digging, one realises that there is generally a reason why things are done the way they are. New brooms inevitably believe they will sweep cleaner, but when you don’t understand how things work, you change them at your peril. The close link between local government and society creates a natural tension. In the eyes of the public, it seems near impossible for a municipality to do anything right. Speaking from experience, being immersed in a local authority is perhaps the only way to really understand how service delivery functions. Consultants often take a rosy view that adding more policy will help, but even when policy and legislation abound, people make mistakes. The public is stratified, often along wealth lines, and they rarely experience the full spectrum of societal interactions. Working with basic services is a great privilege—in serving everyone as best as possible, the range of challenges and experience is virtually limitless.

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This drought story covers the evolution of water supply in the Western Cape, leading to the establishment of the integrated Western Cape Water Supply System (WCWSS). It covers the balancing of demand and supply in terms of a reconciliation strategy, and the planning of future supply augmentation schemes. As a system reliant on rainfed dams and reservoirs, the variability of weather patterns and impact of climate change are discussed herein. Transformation in South Africa from 1994 required major changes in legislation and governance, and as a relatively young democracy, change is expected to continue. The parlous state of water supply at the end of winter in 2017 sets the scene for the story of the water crisis: the worst drought in Cape Town’s history. Crisis management can be defined as the sum of activities aimed at minimising the impact of a crisis, where the impact is measurable in terms of damage to people, infrastructure, and public institutions. As crises affect large swathes of the population, many people have a direct interest in the response of the responsible authority. Leadership is commonly scrutinised in times of crisis. Public criticism of leadership managing a crisis tends to be unforgiving, while victories are easily claimed if the crisis is averted. The role of trust and politics in any crisis is irrefutable. From the local government elections in August 2016 to the point where some half-decent rain fell in May 2018, the political landscape in the City saw numerous changes, which generally added to the challenge of managing a pathway through the drought. Once political polarisation becomes entrenched, a gap in trust can seem totally unbridgeable. People in different camps are often so defined by the camp that the topic of any disagreement is of less interest than the camp. The public sector can ill afford to entrench this chasm. There is too much to do if we are to have any hope of healing cities tortured by inequality. With a deficit of trust, the first political response to the drought evolved into the ambitious but unachievable Water Resilience Programme. This was replaced by the more realistic New Water Programme early in 2018. The notion of when it is the best time to build relationships of trust is like that of planting a tree. Today and every day. No-one knows when the next crisis will come about, and any utility would be well served to be as prepared as it can be. In matters such as providing basic services when the next crisis is just a whisper away, maintaining solid relationships within well-defined corporate structures with good processes and policies must be a necessity—not an option.

References Barber BR (2014) If mayors ruled the world: dysfunctional nations, rising cities. Yale University Press, New Haven City of Cape Town (2018) Media Statement: Day Zero now likely to happen – new emergency measures (18 January 2018) Available at: https://www.capetown.gov.za/Media-­and-­news/ Day%20Zero%20now%20likely%20to%20happen%20–%20new%20emergency%20measures. Accessed Jan 2021

References

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Claymore E (2017) Mother City’s mayor de Lille awarded key position in Global Parliament of Mayors. The South Africa, 14 March 2017. Available at: https://www.thesouthafrican.com/ news/mother-­citys-­mayor-­de-­lille-­awarded-­key-­position-­in-­global-­parliament-­of-­mayors/. Accessed Jan 2021 Kahneman D (2011) Thinking fast and slow. Penguin Books, London McKenzie R (2018) Why intermittent supplies are no answer to cities hit by drought. International Water Association, The Source: August 2018. Available at: http://www.wrp.co.za/sites/default/ files/event_attachments/The%20Source_August%202018_%20Ronnie%20McKenzie.pdf. Accessed Jan 2021 Muller M (2018) Lessons from Cape Town’s Drought. Nature 559:174–176. Available at: https:// media.nature.com/original/magazine-­assets/d41586-­018-­05649-­1/d41586-­018-­05649-­1.pdf. Accessed Jan 2021 Wolski P (2018) Facts are few, opinions plenty… on drought severity again. CSAG Blog. Available at: http://www.csag.uct.ac.za/2018/01/22/facts-­are-­few-­opinions-­plenty-­on-­drought-­severity-­ again/. Accessed Jan 2021

Chapter 2

The Value of Water

Water is the driving force of all of nature –Leonardo da Vinci

Abstract  Cheap as it is compared with other products, water has historically been undervalued. It is often taken for granted outside times of drought. Exponential population growth and development has impacted on water security in most urban areas, with more people and higher demand increasing the overall human water footprint. International focus on the value of water has been underlined by the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals many of which are related to water supply. Water is also under the spotlight for the risks to water security introduced by climate change. These may not be easily or accurately quantifiable, but climate scientists agree that extreme weather events are likely to occur much more frequently, and with far higher intensity. Furthermore, water quality is poorly understood, and it is often taken for granted that the potable water reticulated for human consumption should be fit for purpose, without much regard for the process and effort required. When recognising that all water is precious and part of the same closed loop environmentally, it is impossible not to respect water, and use it in a manner commensurate with how precious it is. There is an adage, often attributed to Winston Churchill, never to let a good crisis go to waste. The Cape Town drought provided an opportunity not only to redefine our relationship with water locally, but to influence the relationship with water far beyond our borders. Even though more than 70% of the world’s surface is covered with water, it is estimated that less than 1% of water on the planet is potentially accessible fresh water, with much of it frozen in snow and glaciers. The growing human population—now approaching eight billion—does not share equitable access to water. Both fresh water sources and large populations are distributed more randomly than © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 G. Kaiser, Parched - The Cape Town Drought Story, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78889-6_2

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what would be efficient to maximise access. Direct human water use constitutes only a fraction of worldwide water use. With more than 70% of freshwater used in the production of food, global supply chains distribute embedded water to where it is needed, and importantly, where it can be afforded. A further 10–20% of water is used in industry, with the balance of only a fraction used directly for human demand (Wallace-Wells 2019). Over time, water security has been impacted by population growth and development, with more people and higher demand increasing the overall human water footprint. Security of potable water supplies requires that sufficient water is available for each person, that the quality is suitable for drinking purposes and that water can be delivered to where it is needed. Urban water shortage is defined as less than 100 litres per person per day being available in permanent, sustainable storage. The development economics of the past mostly ignored external costs and impacts, resulting in externalities, for example, the pollution of freshwater sources and degradation of the environment. Climate change introduced a further variable that threatens water security. The exact impact of climate change on water availability will unfold over the coming years, although it is generally accepted that weather events will become both more extreme and less predictable. The rate of change is not known, and the world’s population thus must adapt to ensure that water is aptly valued. Various estimates have been made on what an uncertain future will look like, modelling possible impacts of climate change. It is estimated that at least 700 million people could be displaced by 2030 as a result of water scarcity, and that the number of urbanites suffering seasonal water shortage in the year 2000 will nearly quadruple to 1.9 billion by 2050 (McDonald et al. 2011). For utilities, this means that resilience needs to be built into in their water supply systems. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were adopted in 2015 by the United Nations as a set of integrated and interdependent goals to map a pathway to a desirable future for the world (Sachs 2012). Water is prominent in SDG 6, as well as several other SDGs, and connects with all the goals at every geographic level through economies, ecosystems, and social systems. The value of water lies not only in its being essential for the survival of life, but it is at the core of the global development agenda. Water is critical for: • the survival of natural ecosystems; • improving the lived experience of all through providing sufficient food, energy and economic security; • climate change mitigation and adaptation, and • spiritual and aesthetic value. The principal goal of SDG 6 is to ensure the availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all. While significant progress has been made since the adoption of the SDGs in 2015, it is estimated that worldwide, 2.2 billion people still lack safely managed drinking water while 4.2 billion lack safely managed sanitation (United Nations, UN-Water 2017). A significant gap exists, to varying degrees around the world, between policy and implementation, which hampers the achievement of this, as well as other SDGs It is recognised that there is scope for

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improvement in transparency (including information availability and accessibility), accountability (predicated by good corporate governance and appropriate regulatory mechanisms) and stakeholder participation (accessing broad involvement and meaningful input in decision-making) in achieving the desirable future envisaged by the SDGs. It is further recognised that the capacity of both skilled human and financial resources in many cases are wholly insufficient to design and implement solutions to meet the targets. South Africa has data for at least one indicator for seven out of the eight of the targets related to SDG 6. The only one lacking in indicators is the “support of local engagement in water and sanitation management” (United Nations, UN-Water SDG 6 Data Portal 2021). These measurements provide a useful indication of progress made, but at community level, achieving national targets does not compensate for poor services. When averaging countrywide, South Africa performs well, especially compared with other countries in the region. For example, by 2017, 95% of the population was using drinking water services with only a fraction of urban users relying on unimproved and limited water services. Similarly, for sanitation, only an estimated 1% of the population do not have access to any sanitation. Improving living standards globally requires transformation of societies and services, and a multiplicity of tools are likely to be required to achieve this aspirational goal, none more so than resilience. Cape Town’s Environmental Strategy had long had a vision to “enhance, protect and manage Cape Town’s natural and cultural resources for long-term prosperity”, a vision that was assimilated into the City’s policy framework over time (City of Cape Town 2017). The strategy had ambitious outcomes related to all municipal responsibilities. Expanding on this, and in parallel to the development of a water strategy, Cape Town developed a resilience strategy, both of which strategies were adopted in 2019. Building resilience is necessary in providing societies and cities that are robust to change (City of Cape Town 2019a, b). In 2017 Cape Town joined the network of the 100 Resilient Cities network initiative, sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation. Membership entailed funding of the position of chief resilience officer, support for development of a resilience strategy and possibly most importantly, the opportunity to network and share knowledge with global cities on resilience. While the original organisation of the 100 Resilient Cities ceased to exist in 2019, the initiative lives on in the cities that participated, with additional funding provided to support continuance of the cities incubated in the process. Resilience is the ability of societies, economies, and human as well as natural systems to respond and adapt to shocks and stresses and to transform when conditions call for it. Resilience requires addressing risks and underlying causes of vulnerability in an integrated way. In water supply, climate change impacts are expected to increase the frequency and intensity of both droughts and flood events. To provide a level of assurance similar to that historically achieved, redundancy in supply sources would, for example, make a water supply system more resilient. But such resilience must be viewed as part of a whole: being prepared for the impact of concurrent stresses and other shocks may render ineffective the capacity of an

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Fig. 2.1  Steenbras Lower Dam (to the left) and Upper Dam (to the right)

institutional response to being ineffective. Resilience needs to be designed into all systems and strategies related to water for a robust regional water supply to exist. For all its existence, Cape Town has been served by surface water, captured in dams and reservoirs as runoff from rainfall. Steenbras Lower Dam was completed as far back as 1921 (see Fig. 2.1). Over time restrictions were always implemented during drought, creating some awareness of the value of water, which has not necessarily been abundant in the region. When the first of this set of years of low rainfall occurred in Cape Town in 2015, this was not necessarily unexpected. The water supply system had experienced several periods of drought since its inception, the latest being from 2001 to 2005 with below average rainfall for four out of the five years. Prior to this, the late-1970s had seen a similar drought when four out of five years had rainfall far below average. The water supply system was designed to accommodate such multi-year droughts within the available capacity and assurance of supply, by adhering to the system’s operating rules. Rainfall across the region had always been variable and water restrictions were the main, tried and tested mechanism imposed in times of drought. Repeated droughts in the Western Cape have thus sensitized the population to value water, and droughts occurred frequently enough for it not to be a distant generational memory. On climate change, the international media has been reporting higher average temperatures virtually every year, a message which easily resonates with Capetonians especially in the peak hot, dry summer season at the beginning of every year. Runaway veldfires on surrounding mountain slopes are common during this period, as are fires in informal settlements. With a landscape parched after months of nearly no rainfall and temperatures reaching the high thirties (degrees Celsius), it sometimes seems as if Cape Town could spontaneously combust, and the hope that winter rainfall brings seems very far away indeed. Price and value are often confused. The price is what one pays for an item while the value is what you get from it, in other words, what it is worth to you. Water pricing in South Africa has historically not reflected the true cost of water. Water and

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sanitation tariff are linked, and tariff increases are very much determined by affordability. This is aligned to water being a human right but does not help in how the provision of water is funded. Increasing tariffs at rates above inflation is discouraged. Furthermore, that water has a low unit cost and is provided in bulk has the psychological impact that it is easy to provide and should therefore be cheap. As a utility, water is generally much cheaper than others, such as electricity, or broadband. In winter rainfall regions, times of water shortage occur in hot summer months, and locals are naturally likely to value water more highly, using tap water more sparingly. The main aim is not necessarily to save on water bills but simply to use less water, since it intuitively feels right to do so. But in the heat, more water is used to keep cool, keep plants alive, and top-up swimming pools. When dams are full, this happens with no restriction. With restrictions imposed, the local culture in Cape Town has developed into one where neighbours are likely to report water wasters, in the spirit of the common good, fairness and the view that restrictions apply to all. In the more affluent leafy suburbs, many households maintain pristine neatly clipped rolling green lawns even in the heat of summer and watered with municipal supplies. Historically, the water tariff was structured around higher consumption coming at a higher cost, and so subsidising water provided by the utility free of charge, specifically to households not able to afford to pay (see Sect. 3.2.2). The City’s operations relied on such high consumption in the stepped tariff to balance revenue and expenditure, and as long as such higher-consumption households paid their accounts and adhered to restricted watering hours, the system worked. How water is valued varies amongst households with different incomes, living standards, and cultural beliefs. Valuing water appropriately is a shared responsibility that requires profound societal change. As a finite resource, water must be respected and valued across the water cycle and used wisely. The United Nations’ High-Level Panel on Water recommends five principles in its initiative on appropriately valuing water, “to sustainably, efficiently and inclusively allocate and manage water resources, and to deliver and price water services accordingly” (United Nations High Level Panel on Water 2018). These principles require: • • • •

that water’s multiple values be both recognised and embraced; that trust is built to reconcile values, especially when making trade-offs. that water sources be protected from exploitation and pollution. that education on the value of water be improved to empower people to participate in ensuring sustainable and holistic design of the urban fabric, and • that adequate investment be made in all phases of infrastructure development while innovation is encouraged to enhance benefits and reduce risks. On valuing water according to the above principles, our own progress is lacking in South Africa, not for need of effort in at least some instances. Since 1994 government has required that public participation form an integral part of all development to ensure the equitable distribution of benefits. Despite this, trust between the state and the people is very low. Environmental legislation is world class in defining how to protect water sources from exploitation and pollution, but the capacity to

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implement projects and monitor compliance to legislation is lacking. Furthermore, complex interactions can result in pollution not being attributable to a single entity that may be held accountable. Even though South Africa is not classified as a poor country, public resources appear to be insufficient to meet the demands of providing or maintaining sufficient infrastructure to serve the population. One small glimmer of hope is that more financial resources will be available to be applied effectively once the scourge of corruption is halted. The South African Constitution (Act 108 of 1996) entrenches access to water as a human right Through participation in the United Nations High Level Panel on Water, South Africa also recognises both water and sanitation as a human right (Republic of South Africa 1996). In the municipal context, South Africa treats water as a human right, in providing some water free of charge. From a distribution viewpoint, not every household has an individual water connection but has access to water, through shared water points. Countries such as Bangladesh, India, New Zealand, and Columbia have gone a step further, by passing laws to grant rights to certain water bodies and rivers to promote sustainability. The movement is premised on granting the natural environment with the legal right to “exist, flourish and naturally evolve”. The consequences of attributing rights to the natural environment may not be readily evident, and in a perfect world, it should not be required for us to realise the importance of valuing water. From a utility management viewpoint, additional policies and legislation almost always stifles implementation. We should ideally be able to manage and live within the environment with the appropriate level of care, without requiring ever more stringent legislative prescripts. We have unfortunately not evolved sufficiently into such an ideal world, so in the interim we will need to find the best mechanisms to support both human well-being and environmental protection. Good legislation should not hamper responsible development, but should recognise the complexity, as well as the necessity for integrated solutions. Infrastructure development always needs to take a long view, acknowledging that it is costly, and when well considered, rarely quick to implement. Rural water cycle management has very different challenges to those in urban areas. Decentralised responsibility for water supply in remote, sparsely populated regions is likely to be more sustainable, whereas in urban areas, water supply, treatment, reticulation, and wastewater management are at such a large scale that bulk services are justified for reasons of economy of scale, quality assurance and efficiency. This does not mean that urban residents should not take some responsibility for ensuring water security. Our attitude towards water as a scarce resource must change to appropriately value water at an individual level. And individual action eventually accumulates to major change. A change is required, to consciously valuing water, not only direct use, but also that of embedded water. Many industries originated before water became a valued commodity, when the environment was not considered in processes and resulting effluent streams. While legislation has led to improvements over time, such improvement comes at a cost, providing further challenges in balancing economic well-­ being with environmental stewardship. With water scarcity in the spotlight, we have

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no option but to redesign the human relationship with water. At household scale, building codes can be written to ensure improved household water efficiency. This can span from rainwater harvesting, permeable pavements allowing aquifer recharge, water efficient fittings, and grey-water systems, amongst other measures. Currently many of these interventions have a lengthy payback period, since water is not that expensive, and regulation is required to ensure implementation. Retrofitting is somewhat harder to enforce, given affordability, especially in a country like South Africa. However, the benefits of retrofitting should not be underestimated and need to be encouraged. Human evolution has been influenced by the parallel development of economic systems. The bottled water industry is one of the more bizarre of human endeavours and one that has been hugely successful. Some bottled water is in fact bottled at source, at natural springs as advertised, and may contain a mineral balance beneficial to human health. But many brands of bottled water have municipal tap water as their source, with some sort of additives or process, and marketed as improved, or beneficial to health. The water footprint and logistics involved in getting bottled water from source to customer is greatly variable, estimated to be as little as 1.4 times, or as much as seven times or more than the volume of water in the bottle. This may be less than the water footprint of other beverages, but, if potable water is efficiently reticulated by local authorities, then bottled water will always be less efficient and more environmentally damaging than providing potable water reticulated to where it is needed. On top of the volume of water used in producing bottled water, for an industry that has successfully spread across the planet, the carbon footprint of manufacturing plastic bottles, transporting these, and eventually disposing of bottles is enormous. Billions of plastic bottles are sold every year, and even with accessible recycling in place, much of this ends up in landfill. More so in developing countries. A further consideration is cost. The cost of bottled water is far higher than that of tap water, by orders of magnitude. In Cape Town, the tariff in 2020 for the first 6000 litres of water used per household was R17.37 per kilolitre, or 1.74 cents per litre. Contrast this with the typical cost of R10 for 500 ml of bottled water. Bottled water currently costs 1150 times as much as tap water! It seemed ironic that even people who protested that the Cape Town water tariff was prohibitively high were often willing to pay so much more for cleverly marketed bottled water. It would be remiss of me not to mention sanitation in a conversation on valuing water. During the drought, it landed with many residents that flushing a toilet with potable water is a careless waste of a scarce resource. Using even more than ten litres of potable water in older toilet cisterns, to flush a single visit to the loo into the sewer system, there to be blended with black water and treated at wastewater treatment works, cannot possibly be seen as an effective way to value water. But flush toilets are the norm in a flush-and-forget society, and the notion of not being able to do this would horrify many developed nations. Worldwide, much research has been done in developing waterless toilets that don’t detract from the experience of abluting. These have not yet evolved to be mass-produced and rolled out at scale, but there is hope that in future, these applications would not be distributed only to

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developing countries without wastewater systems, but that they will be sought after even in the wealthiest of households. A final note on valuing water. Privatisation of utilities worldwide has been of great concern to many environmental and social activist groups. Different levels of privatisation are evident across the world, from fully privatised water utilities to water supply contracts through project finance. Cape Town municipality was accused of commodifying of water during the drought on two fronts: the proposal of desalinated water augmentation, and the installation of water management devices. I contend that privatisation was never on the agenda for management of water and sanitation, or any of the other utility services in Cape Town. Instead, with available resources never enough to cover municipal requirements, aspiring to better value, efficiency and equitable service delivery was the driver in designing novel solutions. The development of desalination plants is expensive compared with other water sources, and complex in achieving optimal quality and volumes of implemented plants. The preferred procurement mechanism worldwide is that of public private partnerships, sharing the risk and benefits of having experienced desalination experts produce water with offtake agreements to the user. The specifics of a desalination plant for Cape Town have not been finalised, but it is evident that the municipality does not have experience in design, development, construction, or operations of a large-scale plant. An offtake agreement is likely to offer the best value. This would introduce a new financing model into the mix of bulk water supply, but if done according to legislation, this does not amount to privatisation of municipal water. It will, however, increase the level of assurance of supply, as desalinated water is wholly independent of rainfall. On the matter of limiting residential flow through the installation of so-called water management devices, Cape Town took great care not to infringe individual rights. Even prior to the drought, these meters were used in meter replacement programmes at all residential properties and set to provide a fixed daily volume of water at indigent households. This allowed the provision of water at no cost to every household which was deemed not to be able to afford municipal services. For residents of informal settlements, communal taps that discharge water at no cost are provided. The reasons for not providing individual connections to informal households is elaborated on further in Sect. 3.2.5. Water has been privatised to varying degrees in many major economies, including the US, UK, and Australia. Since 2020, water has been traded on the Wall Street commodities futures market, meaning that its price will fluctuate in a similar way to gold and oil. Supporting this move is the argument of viewing water as an economic good, so that it will be used more responsibly, and better maintained more efficiently. But scarcity will increase water prices, to the progressive exclusion of those who can least afford it. Balancing our human right to water with trading as an economic good is truly an uncomfortable contradiction. South Africa is still fragile since the new democratic establishment came into being in 1994, and it has been vocally opposed to privatisation, sometimes to the arguable detriment of the national fiscus. Water is largely seen as a common good

References

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that needs to be equitably distributed to all, and at least in the medium term, it is unlikely to become a tradeable commodity. In my experience, professionals at the national DWS are vehemently opposed to water trading. However, there is a cost to providing water, and appropriately pricing water is essential in providing a sustainable water future in the whole of South Africa. We can attribute the appropriate value to water by interrogating our relationship with water, along with every aspect of our habits and institutions. Reimagining the entire water cycle is possible, but within the span of a crisis there is no time to implement a totally transformative water cycle. The 2015–2018 drought served to raise awareness of the value of water. But we need to go further. The concept of a water sensitive city embodies the ideology of the value of water: truly working with nature and aligning our use of water for a full range of purposes to ensure that no water is wasted. In its water strategy, Cape Town has set an ambitious goal of transforming to a water sensitive city by the year 2040. If this is achieved, it will be a victory for both the City and for water.

References City of Cape Town (2017) Environmental strategy for the City of Cape Town. Available at: https://resource.capetown.gov.za/documentcentre/Documents/Bylaws%20and%20policies/ Environmental%20Strategy.pdf. Accessed Jan 2021 City of Cape Town (2019a) Cape Town resilience strategy. Available at: https://resource.capetown. gov.za/documentcentre/Documents/city%20strategies%2C%20plans%20and%20frameworks/ Resilience_Strategy.pdf. Accessed Jan 2021 City of Cape Town (2019b) Our shared water future: Cape Town’s water strategy. Available at: https://resource.capetown.gov.za/documentcentre/Documents/City%20strategies,%20 plans%20and%20frameworks/Cape%20Town%20Water%20Strategy.pdf. Accessed Jan 2021 McDonald R, Green P, Balk D, Fekete B, Revenga C, Todd M (2011) Urban growth, climate change, and freshwater availability. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 108(15):6312–6317 Republic of South Africa (1996) Constitution of the Republic of South Africa No. 108 of 1996. Government Printer, Pretoria Sachs J (2012) From millennium development goals to sustainable development goals. Lancet 379:2206–2211 United Nations High Level Panel on Water (2018) Making every drop count: an agenda for water action. Available at: https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/17825HLPW_ Outcome.pdf. Accessed Jan 2021 United Nations, UN-Water (2017) WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme Progress on drinking water, sanitation and hygiene (2017) report. Available at: https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/258617/9789241512893-­eng.pdf;jsessionid=4B2C50B729B689CE509 6B374ACC24FF3?sequence=1. Accessed Jan 2021 United Nations, UN-Water SDG 6 Data Portal (2021). Available at: https://www.sdg6data.org/ country-­or-­area/south%20africa. Accessed Jan 2021 Wallace-Wells D (2019) The uninhabitable earth: a story for the future. Allen Lane, London

Chapter 3

Setting the Scene

All the water that will ever be is, right now. –National Geographic

Abstract  The South African system of water governance is well regulated through a cascade of legislation, policy and regulations, all newly drafted after the transition to an inclusive democracy in 1994. Legislation is comprehensive, progressive, inclusive and world-class, but the ability to implement has been eroded over time at a pace accelerated by the constant change required to transform society. As a metropolitan municipality, the City of Cape Town is better resourced than most others in the country, but resources do not stretch to meet all basic infrastructure needs and trade-offs are often politically focused on the most visible public priority. Systems had developed over many decades to comprehensively manage provision of water and sanitation services, including providing services to informal settlements and a complicated cost-reflective tariff structure. But by the start of the drought, strategy and policy had been centralised in the highest political office in the City, that of the mayor. Trust was in short supply, and the advice of technocrats was commonly dismissed as mere opinion unless it was perfectly aligned with the then prevailing ideology. The prevailing political environment plays a significant role in the response, public opinion, and ultimate outcomes in any crisis. This may seem self-evident, but my first-hand experience during the drought really drove the point home. The Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 (and beyond) provided a lived example of the influence of politics in times of crisis, where outcomes vary widely across the world in the absence of a country-specific response blueprint. Where the infection and death rates were high, political pressure and polarisation increased, as governments grappled with suitable lockdown responses to save lives without jeopardising livelihoods. Few countries have been spared criticism, and the eventual outcomes, not only on health but on the world economy, will only become fully evident in time.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 G. Kaiser, Parched - The Cape Town Drought Story, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78889-6_3

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3  Setting the Scene

The 2016 local government elections in Cape Town took place on 8 August, only three months before the US elections that saw Donald Trump elected as president. This was the beginning of a period where the entire leadership landscape changed— if not quite worldwide, then at least in several westernised countries that traditionally followed US culture to some degree. I count South Africa as such a country, and I believe that the tone set in the US had an impact even in the little microcosm I experienced in the City of Cape Town. Words matter. Specifically, politicians’ language matters. And the notion that the fish rots from the head down remains true—leadership characterises and changes organisational culture. That August, we entered a period when expertise was frequently vilified. A culture in which respect became a foreign concept, and where nuance was simply thrown out the window. If a black-and-white argument couldn’t be made in two minutes, it was mostly discounted. Even more baffling was the change in the world’s relationship with the truth in a time when anyone could accumulate thousands of followers spreading fake news on any number of social media platforms. Polarisation grew beyond proportion, tolerance diminished. Not only was it possible, but it was also common that the opinion of the person in power was the only one that mattered. No matter what the truth may have been. Political relationships are complicated and require much nurturing. Politics are at play in any large organisation, but in senior leadership within city government they play an overwhelmingly critical role. South African legislation is comprehensive in defining roles and relationships in government, but politics require compromise, and to compromise, one constantly needs to balance trade-offs. Trust is essential, but in my experience, it is in very short supply in political leadership. Politicians come and go while officials often remain in city employment for entire careers or at least many years. Building trust from scratch is arduous, if not impossible in many corporate instances. Goodwill does not start accumulating for many years, and one misstep can set months of positive impact back to zero. In well-established and evolved democracies, the relationships of trust may be slightly less important, more regulated, and better maintained. In South Africa, despite the gains made in nation building through interventions such as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, along with decades of transformative governance, trust is thin on the ground and citizens are alarmingly polarised. The relationship between government and the people is fragile, and even relationships within each sphere of government require intensive care. A breakdown in relationships of trust impacted heavily on the City’s response to the drought. This chapter explains the responsibility for the management of water by different spheres of government and within the City administration, and how these interactions in an environment with a trust deficit impacted on managing the drought.

3.1  Water Management in South African Government

23

3.1  Water Management in South African Government In terms of the South African National Water Act, Act 36 of 1998, national government is responsible for, and has authority over water resources, including the allocation, protection and use of water (Republic of South Africa 1998). Provincial government has no direct responsibility for the provision of water but has oversight through several departments. These include: • The Department of Local Government aims to support and strengthen the capacity of municipalities to manage their own affairs. This department is also ­responsible for disaster management. As such, it participated actively subsequent to the local and provincial disaster declarations. • The Department of Agriculture stimulates regional economic growth through research and support to the agricultural sector, a major water user in the province. With extreme restrictions on water during the drought, support was needed to manage job losses and improved efficiencies in agricultural practices. • The Department of Economic Development and Tourism seeks a vibrant economy in the province and supports business and industry to grow the economy and employment. The threat of literally running out of water alarmed many businesses to halt expansion plans and invest in alternative water supplies and efficiency measures. • The Department of Environmental Affairs and Development Planning safeguards the natural environment as the custodian of various approval processes, while supporting sustainable development by regulating development. Its role in the drought was amplified through approvals related to new augmentation schemes in terms of emergency drought conditions. In terms of the Water Services Act, Act 108 of 1997, municipalities are defined as water services authorities responsible for ensuring access to water services (Republic of South Africa 1997). Part B of Schedule 4 to the Constitution lists water and sanitation services limited to potable water supply systems, along with domestic wastewater and sewage disposal systems as local government matters (Republic of South Africa 1996). The City’s water bylaw defines the terms of the provision of water within the municipal area (City of Cape Town 2010). Most municipalities in South Africa purchase bulk water from water boards, whereas the City is also responsible for the provision and treatment of bulk water. As elaborated on elsewhere, Cape Town owns three of the six dams that comprise the Western Cape Water Supply System (WCWSS). The National Water Act was promulgated in 1998 and stipulates that processes and structures must include all water users and interested groups. At the time, the country was divided into 19 water management areas (WMAs). These were to be managed by catchment management agencies (CMAs), the goal being to establish an institutional framework of integrated water resources management to manage all water resources holistically and sustainably. The report guiding the establishment of

24

3  Setting the Scene

the Berg CMA was finalised in 2007, and with its footprint mostly overlapping the WCWSS. Boundaries of WMAs were originally determined in 1999 through a public participation process that considered natural hydrological boundaries, financial viability, institutional capacity, and interrelationships. CMAs would be responsible for managing water resources within each WMA and would involve local communities in doing so. Each CMA was expected to develop a catchment management strategy and then implement it. Functions that would evolve over some years would include processing water use licence applications, controlling water use, monitoring compliance, determining tariffs, billing, and revenue collection. The national department responsible for water would provide administrative oversight over CMAs. Other responsibilities affiliated to water departments have changed often over time to include and/or exclude forestry, sanitation, and human settlements. Of the 28 ministries in South Africa in 2020, water currently falls under the responsibility of the ministry of human settlements, water, and sanitation. As such, it does not appear that water and sanitation management is seen as much of a priority to the current government leadership. Prior to 1994, the state typically did not consult with the public on goods and services and implemented projects on the recommendations of internal advisors to serve the country’s misguided apartheid strategies. This paved the way for easy implementation and engineering excellence, but was certainly not equitable, transparent, or socially just. Nonetheless, government departments such as Water Affairs had a proud engineering history to uphold and aspired to maintain world-class water resource management standards. While there was already a concern about lack of skilled technical staff to manage the country’s water resources back in the 1980s, engineering logic was sound, aligned with international best practice and the potential impact of poor decisions was recognised for their consequences even generations down the line (Department of Water Affairs 1986). Moreover, the social impact, and benefits of public participation was already recognised many years prior to 1994. With the new Constitution and the promise of providing for all South Africa’s people, broad engagement through public participation was the new norm. This was new territory and as such posed some challenges in all manner of government services. It also ran the risk of overlap and engagement process fatigue. Public participation on the establishment of the Berg CMA overlapped with that of the WCWSS reconciliation strategy, and while the architects of the programme may have understood the distinctions clearly, the benefits of public engagement may have been less than optimal at the time. Stakeholder mobilisation for the Berg CMA began in 2005 and the proposal for its establishment was built on numerous engagements over a two-year period. By 2012, only two of the 19 proposed CMAs were operational (Inkomati and Breede-­ Overberg) countrywide, with a further six having been gazetted. Delays were attributed largely to the lack of institutional capacity and financial viability. At this time, a priority activity moving forward included developing a business case for each CMA.  In February 2016, the Minister of national DWS gazetted the proposal to

3.2  Cape Town Metropolitan Municipality

25

establish the Berg-Olifants CMA (Department of Water and Sanitation 2016a). Rationalisation of the number of WMAs was confirmed in the gazette in September 2016 (see Fig.  3.1), consolidating 19 areas into nine and joining the Berg and Olifants WMAs into one (Department of Water and Sanitation 2016b). The WCWSS gets water from both the Berg-Olifants and Breede-Gouritz WMAs. In an environment of complete transformation and wholesale structural change such as the South African government experienced, specifically from 1994 to 2010 but even thereafter, mistakes were made, and lessons learned. Technical considerations often competed with social, political and governance realities for relevance. And this was not unique to water management, sometimes resulting in collateral damage (Meissner et al. 2016).

3.2  Cape Town Metropolitan Municipality South Africa has a population approaching 60 million and is classified as an upper-­ middle-­income country by the World Bank. It is currently ranked as the most unequal country in the world with a Gini coefficient of 0.63. While GDP is a poor measure of wellbeing, it is useful for purposes of context and comparison. In 2019, the country GDP was approximately $350 billion1 (which is less than 0.5% of the world total), with a per capita GDP approaching $7500, approximately midway

LEGEND New WMA Boundaries International Boundaries Western Cape Reconciliation Strategy Study Area

Proposed New WMA’s Limpopo Olifants Inkomati-Usuthu Pongola-Mtamvuna Vaal Major Orange Mzimvubu-Tsitsikamma Breede-Gouritz Berg-Olifants N

100

0

100

200 Km

Fig. 3.1  DWS water management areas (Department of Water and Sanitation n.d.)  All $ currency referred to is in US$.

1

26

3  Setting the Scene

down all countries measured. The world average is $14,400, and the median $5768 (World Bank 2018; Worldometers.info 2021). Cape Town is the second largest city in South Africa, home to an estimated 4.5 million people with a population growth rate of more than 2% per year. This is slightly less than the country populations of Ireland and New Zealand, and more than that of Croatia, Uruguay, Jamaica and Qatar. In fact, more than a 100 countries have a population of less than 4.5 million people. Cape Town Metropolitan Municipality covers an area of nearly 2500 km2 (~1000 m2). It is also a city with world-class aspirations. As a tourism destination, Cape Town often features at or close to the top of the list. But compared with the cities it aspires to compete with, it is far poorer and much more unequal. Around 40% of households are subsidised on their rates and utility bills. The per capita GDP in Cape Town is less than $20,000 while the Gini coefficient fluctuates slightly below 0.6, making it the least unequal metro in the country. This notwithstanding, society is deeply divided along poverty lines, and local government aspires to satisfy the needs of the poorest and most vulnerable while trying to create a world-class investment destination. Two very different cities are thus struggling to flourish under very disparate administrative approaches. This notwithstanding, Cape Town boasts being the best-run metropolitan administration in South Africa on any number of metrics. The City is governed by a City Council of more than 230 members (in 2020). The size of the municipal council depends on the registered number of voters and may not be more than 270 in the case of a metropolitan municipality (Republic of South Africa 2000). Subject to the provisions of Section 158 of the Constitution, which deals with conflict of interest, any citizen who is qualified to vote may stand as candidate for the municipal council. No formal or experiential qualification is required. Decision making on matters defined in Section 160 of the Constitution, including budget approval, requires that a report is submitted to the municipal council by the executive committee to recommend such approval in accordance with Section 30(5) (Republic of South Africa 1996). More than a 100 electoral wards each directly elect one member of council, while the balance is elected by a system of party-list proportional representation. Part 2, Section 54 of the Municipal Systems Act provides for the legitimacy, functions and powers of an executive mayor. Where a municipal council has more than nine members, such as at the City of Cape Town, a mayoral committee must be appointed to assist the executive mayor execute functions in accordance with Section 60. The mayoral committee (Mayco) consists of the deputy mayor and the lesser of 20% or ten councillors, referred to as Mayco members. Each Mayco member has a portfolio corresponding to one of the directorates in the structure of the administration (Republic of South Africa 2000). The City manager is the non-political head of the administration of the metropolitan municipality. This is a recruited professional who reports to the executive mayor. The administration is divided into a number of directorates that can change over time to align with City strategy. Each directorate is headed by an executive director appointed in terms of the Municipal Systems Act Section 57, on a fixed

3.2  Cape Town Metropolitan Municipality

27

five-year performance contract, who serves on the City’s executive management team. Directors comprise the next management level, each in charge of a department. Level Three comprises close to 250 managers reporting to directors, with more than 500 heads reporting at level four. Overall, the City staff establishment numbered approximately 27,400 members (in 2018) to deliver municipal services to Cape Town. The City manager and executive directors are accountable in law for the functioning of the municipality. Legislation is extensive, and all executives have to prove their competence by completing a national treasury qualification under the Municipal Finance Management Act (Republic of South Africa National Treasury 2003). The five-year contract appointment of executive directors allows for the new political leadership to appoint professionals they trust to implement their political mandate. A potential benefit to five-year fixed term appointments is the introduction of new energy and innovation but it also has the potential disadvantage of destabilising a City’s administrative leadership should too many of the team be replaced. Individual municipalities may choose to replace executives even if they are meeting all their performance targets. The contracts of those executives serving a second term in Cape Town in 2017 were amended to confirm that they would not have to apply for their posts after five years, as long as they met their performance targets. At the time of appointment in December 2016, this applied to me, the CFO, and the executive directors of Safety and Security, and the Transport and Urban Development Authority. In short, keeping the balance, assigning responsibility and exercising accountability among elected councillors and appointed officials can be difficult to navigate. Elected representatives do not need formal qualifications or experience for the attributes their political party expects them to have. Appointed officials, on the other hand, are recruited in a defined, transparent process, and are required to meet pre-­ determined criteria in terms of educational qualifications and proven experience. Officials and councillors have to work closely together, but with very different responsibilities. By law, politicians may not be involved in any type of procurement or commissioning outside of their responsibility. The interaction between politicians and officials was summed up succinctly by the mayor of Nelson Mandela Bay at the time in 2017: “Councillors and officials need to work together like train tracks, enabling the train to move in the right direction. Should the tracks cross or veer apart, the system becomes dysfunctional.” Mayors and councillors are elected by citizens and therefore need to deliver on the mandate they held when canvassing for election. In contrast, City managers and officials are sometimes seen as “dispassionate organisation-and-management specialists” (Barber 2014). In law, the functions are very different, but in practice, it is not always black and white. Personally, I was fortunate to have developed good working relationships with the Mayco members responsible for utility services, including water, during my service to the City. We managed to establish relationships of trust, so critical in such a fraught and highly charged environment. Such relationships are rare at this level, with most politicians favouring a transactional type of black-and-white method of work, which rarely serves the public good. Good

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politicians require great moral courage to stick to their principles in times of conflict. Serving the public good in an environment of overwhelming conflict and toxicity requires real commitment, especially of those who have options beyond politics. Compromise is part of the political process, and what the party decides, goes— everyone has to go along with the decision once taken. I was somewhat surprised when I encountered the same attitude at an executive meeting shortly before leaving the City. It was not something I could easily adopt after a career of thinking independently and being allowed to retain a professional opinion in conflict with the majority. In this instance, I was expected to unequivocally support and promote a decision made by the executive team which I was not comfortable with. I found that being able to speak honestly with my Mayco members and chart tactics to achieve outcomes was invaluable in surviving the stressed environment. In 2004, the City of Cape Town adopted the executive mayoral system. In this system of governance, the mayor is responsible for tabling the annual budget at Council. After 2011, the interpretation from the mayor’s office was that the executive mayor should centralise power in her office, since it carried the democratic mandate of the people (Olver 2019). In my experience, with previous administrative terms, the mayor usually respected and accepted advice from seasoned officials, whereas her office now grew to include a number of strategic functions, including policymaking. Furthermore, to ensure that the administration was aware of strategy being centralised in her office, she instituted a process that wherever the word ‘strategy’ appeared in the city structure or individual job title, it be removed. This left officials the tasks of merely implementing strategy and policy which was an uncomfortable space to occupy for senior management. After all, we were qualified and experienced to develop strategy and not simply follow blindly whatever was imposed from the top down. The result of centralising everything that determined strategy was that with increasing frequency, the mayor often stated incorrectly that she was the accounting officer, a role that was patently that of the city manager, by law. The City administration had for many years been operating as a large bureaucracy with multiple layers of authority and a complex system of delegations. In 2011, the new political leadership expressed immense frustration at how long every process took, which created a perception that growth and progress was hampered, and delivery not prioritised. By centralising policy in the mayor’s office, it was hoped that things could be better controlled, accelerated and integrated. In my view, the lack of experience and knowledge of how the administration worked, posed a significant risk in forcing such large-scale change. Municipal governance and service delivery is a multi-layered, complex undertaking. Careful consideration and unpacking of unintended consequences were common practice for experienced officials, but now this was seen as a waste of time, and worse yet, that many of us were trying to hold the City back. Furthermore, complex environments require fluidity of thought. Jumping to conclusions when dealing with long-term planning decisions is not useful and the consequences could be lasting and unaffordable. Playing the long game is not only advantageous but a requirement in managing utilities. With political leadership potentially changing every five years, officials have to protect strategy and

3.2  Cape Town Metropolitan Municipality

29

infrastructure plans by always considering the long term. This requires a principled approach, relying on institutional memory, technical expertise and history. Infrastructure works as a system, and large systems such as exist in Cape Town cannot (and should not) be changed overnight. When parameters change and new information comes to light, we were always willing to reconsider options and choose the best available. This was contrary to the mindset of insisting on being right which was the political stance. For example, once a media statement was made, it was virtually impossible to turn it around and the administration had no option but to move mountains to make it true. There was thus a natural conflict between my directorate and the mayor’s office. The methodical, traditional, rational approach to making decisions in managing water and sanitation had little appeal, and we were pressured to change, and do things differently. The City had not been structured to accommodate the interpretation that strategy was entirely within the ambit of political leadership, and in 2015, the mayor’s office embarked on the Organisational Development and Transformation Plan (ODTP) and obtained the approval of Council to do so. ODTP formed part of the template of the five-year Integrated Development Plan as providing the structure of how the City would implement the Integrated Development Plan strategy. This was used as the mandate for restructuring. The original principles of the ODTP were sound and many of us were excited to change what needed to be changed. The ODTP was finalised in 2016 for implementation on 1 January 2017 (see Sect. 5.3).

3.2.1  Water in the City of Cape Town Administration While national legislation evolved, local government was similarly suffering through a process of dramatic and repeated change in structure, leadership, geographic boundaries and organisational culture. Changes in local government affected the water and sanitation department, but the functions of water management remained under the umbrella of water and sanitation and concomitant operational areas. Consolidation of a large number of small municipalities, first into a reduced number of administrative areas, and finally into the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality required integration of administration and infrastructure. Resolving the technical details was impossibly complicated, but certainly not more so than those of human resources transformation. Internal organisational restructuring was also (and continues to be) a repeated process, with efforts towards consistency across municipalities nationally, as well as in an effort to improve efficiency, right-­ size the organisation and reduce costs. The Department of Water and Sanitation was the largest department in the City (in 2018), measured by the size of its staff complement at more than 4000 employees. It was second only to the electricity department in operational budget, mainly due to the high cost of energy purchased from Eskom. And during the drought, the bulk of the capital budget was moved to new water infrastructure in the department. Compared with other municipalities and City departments, the utility services

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3  Setting the Scene

departments had been fortunate in retaining and attracting good engineering skills. Many aspects of utility services, which included water and sanitation operations, were maintained at world-class standard, while other shared corporate services suffered from delayed transformation, largely as the result of a lack of resources. Overall, compared with other departments in the City and other municipalities, the City’s water and sanitation department fared exceptionally well as evidenced by measures such as national DWS’s erstwhile Blue Drop, No Drop and Green Drop assessments. Blue Drop and Green Drop certification was introduced by DWS in 2008, measuring the most important indicators for sustainable water and wastewater management respectively. The No Drop programme was introduced in 2012, measuring water loss, use per capita, and so on. Cape Town also consistently outperformed other metropolitan municipalities in the Municipal Strategic Self-Assessment undertaken annually, along the same focus areas as the various ‘Drop’ programmes. This annual assessment covers 18 key business areas with five strategic questions per attribute, from financial and asset management to staff capacity, customer care and performance measures on water and sanitation services (Department of Water and Sanitation 2019). The change in local government since 1994 has been fundamental. City engineer departments were subsumed into administrations with service delivery that lagged behind in massive corporate machinations. Much has been written about transformation in the public service and I don’t wish to dwell on it here. However, I would like to highlight particular aspects that added to the general challenge of providing basic services to a city such as Cape Town. Local government provides a diverse range of services, and the proximity to people and problems becomes all the more challenging in light of scarce resources. Budgets and staff numbers have grown significantly with much of the administration required to run the administration itself. Over time, with audit reports and compliance becoming ever more important, the administrative burden has grown, leading to significant growth in reporting and corporate services staff. Metropolitan municipalities have large spans of control with limited resources, and implementing municipal mandates perfectly is by nature challenging, best efforts notwithstanding. With the growing burden of compliance, there is no option to expand processes and staffing structures with more administrators, while in the field, physical infrastructure expansion and maintenance is stagnant. This change to prioritise compliance at any cost, and centralisation of compliance related processes, has resulted in executives often having little control over their ambit of accountability, yet being fully accountable by law. Against the backdrop with much of the focus on corporate compliance, it was often impossible to influence the course of policy at executive level, even when the new policy direction was likely to have a negative impact on the City’s operations in service delivery. My directorate employed more than a third of the staff of the entire administration, so every policy decision on human resources, for example, affected me much more than the other directorates. Swamped with paperwork that needed opinions, decisions and signatures, and dealing directly with communities on service delivery had its challenges.

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I am naturally drawn to establishing relationships of trust and treating everyone with respect. I did my utmost to make sure that my staff were aware that they were both trusted and accountable. The City, in later years, relied increasingly on process rather than content or trust, where people were mere numbers who didn’t merit respect and could easily be replaced. Over time, it is my belief that this eroded much of the goodwill and efficiency that had been established in the outwardly focused departments such as utilities.

3.2.2  Water Finance Since finance played such a significant role during the drought, particularly from a revenue collection and demand management perspective, this section elaborates on how water finance functions to provide the necessary background to the City’s drought story. In South Africa, the Reconstruction and Development Programme initiated the transformation in water provision in 1994. It articulated a short-term aim to provide every person with adequate supply to satisfy health requirements. This translated to 20–30 litres per person per day within 200 metres of where they lived (Department of Water Affairs and Forestry 2003). The Constitution entrenched the right to “have access to sufficient food and water” in 1996. This was followed in 1997 by the Water Services Act, which stated, “everyone has a right of access to basic water supply and basic sanitation”. The Water Services regulations of 2001 stipulated “a minimum quantity of potable water of 25  litres per capita per day (lcd) or 6  kl/ month per household” within 200 metres of the household (Republic of South Africa 1997). These guidelines and prescriptions resulted in most municipalities, including Cape Town, providing six kilolitres per household free to each and every household, irrespective of affordability. The outcome was that while someone like me clearly should not have been subsidised, my water and sanitation bill was usually at zero cost, being a water-wise user with a smallish property. Only in the 2017/2018 financial year was a volumetric charge introduced for the first six kilolitres for non-indigent households. Local government legislation requires utility services to be both ring-fenced and cost-reflective: • All revenue from a utility that is ring-fenced has to be applied toward providing only that service and no other services. It also cannot be transferred to or from the rates account. Contributions from one service to another is possible, to cover specific costs; • The budget is cost-reflective in that the anticipated revenue has to balance the planned expenditure in any given year. Therefore, the price charged for water is the overall cost of providing water to the consumer. Whereas property rates pay for common services, utility tariffs usually have a volumetric component proportional to consumption. Common services covered by

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3  Setting the Scene

the rates component include roads, parks, libraries, clinics and so on. Theoretically, this enables the user to decide how much of the utility to use and pay for at the actual cost of providing the utility service. In an effort to provide a progressive tariff structure, a stepped tariff for residential properties was introduced as part of the City’s Water Conservation and Water Demand Management Strategy (WCWDM) in 2007 (City of Cape Town 2007). The objective was to encourage water conservation while generating sufficient revenue. Six different tariff steps were instituted across various restriction levels. The stepped tariff was designed to provide water at below cost for basic use, with progressively higher costs for high use to cross-subsidise the under-recovery at basic usage. For example, households with large lawns and pools would use more water but would also be able to afford to pay higher municipal bills, thus subsidising the below-cost price for basic use. The tariff structure changed a few times during the drought, as reflected in Table 3.1. Changes are highlighted in bold. From July 2017, households that could pay were charged for the first 6 kl/month for the first time. In wet years, consumption typically reduced, and the department had been motivating for some time to introduce a fixed charge to compensate for the notable weather-related fluctuation in revenue. A fixed charge should ideally cover the total cost of the fixed components in the system, such as fixed costs of bulk and reticulation infrastructure, which all had to function irrespective of the volume of water sold. The decrease in revenue during the drought provided stark evidence that a fixed charge was necessary to ensure a more sustainable service. The fixed charge tariff approved was equivalent to approximately a quarter of the fixed cost to provide water. The intent was to increase this over time to be closer to cost reflective. Until mid-2017, the City had three restriction tariffs, providing for a reduction in consumption of 10%, 20% and 30% at Levels 1, 2 and 3, respectively. In the 2017/2018 budget process, the City added a Level 4 restriction tariff to be introduced from 1 July 2017. At the time, it was not foreseen that further restriction tariffs would be required. But because the rainfall of 2017 was at a record low, further restriction tariffs proved to be needed and levels five, six and seven were introduced

Table 3.1  Domestic water tariff structure during the drought Step 1 Step 2a Step 3 Step 4 Step 5 Step 6 FCb Levels

Up to 30 June 2017 (KL/Month) ≤6: Free 6–10.5: Below cost 10.5–20: Cost reflective 20–35: Conservation 35–50: Conservation ≥50: Conservation None 1, 2 and 3

No cost to indigent Fixed charge

a

b

2017/18 (KL/Month) ≤6: Below cost 6–10.5: Below cost 10.5–20: Cost reflective 20–35: Conservation 35–50: Conservation ≥50: Conservation None 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7

2018/19 (KL/Month) ≤6: Below cost 6–10.5: Basic use 10.5–35: Above basic use ≥35: Conservation N/A N/A % of fixed cost 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5

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at Council at the end of January 2018, in line with a special enabling directive from the Minister of Finance. In July 2018, the tariff structure changed significantly. The stepped tariff was simplified and reduced from six steps to four, moving the conservation tariff from a volume above 50–35 kl/month. The number of restriction levels was set at five, based on our experience of the drought. The three levels in place for the decade prior to the drought proved insufficient to deal with the severe drought. But the seven restriction levels developed during the worst of the drought in 2017/2018 were not practical. To provide for similar droughts in the future, five levels—using modelling developed in the drought—should suffice. To determine the price, the anticipated volume to be sold had to be established for each step and at each restriction level. The higher use steps initially subsidised the cost of providing free—and later, subsidised—water to all customers. Domestic use accounted for 70% of water use during 2017, commercial use 13.5% and industry 4.2%. The major scope for demand reduction therefore resided with domestic customers. Non-domestic customers are referred to as ICI customers (industrial, commercial and institutional). We had in the region of 13,000 commercial, and 4500 industrial customers at the time. The tariff for ICI consumers had been a flat volumetric rate for many years—that means that the same rate is charged per kilolitre irrespective of volume consumed. The premise for this is that ICI customers have a profit motive and thus will maximise profits by reducing costs. As the cost of utilities increase, efficiencies are identified and realised to minimise the cost. The ICI tariff is slightly higher than the overall cost of providing water, thereby further subsidising domestic users who cannot afford to pay. ICI customers cover the total cost of providing water to their property boundary, which is not subsidised depending on affordability or volume of use. A last important aspect about how Cape Town’s finance’s function that bears attention is that approximately 40% of households did not pay for water and sanitation at all (2018). This subsidisation is managed through water metering, explained in the next section. The overall pricing structure has to cover expenditure related to households that do not pay. In other words, the revenue that comes from the 60% of households that pay, along with ICI customers, and the grant subsidy from national treasury to assist poor households, must cover all expenditure on the water and sanitation services to the metropolitan region.

3.2.3  Water Metering Water management devices (WMDs), or flow limiters, were first mooted in the 2007 Water Conservation and Water Demand Management Strategy approved by Council in April 2007. A flow limiter is an electronic flow valve with a programmable control unit that is connected to a normal water meter. The flow limiter can control the volume of water used every day by preventing flow once the volume is reached and allowing flow from a specific time the next day. In the case of Cape Town, a decision

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was taken by Council in the late 2000s to install water management devices at all residential properties, and to set a flow limit to 10.5 kl a month or 350 litres a day at qualifying indigent households to allow for the management of water consumption within affordability levels. All such WMDs were set to activate at four in the morning, irrespective of when the volume may have been depleted during the previous day. The decision to limit flow was not without merit. In theory, it provided 350 litres of daily free water to households deemed indigent—those who could not afford to pay for water. A programme was developed quickly to implementation so that benefits could be accrued, and in principle, it was well-intended to assist vulnerable households. The definition of indigent in the City changes from time to time since the limit depends on either property value or household income. Many households received ever-escalating monthly bills without paying, and unlikely ever to be able to afford the accumulated arrears. The process thus entailed identifying such households with high debt flowing from high consumption due to leaks on the property, and as a once off, writing off the debt, fixing all leaks on the property, and then installing and setting the WMD to provide 350 litres a day. The average household size is known to vary widely, and while typically fewer than four people make up a household, as per the national census, low-income households are often far larger. At the World Health Organisation (WHO) recommended minimum of 50 litres per person per day, the WMD approach automatically provided for seven people per household (Howard and Bartram 2003). The strategy to move to installing WMDs in all households is said to have been political, though I was not at the City at the time. Having such devices installed would make debt management easier, should a customer stop paying at a point in time. WMDs technology is not as well entrenched as that of conventional water meters. These have historically been manufactured to measure flow, and last for many years—although the lifespan of a water meter is not infinite, and over time, readings may become less accurate and eventually cease. A WMD, on the other hand, typically needs to perform an action twice a day, by opening up in the morning, and shutting down once the allocation is reached. A battery is required for these actions to take place and depending on the frequency of opening and closing required, the lifespan is limited. Early-generation meters had a fatal flaw in that the battery could not be replaced without the entire unit being replaced. The scale of the meter-replacement programme meant that it was attractive to new players in the market, often without much experience. The City had more than 600,000 meters in the field and a peak budget in the region of R300 million a year for the meter replacement programme. Politically, the programme was not without contention even prior to the drought, with some social justice organisations arguing this system to be unconstitutional. My scorecard reflected that water meters had to be read at least once in three months, with a target of 84% of meters to be read monthly. In practice we aimed to read all meters every month. Implementation of a new handheld electronic system had improved performance in reducing the number of implausible readings, but the data still had to be downloaded into the City’s internal software system (SAP) and

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verified. Meters are read in 20 batches across Cape Town, corresponding with approximately 20 working days in a month. On any given day, one meter may be newly read while another may be a month old. Add to this the size of the metropolitan area (~2500 km2), inclement weather, gang violence, access problems (such as aggressive dogs and physical obstructions), providing accurate and verified real-­ time consumption data is challenging.

3.2.4  Transformation and Legislative Reform The apartheid system was abhorrent in its exclusion based on race. Nepotism and favouritism flourished unchecked, and government procurement was anything but transparent. Transforming into a new way of working required major transformation at every level. Prior to 1994, the town clerk was responsible for the administrative side, and the city engineer took charge of the municipal responsibility of providing basic utility services and physical infrastructure. Over the past three to four decades, local government has been totally transformed globally, not so much focusing on operational imperatives, but rather in grappling with how to change the world one city at a time (Barber 2014). The executive mayoral system was aligned with this school of thought and provided for direction to be set politically. Legislation guiding all aspects of municipal governance was carefully crafted to ensure a society transformed. It was not an easy transition, and by all accounts, most municipalities in South Africa are still struggling to deliver on their mandate. Of course, the evolution is a necessary one, and change takes time, because people are notoriously stubborn in changing their minds and ways. Forcing change sometimes works, but it is usually better to take everyone along in achieving a common understanding of why change is necessary. So, it will take time and effort to transform to a professionalised public service that can be trusted to work in the public interest in every instance. Transformative legislation has had a strong focus on governance and compliance. For example, the Auditor General (AG) of South Africa is charged with reporting how government spends taxpayers’ money. The fact that corruption has been rife over the past two decades is common cause, and the AG is continuously adding checks and balances to better monitor process and identify foul play. For an institution such as the City that holds clean governance in high regard, the notion of a qualified audit or disclaimer is not palatable, and every effort is made to fully comply with all the rules. The impact of ever-changing rules and regulations is felt most keenly by departments that implement projects and run operations. Logically, these then also have the largest budgets and staff numbers. South Africa has a brilliant constitution and remarkable legislation, but implementation capability lags. The tendency for corporate, administrative process staff to have authority over built-environment professionals in infrastructure procurement is one example which has resulted in

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slow-down of implementation (Watermeyer and Phillips 2020). At a city level, this often presented as the process department (for example supply chain management) having full control of project advancement without any regard for the actual project content or urgency. In response, the project owner in the engineering department had little option but to programme in an indeterminate length of time for procurement. Should the project be delayed, and expenditure be lower than planned, then the engineer would face the consequences, not the supply chain practitioner. Project delivery can be much improved if those in charge have skin in the game (Taleb 2018). In the City environment, corporate functions overshadow outward-facing services more and more in pursuit of governance leaving the infrastructure departments with a growing burden of compliance to new policies and satisfying small armies of new watchers to monitor and check. New to the administration in 2011, the mayor frequently met with communities, especially those from informal settlements and provided them with information on project delivery sourced from officials. Understandably, when projects were delayed and she had to face angry communities, she was displeased. As a result the mayor developed a belief that City officials were not skilled in project management, and under her office, implemented a formal corporate project portfolio management (CPPM) unit. The CPPM unit was lean on permanent staff but managed to procure very experienced individual contractor staff to provide the necessary capacity when needed. Over time, all projects were monitored by CPPM and new processes introduced in an effort to improve planning, ensure legislative compliance and increase budget expenditure. Things designed by people without skin in the game tend to grow in complication (before their final collapse) (Taleb 2018). Project management principles can be applied to any number of project implementations, be it in information technology, water infrastructure, business process improvement and so on—anything that qualifies as a project. Project management forms part of engineering education, and the basic principles can be applied by any qualified engineer. But implementing a project is also nuanced. Focusing on the process to the exclusion of the content does not result in the best outcome. This can, and does, cause tension between engineers and project managers. Furthermore, if the content is not well understood, unreasonable cost estimates and programmes can easily be developed. Best solutions are achieved when the focus on programme, cost and scope control is balanced by experience and in-depth knowledge of the content. Public procurement legislation was introduced shortly after 1994 to contribute to the economic transformation of society in its entirety, and to promote fairness and transparency. Ironically, corruption has thrived in this environment, while regulations render honest procurement efforts hugely inefficient. In my experience across a number of institutions, public procurement very often yields inferior product at inflated cost, despite best efforts and assuming no corruption. Preferential procurement targets broad-based black economic empowerment. This provides for a premium to be paid for purchases from previously disadvantaged business—for contracts up to R50 million, 20% more can be paid for the same product and service. This reduces to 10% for contracts with a value higher than R50

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million. Regulations continually evolve, and local government practice has become fairly accustomed to continuous change in pursuit of achieving the objectives of preferential procurement. A number of aspects hamper project delivery, and specific directives played a significant role in project procurement during the drought. For example, Section 33 of the Municipal Finance Management Act stipulates that, for a municipality to enter into a contract which will impose financial obligations on the municipality beyond the three years covered in the budget, an additional process must be followed culminating in Council approval (Republic of South Africa National Treasury 2003). The interpretation of the section saw vigorous debate over the past decade, but the policy prescripts have become ever tighter. Initially, the spirit of Section 33 was thought to apply to the Council agreeing that the service would be required for a period longer than three years, and thus should be paid for, whether under a single three-year contract, or under multiple three-year contracts. For service providers to incur capital costs, shorter contract periods are naturally more costly, and a longer contract period would benefit the City purse. Without going into further detail requirements, as it stands the interpretation allows one to enter into a contract for less than three financial years unless undertaking the additional process. Municipal financial years span from July to June. On paper, a Section 33 process should take no more than two more months to obtain Council approval, yet in reality, it can easily take up to a year. This had a direct impact on the cost of procurement of additional water during the drought. Contracts that would usually have been awarded for closer to a ten-year period to allow the reasonable repayment of capital were now condensed into only two years. Understandably, the unit cost payable for water was pushed up much higher due to the shortened contract period. Other relevant matters included local content regulations, which resulted in the failure of many tenders in utilities, and changes over time in a marketplace not yet mature, were not constructive. Had the market been perfectly evolved for what was required, there would have been a chance to get it right. As it is, too many public procurement matters end up in court to be decided by a third party, setting precedent that influences what is done at municipalities big and small across the country. All this slows project delivery and introduces the risk of utility failure. It is well understood that the centralisation of procurement is aimed at ensuring the consistent application of policy, transparency and the separation of duties and power. But it has also resulted in process invariably trumping content. Having process-­oriented staff responsible for some aspects of process such as provisional empowerment scoring is necessary, but the urgency required by an engineering project manager responsible for service delivery is rarely translated. In many instances, it is not clear where exactly the responsibility lies, and with an increasing threat of personal liability for any mistake, an implementation-friendly environment is a distant memory. It is unfortunate that I and many other senior officials were not better able to buffer against the sweeping changes driven by politics. I am not saying change was not necessary in every instance, but better communication and cooperation among officials would have made a real difference in designing for better outcomes. The

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expertise and experience held by professional City officials were certainly underestimated and often ignored. Instead, many processes and policies were approved and implemented using blunt instruments to enforce them, and in the end, this eroded service delivery.

3.2.5  Informal Settlements and Backyarders One of the changes in structure implemented from 1 January 2017 as part of the new political term of office was a change in the directorate of utility services, which I was responsible for. Electricity was moved to a new directorate of energy, and I was then appointed as executive director of informal settlements, water and waste. The objective was to focus attention on basic services of water, sanitation and solid waste, specifically in informal settlements. Compared with services in formal areas, informal settlements had a high political profile and required far more engagement and social innovation. Much of my time and energy, as well as that of both me and my Mayco member’s office, were spent keeping an even keel in the informal settlements department, while the directors of solid waste and water and sanitation had to manage their departments independently for all but the most pressing of matters. This, in turn, resulted in some distraction away from the drought in the first half of 2017. Informal settlements spring up on vacant land areas when people occupy the land and erect shelters without the authority of the landowner. Such land is typically un-­ serviced, often unfit for residential development, and lacking cadastral boundaries demarcating erven, or recognised rights. Such areas are usually vacant for a specific reason, such as secured servitudes for future services to accommodate infrastructure development such as roads, rail, powerlines. Or it may be part of natural ecosystems, often containing wetlands and connecting paths for fauna and flora. Undeveloped public land also caters for future municipal growth to allow for the development of social infrastructure such as schools, clinics, parks and libraries, or privately owned for future commercial or residential development. Informal structures are usually erected from a variety of new or recycled materials such as corrugated iron, wood, plastic, sign boards, doors and window frames. Much more rare, permanent brick-and-mortar structures have been known to be illegally erected, usually in more inaccessible areas not easily visible. With urbanisation a global phenomenon, informal settlements have escalated in large cities across the world. In Cape Town, the growth in settlements was most notable in the 1990s. By 2018, an estimated one out of every eight city dwellers lived in an informal settlement. Many recent land invasions have been politically orchestrated, where people claim the right to ‘sell’ a plot on the vacant land, and often supply corrugated iron sheets for building material at a once-off cost. In other instances, plots are ‘rented out’, especially to undocumented foreigners who may

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Fig. 3.2  Typical density of structures in an informal settlement

fear deportation. Specifics as to the size of this market in Cape Town is not known, but I worked with at least one large settlement where the practice is widespread and worth millions for the rental cartels. In the older settlements, infill has happened organically with more people moving to Cape Town and erecting structures wherever space was available, and permission given by surrounding households. Most settlements in Cape Town have a very high density of dwelling units (see Fig.  3.2), with the space between structures providing only for pedestrian access, especially in areas located close to employment opportunities. A common complaint in informal settlements is service delivery failure. I had learned that services were not always at fault: it does not take much to block a toilet or spread litter, creating the impression that we provided no services. In response to complaints to the Human Rights Commission for service delivery failure in the settlement of Masiphumelele, we collated weekly evidence of before-and-after photographs of broken and blocked toilets, illegal dumping and canal cleaning. It was very clear that the City was going the extra mile in its efforts. Unfortunately we never had sufficient resources to duplicate this level of weekly reporting across all settlements, but it provided a very useful yardstick.

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3.2.5.1  Electricity Providing services in conditions of such density and on otherwise compromised terrain is challenging. Of the basic services, electricity has been most successfully provided via overhead distribution to most of the settlements, at household level. The electrification policy requires that it is safe, for example not prone to flooding, that the households will not be relocated within a few years, and that space is available for the overhead infrastructure. Households need to register and sign up for a prepaid electricity meter linked to a South African identification document number (City of Cape Town 2014). 3.2.5.2  Water Cape Town has provided taps and toilets in line with the emergency housing act, which provides for one toilet for every five households, and one tap for every 25 households within a 200-meter radius. The City strives to provide taps within 100 meters of households and progressively increase coverage, thereby reducing the number of households per tap. Water supply is usually provided by means of flexible pipe in a shallow trench, given space constraints. At the time when taps were rolled out aggressively, management of grey water was a secondary concern to providing access to clean water. While efforts were made to locate taps sensibly, it is tricky to provide access close to structures without the negative consequences of grey water pooling. Theft of water by means of illegal connections is common in some settlements. The effect of this is that the network pressure is reduced to a trickle at the point of communal taps, while individual households have direct water supply within their structures from illegal connections off the water mains. Metering usage in informal settlements has been problematic because structures are often erected to encroach on road servitudes and disregard services. There is also the contention that the water and sanitation department provide a service to the property boundary in law, whereafter the human settlements department, which is responsible for managing informal settlements, should take responsibility. However, the human settlements department was particularly under-resourced as a result of the national housing backlog, leaving water and sanitation with little option but to take responsibility, even though strictly speaking it was not part of their mandate. The cost of water provided to informal settlements was fully subsidised within the tariff from the national treasury equitable share. During the drought much criticism was levelled at water wastage in informal settlements. Figure 3.3 shows the monthly consumption between January 2010 and May 2018. As usage is not seasonal, spikes and troughs are likely the result of leaks and metering inconsistencies. We repeatedly emphasised that water consumption in informal settlements was less than 5% of the overall demand, even though an estimated 15% of people in Cape Town lived there. Typically, laundry activities occupy the shared taps every day of the week. In an effort to improve the lived experience, the City has implemented a number of pilot projects such as providing washing

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Fig. 3.3  Monthly water consumption in informal settlements

troughs (see Fig. 3.4) and custom-made taps resistant to vandalism. Water for bathing and cleaning is usually collected in buckets for use inside the household structure. In contrast, formal households have any number of taps, fit for purpose and requiring no carrying of water. 3.2.5.3  Sanitation Providing toilets to informal settlements in Cape Town and managing the process should be the topic of its very own book. In brief, after my appointment as executive director, I learned that my responsibilities included accounting for close to 50,000 toilets spread across Cape Town. In progressively realising rights, we had annual targets for new installations to ensure coverage of at least one toilet for every five households. The location dictated the type of toilet. Full-flush toilets were preferable since they are less expensive to maintain. On the other hand, they require significant space to install sewer and water reticulation systems, as well as permission of the landowner. Chemical toilets are the most expensive type of toilet to provide due to high servicing cost but are quick to supply. These are used where road access is available to place and service them, typically three times a week. Where vehicle access is not possible, container toilets are placed and serviced by teams carrying containers manually to the closest road access point, also three times a week. Finally, as a supplemental service, the City provides portable flush toilets to individual households that choose to use them. This consists of a camping-type toilet with a spare canister that is collected, cleaned and replaced with a sanitised canister charged with disinfectant, three times a week.

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Fig. 3.4  Washing troughs in Masiphumelele

Since much of the sanitation solutions provided to informal settlements are not water-borne, managing faecal sludge is particularly important. My department centralised its management of faecal sludge at Borcherd’s Quarry wastewater treatment works. Situated close to the airport, this was done for reasons of economy of scale, as well as to provide the necessary infrastructure to efficiently deal with cleaning toilets. In 2019, the City opened a state-of-the-art faecal sludge management facility, which is, to my knowledge, the first in the world to be mechanised. In the past, containers were decanted manually in a specific building at the plant. Spending any length of time in this facility required a strong constitution, and while we tried improving working conditions through provision of protective equipment and ventilation, it left much to be desired. The function is now completed in a closed system for both portable flush toilets and container toilets, where canisters are emptied, washed and disinfected mechanically. This improved facility has rendered faecal sludge management one of the smaller challenges Cape Town now faces in improved sanitation to informal areas. The capital cost of providing toilets is negligible in comparison with other water and sanitation infrastructure, but the operational cost is significant. During my tenure, much of the service of cleaning and maintaining toilets was outsourced to emerging contractors. The low barrier to entry required significant contract

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management effort, and often resulted in procurement nightmares. A benefit of outsourcing is the easy quantification of the cost of providing toilets, and this was covered by the overall water and sanitation tariff, further offset by grant funding from national government. Full-flush toilets are the cheapest form of shared sanitation to maintain because of lower operating costs. But if one considers the entire value chain, including wastewater treatment works and fixed infrastructure, the costs add up. The cost of servicing an individual household with piped-sanitation service connections is averaged by dividing the total cost of reticulation servicing by the total number of households, irrespective of the location, profile or level of service. In contrast, the cost of non-piped sanitation is quite well defined and ring-fenced because of services being contracted out, providing accurate costs by type of sanitation provided. International good practice suggests that an interim improvement in sanitation is to look for the economic benefits of providing sanitation business opportunities. It will also be beneficial to provide models and mechanisms so that sewage is seen to have value in terms of energy, as is done elsewhere in the world. Cape Town has been criticised for being somewhat of a nanny municipality—giving too much out freely. But our history has created a political environment that makes it difficult to motivate for less subsidisation. The overarching perspective seems to be that the State has to provide basic services and do this free of charge. It will require a paradigm shift to get people more interested in a ‘sanitation economy’ as practised elsewhere in Africa and India. That will be the time when everybody is willing to pay, however little. Such an approach would certainly make an enormous difference in improving services to informal households and providing a semblance of legal relationship between the City and informal settlement dwellers. Leaking toilets directly impact on water demand. Where possible, the City appointed janitors to clean and maintain shared full-flush toilets in informal settlements. As toilets are shared by up to five households, it is common practice for the households to lock toilets and prevent access by passers-by. While users of such toilets typically ensure cleanliness and functioning, leaky toilet parts are often left unattended, and when walking around in informal areas one can hear cisterns constantly filling on the other side of a locked door. A second challenge lay in procurement of robust materials that do not have a high resale value and are thus at low risk of vandalism. As it stands, most shared toilet material is made of plastic to prevent theft, but on the other hand it is not very robust when used by multiple families. This results in toilets becoming dysfunctional or leaking soon after installation and needing regular repairs and replacement of parts. In my view, the most significant challenge to improving sanitation in informal households is not necessarily a technical one but rather one of trust and ownership. What is challenging and time-consuming is to agree on an acceptable sanitation solution for each community—one that has to be technically achievable as well as affordable to roll out across the city. Moreover, it is critical that the community takes ownership, and manages and operates the system to the satisfaction of the entire community. Improved sanitation in informal settlements will always be an interim solution. People want to live with dignity, security, autonomy and

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opportunity. Informal settlements are sometimes located closer to economic opportunity yet lacking in other basic needs. Improvement of water and sanitation will improve the hygiene factors, but this will never be enough—the social fabric has to be transformed. Where people live and the conditions under which they are housed are clearly critical factors in the quality of their lives, along with determining their access to schools, transportation, jobs, and recreation. Equality is after all the product of civic aspiration and an empathetic imagination (Barber 2014). 3.2.5.4  Backyarders Responsibility for backyarders was grouped together with informal settlements in the City structure. The term ‘backyarders’ refers to households additional to the primary residents who live on a single property. In many instances, these started out as ‘granny flats’ to accommodate parents or adult children. In establishing more than one household on a single property, gains could be had in economies of scale to get better use of existing infrastructure and improved social support fabric. However, in time, this morphed into a large-scale rental income business, where the primary occupant rents small areas of yard to those in need of accommodation. It is often difficult to determine the maximum number of structures on a single erf because of density and accessibility, but the general range appeared to be between one and eight. One of the structures I encountered in a backyard was hardly more than a metre squared, with the occupant paying rent to the main house. When the mayor was elected in 2011, she was determined to establish a programme to improve services to backyarders. Thus, pilot projects were established in three areas in Cape Town to provide up to three additional structures with electricity, water and sanitation services, and an additional wheelie bin for waste disposal. Because of legislation stipulating that a city could not install infrastructure on private property, suburbs with large numbers of council-owned housing were chosen. At the time, the City owned approximately 44,000 low-cost housing units. Backyarders typically accessed services from the main household. This paved the way for abuse since the owners would sometimes charge exorbitant rentals. It also had the practical disadvantage that access to infrastructure within a household was limited, especially at night. In certain areas, electrification was prohibitively expensive as the entire grid had to be replaced where it lacked sufficient capacity for hundreds of additional households. Community acceptance was also problematic, because the main household occupant did not necessarily want to lose the additional income generated through overcharging for services. For water and sanitation, a plan was crafted to provide each erf with one flush toilet and a washing trough, with a separate water management device to the main

References

45

house, and key fobs2 for all the backyarders to access water. Given the density of structures in a typical yard, installing infrastructure was not easy, but every effort was made to accelerate the programme. The cost was fully covered by the City, and while it worked fairly well in some cases with happy customers, infrastructure was still shared and often vandalised. Once I was formally responsible for informal settlements, (from 2017 onwards) various informal settlement projects moved to top my agenda. I learned that the City was cited as respondent in the most bizarre of court matters (including evictions), and many settlements were keenly watching developments elsewhere in Cape Town and making their own new demands. The informal settlements department seemed to be principally involved in defending court cases, without much time remaining for development projects. Overarchingly, it was apparent that services could only very rarely be improved without de-densifying. My aspiration of improving the lived experience while formal development happened in parallel may have been a pipedream. Households were seldom willing to move away from their community, and well-located land was scarce if not non-­ existent. Adding to the number of informal dwellings, backyard residents became progressively more impatient, tending to seek the autonomy of an informal settlement plot over one lived in another’s backyard. One learns quite quickly that there are no easy solutions or low-hanging fruit when working in this arena. Trust is critical, and building trust, at best, takes time. At worst it remains ever elusive.

References Barber BR (2014) If mayor’s ruled the world – dysfunctional nations, rising cities. Yale University Press, New Haven City of Cape Town (2007) Long-term water conservation and water demand management strategy. Available at: https://www.greencape.co.za/assets/Water-­Sector-­Desk-­Content/CoCT-­ Long-­term-­water-­conservation-­and-­water-­demand-­management-­strategy-­2007.pdf. Accessed Jan 2021 City of Cape Town (2010) Water By-law. Available at: https://resource.capetown.gov.za/documentcentre/Documents/Bylaws%20and%20policies/Water%20By-­law%202010.pdf. Accessed Jan 2021 City of Cape Town (2014) Residential electricity reticulation (Policy Number 23531). Available at: https://resource.capetown.gov.za/documentcentre/Documents/Bylaws%20and%20policies/Residential%20Electricity%20Reticulation%20Policy%20-­%20(Policy%20number%20 23531)%20approved%20on%2003%20December%202014.pdf. Accessed Jan 2021 Department of Water Affairs (1986) Management of the water resources of the Republic of South Africa. Government Printer, Pretoria Department of Water Affairs and Forestry (2003) Strategic framework for water services. Government Printer, Pretoria

2  A key fob is a small security hardware device to control access. In this instance, the main occupant of each backyard structure was issued with a key fob which allowed access a set volume of water every day.

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Department of Water and Sanitation (2016a) Proposal for the Establishment of the Berg -Olifants Catchment Management Agency in terms of Section 78(3) of the National Water Act, 1998 (ACT NO. 36 OF 1998). Government Printer, Pretoria Department of Water and Sanitation (2016b) New nine (9) water management areas of South Africa, No 1056. Government Printer, Pretoria Department of Water and Sanitation (2019) Municipal strategic self-assessment user manual. Available at: http://ws.dwa.gov.za/mussa/#!. Accessed Jan 2021 Department of Water and Sanitation (n.d.) Water Management Area (WMA) Map, Department of Water and Sanitation. Available at: http://www.dwa.gov.za/IO/wmamap.aspx. Accessed Jan 2021 Howard G, Bartram J (2003) Domestic water quantity, service level and health. World Health Organization: Water, Sanitation and Health Team. Available at: https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/67884. Accessed Jan 2021 Meissner R, Funke N, Nortje K (2016) The politics of establishing catchment management agencies in South Africa: the case of the Breede-Overberg Catchment Management Agency. Ecol Soc 21(3):26. Available at: https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-­08417-­210326 Olver C (2019) A house divided. Jonathan Ball Publishers, Cape Town Republic of South Africa (1996) Constitution of the Republic of South Africa No. 108 of 1996. Government Printer, Pretoria Republic of South Africa (1997) Water Services Act, No 108 of 1997. Government Printer, Pretoria Republic of South Africa (1998) National Water Act, No 36 of 1998. Government Printer, Pretoria Republic of South Africa (2000) Local Government: Municipal Systems Act, No 32 of 2000. Government Printer, Pretoria Republic of South Africa National Treasury (2003) Local Government: Municipal Finance Management Act, No 56 of 2003. Government Printer, Pretoria Taleb N (2018) Skin in the game: hidden asymmetries in daily life. Allen Lane, Great Britain Watermeyer R, Phillips S (2020) Public infrastructure delivery and construction sector dynamism in the South African economy. National Planning Commission, 6 March 2020. Available at: https://www.nationalplanningcommission.org.za/assets/Documents/NPC%20background%20 paper%20-­%20Infrastructure%20delivery%20Watermeyer%20Phillips%206%20March%20 2020%20FINAL.pdf. Accessed Jan 2021 World Bank (2018) Country profile: South Africa. Available at: https://data.worldbank.org/country/south-­africa?view=chart. Accessed Jan 2021 Worldometers.info (2021) GDP by country. Dover, Delaware. Available at: https://www.worldometers.info/gdp/gdp-­by-­country/. Accessed Jan 2021

Chapter 4

Cape Town Water Supply

Nothing is softer or more flexible than water, yet nothing can resist it –Lao Tzu

Abstract  Water supply to the City of Cape Town has evolved over time, with more than 180 years recorded to a greater or lesser degree. Since 1834, water restrictions were commonly implemented during periods of water scarcity, while supply requirements were met through the construction of new surface water reservoirs. Rapid demand growth was the result of technological advances such as water-borne sanitation and industrial expansion. Initially water supply was managed individually by each of a number of small municipalities, but over time municipalities recognised the importance of broader planning to enhance security of supply. The Western Cape Water Supply System was established to manage the regional water resources in an integrated fashion, providing water to Cape Town, a number of smaller municipalities, district municipalities and agricultural users. Planning to ensure that regional water supply is sufficient to meet demand into the future is achieved through a reconciliation strategy. Reliance on rainfall has become considerably riskier with accelerated climate change and variability, especially with water sufficient for less than two years of unrestricted demand stored in WCWSS dams when at full capacity.

4.1  A Brief History When water is plentiful, we don’t dwell on it much. Cheap relative to other services, we expect it to run freely when we open a tap. Not much thought is given to the work involved to transform rainfall in a faraway catchment to potable water delivered, in volume, to the point where it is required and consumed. That changes in © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 G. Kaiser, Parched - The Cape Town Drought Story, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78889-6_4

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times of crisis, when fear, uncertainty or curiosity inspires at least some to find out more. Water took centre stage in Cape Town in 2017. The water supply infrastructure developed over centuries in Cape Town, expanding gradually in response to growing demand by an increasing population and modernisation. As new materials and technologies came to light, so the specifications changed, resulting in a vast and complex network of bulk and reticulation pipelines, valves and hydrants, linked to water treatment plants and reservoirs speckled across the metropolitan area and beyond. Cape Town’s recorded water supply history starts back in the early 1800s, a couple of centuries after the origin of the town as a settlement to serve a trade route between east and west. By 1834, the year that slavery was abolished in the Cape, the growing city was served by 36 free-flowing fountains. In 1840, the then government handed responsibility for water supply to the municipality of Cape Town. By 1849, the town had a population of nearly 30,000, with the main source of water supply from Platteklip Gorge, at the foot of Table Mountain. At the time, the Platteklip stream provided sweet water, which was channelled to agricultural plots in canals (or grachts), providing the early grid of the current central business district’s layout. Free-flowing fountains proved to be insufficient to provide reliable supply, especially in a winter rainfall region where summers were hot and dry. This led to the construction of the first two reservoirs, which were completed before 1860. Water supply history from 1830 is shown on Fig.  4.1 and storage capacity additions in Table 4.1. Although water quality had not been problematic previously, the rapidly growing population and human activity had an impact, leading to the first sand filter beds built at Platteklip Gorge in 1869. By 1872, demand reached 1.8 million litres a day, 1,000,000 TWK

100,000

1834

Voelvlei

Wemmer shoek

Steenbras

200,000

Woodhead dam

300,000

Woodhead tunnel

400,000

Steenbras

500,000

De Villiers dam

600,000

Hely Hutchinson, Victorian & Alexandra

700,000

Berg River

Upper Steenbras

800,000

1st reservoirs

Water storage / volume treated (Millions of litres)

900,000

1830 1835 1840 1845 1850 1855 1860 1865 1870 1875 1880 1885 1890 1895 1900 1905 1910 1915 1920 1925 1930 1935 1940 1945 1950 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015

0

Total storage volume in large dams

Fig. 4.1  Cape Town’s water supply history from 1834

Water Treated

4.1  A Brief History

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Table 4.1  Storage capacity additions supplying Cape Town since 1860 Completion date 1860 1881 1897 1904 1896 1903 1910 1927 1921 1926 1954 1958 1971 1975 1978 2009

Intervention First two reservoirs Molteno Reservoir Woodhead Dam Hely Hutchinson Victoria Dam Alexandra Dam De Villiers Dam Kloof Nek Reservoir Steenbras Lower Dam Steenbras Lower Dam raised wall Steenbras Lower Dam raised wall Wemmershoek Dam Voëlvlei Dam Steenbras Upper Dam Theewaterskloof Berg River Dam

Total capacity (million litres) 66 186 955 925 128 123 243 14 2270 22,680 34,283 56,644 164,095 31,767 480,188 125,000

which again exceeded supply, so it was decided to embark on construction of Molteno Reservoir on the northern slopes of Table Mountain. At the time of completion in 1881, repeated water shortages had led to an investigation into more secure sources of water supply. Water restrictions at the time required that water availability was limited to three hours a day, and that commercial use for wool washing, brickmaking and building was not allowed. In 1888, the Platteklip washhouses were opened ceremonially by the mayor, providing facilities that would improve the conditions for washing Cape Town’s laundry. By 1887, the Woodhead tunnel construction started, to utilise water from the Disa River through the mountain to Molteno reservoir via Kloofnek. The Cape Town District Waterworks company formed in 1889, necessitated by the progressive growth of water infrastructure, such as pumps erected at springs and storage tanks built. It became apparent that for better security against drought, larger water storage facilities were required in the catchment. The Berg River Dam was considered at this time but discounted because of its distance from Cape Town. Instead, Table Mountain potential for water storage was favoured for its proximity to the town centre. It was resolved to build a dam on Table Mountain. In 1892, construction started on Woodhead Dam, the first dam on Table Mountain. Construction took five years, but only one year after its completion, demand again exceeded supply (see Fig.  4.2). Thus, in 1898, construction started on Hely Hutchinson Dam just upstream of Woodhead Dam (see Fig. 4.3). The introduction of waterborne sanitation from the 1890s led to a dramatic rise in the water demand requiring additional schemes. By 1900, the population had grown significantly and the adjacent municipality of Wynberg constructed two dams at the back of Table Mountain. Victoria Dam and

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Fig. 4.2  Woodhead Dam with Hely-Hutchinson in background. (Photo courtesy of Peter Flower)

Fig. 4.3  Hely Hutchinson Dam

4.1  A Brief History

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Alexandra Dam were completed early in the 1900s. In 1907, the demand in Wynberg exceeded supply again and the De Villiers Dam was built. Wynberg joined Greater Cape Town Municipality in 1927 (see Fig. 4.4). At the same time, Cape Town built a reservoir at Kloof Nek. In 1912, Cape Town experienced a severe water shortage, which resulted in water being cut off for 12 hours a day. The Greater Cape Town Municipality was established in 1913 through the amalgamation of a number of smaller municipalities, making for better system management integration under the Unified Water Authority. In 1916, as a result of ongoing water shortages, further schemes were considered, including the Wemmers River scheme, but the Steenbras scheme was selected instead. At the same time, restrictions were imposed, this time shutting water off for 20 hours a day. Construction of the lower Steenbras Dam began in 1917. Construction of both the dam and the 65 km pipeline discharging into Molteno Reservoir was completed in 1921. The additional capacity did not ease pressure on supply sufficiently, and in 1926, Steenbras Dam was enlarged by erecting a new wall and increasing capacity significantly. A second pipeline was also constructed to Newlands Reservoir (now known as Newlands Upper reservoir).

Fig. 4.4  Table Mountain dams: Woodhead and Hely-Hutchinson in the foreground, Alexandra and Victoria behind, and De Villiers in the background. (Photo courtesy of Peter Flower)

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Water treatment was first considered in 1932 when the first water treatment plant was constructed at Constantia Nek. Treatment was done to reduce the aggressive nature of the very acidic and soft natural Cape water and to remove the brown colour, due to the effect of the decomposition of the Fynbos in the catchments. The initial treatment capacity of 1.4 million litres a day (MLD) was later doubled to 3 MLD. Shortly thereafter, the Kloofnek treatment plant was commissioned in 1936, followed by the Steenbras water treatment plant, with a combined capacity of 114 MLD.  In 1949, a third pipeline from Steenbras was constructed to Newlands Reservoir. Despite the additional supply, water restrictions could not be avoided and were imposed. In this instance, garden watering was limited to 59 days in the year. In 1954, Steenbras Dam wall was raised again, and the overall system storage capacity increased to 61,900 million litres. Construction of Wemmershoek Dam began in 1953 and was completed in 1958, nearly doubling the available storage capacity in the system. This was to be the last dam built by the Cape Town municipality before the then Department of Water Affairs and Forestry (DWAF) became the licensing agency for large dams through the promulgation of the Water Act in 1956, taking responsibility for large dam construction and establishing an in-house construction unit. Voëlvlei Dam was completed in 1971, again more than doubling the overall storage capacity to 282,600 million litres. The treatment plant at the dam and 80 km pipeline to Cape Town was completed in 1974 to utilise the allocation of 66,400 million litres from Voëlvlei Dam. In 1975, Upper Steenbras Dam was built to double the Steenbras storage capacity and provide the upper reservoir needed for the City’s pumped storage scheme for electricity supply. The Riviersonderend (RSE) scheme was underway at the time, with Theewaterskooof Dam being completed in 1978 and a tunnel system for conveying bulk water implemented. Theewaterskloof is by far the largest dam in the system, and as is evident from Fig. 4.1, increased the system capacity by 2.5 times to nearly 800,000 million litres. By 1981, Blackheath water treatment plant enabled Cape Town to utilise 360 MLD from Theewaterskloof through the RSE tunnel system. The plant capacity was increased to 400 MLD some ten years later. In 1994, the 500 MLD Faure Water Treatment Plant was commissioned together with 35  km of associated pipelines. It has the ability to receive water from Theewaterskloof via the RSE Tunnel and a new raw water pipeline from the Stellenboschberg Portal as well water from the Palmiet River, which is transferred via the ESKOM Electricity Pumped Storage Scheme’s upper reservoir, Rockview Dam, to Steenbras Upper Dam by canal and pipeline and then passed through the City of Cape Town’s Steenbras Electricity Pumped Storage Scheme to its lower reservoir from where it is then pumped via the 300 MLD Firlands Pump Station to Faure WTP. Local government restructuring in 1997 resulted in the formation of Metropolitan Local Councils and the Cape Metropolitan Council, which resulted in the inclusion of bulk services infrastructure from other authorities. Also in 1997, the artificially recharged Atlantis aquifer scheme with a maximum yield of 35 MLD was absorbed

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into the City’s bulk supply system (from the previous Divisional Council of the Cape) and then enhanced and expanded. The Berg River Dam was not without controversy, with a strong movement of anti-dam lobbyists in the 1990s. In South Africa, this lobby resulted in construction of new dams being prohibited pending implementation of demand-side measures. The drought of 2002 and 2003 resulted in dramatic demand reduction as the City introduced restriction measures as well as longer-term demand reduction initiatives such as pressure management. The national minister approved construction of the Berg Water Project1 after environmental authorisation was obtained and after the City successfully implemented water conservation and water demand management. Construction of the Berg River Dam necessitated the finalisation of the Raw Water Supply Agreement (RWSA) between the DWAF and the City of Cape Town in 2003 to secure funding for the project. As the largest consumer of the additional supply, the City was to bear the bulk of charges with respect to the project and had to do so cognisant of affordability levels for its customers. The Berg River Dam was completed in 2009, bringing the system capacity to 925,000 million litres.2 Cape Town and the dams supplying its water are located in a southern hemisphere winter rainfall region. Most of the rain falls between May and October, with the rest of the year receiving a small proportion of runoff. The end of the winter rainy season is marked by the end of the hydrological year on 31 October each year. Summer rainfall regions can sometimes use rainfall to its advantage—in hot weather demand is usually higher, and rainwater tanks provide additional storage to be used for irrigation. In winter, it tends to be cold and damp in Cape Town, and external domestic use naturally decreases, even when rainfall in the catchment areas is far below average. Runoff records at major dams have been compiled since 1928. The long-term average inflow is approximately 711 million cubic metres a year. Thus the runoff from average rainfall in any year can theoretically nearly fill all the dams from empty if rainfall is perfectly distributed across catchment areas. All but Theewaterskloof Dam are one mean annual runoff (MAR) dams. Each dam can receive the volume of runoff collected in its catchment area, which would typically fill in a single year. Theewaterskloof provides for drought capacity, and is a two MAR dam, meaning it can store two years of average rainfall. Conversely, this also means that the dam takes two years of average runoff to fill from empty.

1  The Berg Water Project comprised two parts, the Berg River Dam and the supplement scheme. The dam was constructed to a final gross storage capacity of 126,400 million litres and included a pump station and pipeline to pump water into the nearby Riviersonderend tunnel system. The supplement scheme would abstract water that enters the Berg River from tributaries downstream of the dam, when available, and pump it back about nine kilometres for storage in the dam. 2  In contrast with the WCWSS storage capacity of 898,221 million litres, which excludes Cape Town’s small dams and own sources.

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Legislation, regulations and strategies related to water have evolved dramatically over the past couple of decades. South Africa is certainly not short on policy. Implementation capacity, on the other hand, lags far behind policy development, not only in water but in many (perhaps even most) spheres of public management.

4.2  The Western Cape Water Supply System The Western Cape Water System was recorded in the RWSA as an integrated water supply system of government schemes, along with some infrastructure and dams owned by the City. Subsequent to signing the agreement, the scheme became known as the Western Cape Water Supply System (WCWSS), since it covered supply rather than other components of water management. Cape Town forms part of the WCWSS and is therefore not autonomous in supplying bulk water. But it does play a significant role in a larger system, which is overseen principally by the national DWS. Building on a proud history of water resource management nationally, sustainability has been a key consideration in managing the water supply system. Coordination and engagement with all stakeholders in the system was a priority in ensuring equitable supply. Compared to other water-stressed regions dealing with drought, the WCWSS is not complicated. Surface supplies are stored in six major dams from two rivers beyond the system boundary. There are no international, nor even inter-provincial agreements required. There is only one metropolitan municipality as major user, and a number of smaller municipalities, and agricultural users. The RWSA was finalised to resolve funding for the Berg River project. It dealt not only with the Berg Water Project, but also covered supply of raw water from all the government water schemes within the entire system. It remains the legal foundation for interaction between the national DWS and the City, to manage and regulate water supply in the WCWSS. Guiding principles within the agreement was to advance the sustainability of the region’s scarce water supply resources, while ensuring benefits to all water users into the future. At the time of its finalisation, development of a number of additional water supply sources was envisaged, including groundwater, augmentation water schemes at Voëlvlei, Lourens River and Eerste River, as well as water recycling and desalination. It was agreed that where possible, future development of resources should form part of the supply system and follow the principles espoused in the agreement. Joint long-term planning between the parties was to result in a 98% assurance of supply to Cape Town, where ‘assurance of supply’ means the percentage probability that water users will obtain their water requirements or a portion thereof without water restrictions. Statistically, the city should then be restricted only once in 50 years. Perfect assurance of supply eliminates risk of failure but is not achievable with surface water systems as rainfall, runoff and streamflow vary from year to year. The national DWS planning allows for a maximum assurance of supply of 99.5% (or failure in only 1 in 200 years) for water used for power generation (Department of

4.2  The Western Cape Water Supply System

55

Water and Sanitation 2018a). Basic water supply for domestic use is also planned for at a 1: 200 level of assurance, while other domestic supply is planned for at a 1: 50 level of assurance. Industrial supply is planned at 1: 100 and irrigation at between 1: 10 and 1: 20. The price of bulk water varies depending on the level of assurance: the higher the assurance, the higher the tariff. In the urban context, the mix of demand thus informs the overall level of assurance, which averaged out for Cape Town urban use at 1: 50 or 98%. The extent of the WCWSS is shown in Fig.  4.5. Most of Cape Town’s water comes from the Riviersonderend-Berg River Water Scheme, which makes up the biggest part of WCWSS. This scheme captures the flow of three main rivers: the Sonderend River, the Berg River and Eerste River, which feed into six major dams. The long-term sustainability of water resources in the WCWSS is achieved through provision of flexibility of City infrastructure to shift demand between various water sources within the system, to the benefit of all users. As the agreement was applied to an existing system with numerous legacy water users, the RWSA dealt with existing lawful use as well as future compulsory licensing of water, in accordance with the National Water Act of 1998. The system yield3 was to be determined every ten years by running the system’s model based on updated hydrology. Should the system yield be such that the system was overallocated at any time, then the DWS would consult with all water use sectors to balance the system. The WCWSS provides water to urban and agricultural users in a ratio of 71 to 29%. Urban centres include Cape Town, Stellenbosch, Paarl, Wellington, West Coast towns and the Swartland. Agricultural users served by the system are located along the Berg and Eerste rivers, in the Riviersonderend catchment and in the Breede Water Management area. At approximately 64% of system allocation, Cape Town is the largest user. Operation of the system is premised on optimising available water by minimising spillage and maximising storage. Water is conveyed in pipelines, tunnels and along canals as shown in the schematic Fig. 4.6. The Riviersonderend-Berg River tunnel provides the means to transfer water from the Breede Water Management Area into the Berg Water Management Area, where some of the water is released to agriculture, with the balance conveyed by pipeline to the City’s treatment works. The integrated supply system allows the City to adjust its requirement from various dams to prevent any one dam from spilling while others have spare storage capacity. Coordinated management of catchments by national DWS and the City was directed at reducing losses as a result of alien plant infestation and improving water quality. It was recognised that the system could be further optimised by providing individual abstractions and groundwater use. While national DWS provides water to agriculture and some urban areas, the City supplies bulk water to the urban areas of Stellenbosch and Drakenstein.

3  Where ‘yield’ refers to the maximum annual abstraction from the system at a percentage assurance of water supply after provision for the environmental water requirements.

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Fig. 4.5  The Western Cape Water Supply System and dams

4  Cape Town Water Supply

4.3  Supply Schemes and Dams

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Fig. 4.6  The supply system overview

4.3  Supply Schemes and Dams The water supply system comprises a number of main schemes and six large dams. The Riviersonderend (RSE)-Berg River Government Water Scheme comprises the Theewaterskloof Dam (Fig. 4.7), which is the largest dam, the RSE-Berg River tunnel system, and Kleinplaas Dam. Located on the Sonderend river in the Theewaterskloof municipality, the dam is filled from runoff in its vast catchment of approximately 500 km2. In winter, water from the Wolwekloof and Banhoek rivers is diverted to Theewaterskloof Dam via the Wolwekloof and Banhoek tunnels. Water is pumped from the Berg River Dam to Dasbos and into the Theewaterskloof Dam via the Franschhoekberg tunnel. Direct releases are made from the dam to the Overberg and RSE agricultural users, and also pumped to Vygeboom irrigators. Through the Franschhoekberg tunnel, water is supplied to the Wemmershoek water treatment plant and from there to Cape Town, Paarl and Wellington. The Jonkershoek tunnel diverts water to the Kleinplaas balancing dam and through the Stellenboschberg tunnel, from where the City has two bulk water pipelines feeding into its Blackheath and Faure water treatment plants. The scheme supplies water to agriculture, including the RSE, Berg and Eerste river catchment areas, and Helderberg and Stellenbosch irrigation boards. The Voëlvlei Government Water Scheme provides water to Cape Town and the West Coast. The dam is close to the town of Gouda, approximately 100 km from the Cape Town central business district (CBD). Voëlvlei Dam (Fig.  4.8) is an off-­ channel reservoir with a small catchment area of 38 km2, filled by winter diversion off the Klein Berg River, Twenty-Four Rivers and the Leeu River.

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Fig. 4.7  Theewaterskloof Dam

Water released from Voëlvlei reaches the Misverstand weir and from there serves Saldanha Bay. Water is also supplied to agricultural users in the Lower Berg and 24 Rivers regions. The City has a water treatment plant at Voëlvlei Dam, from where it conveys water through a large diameter pre-stressed concrete pipeline all the way to Cape Town. The City’s Wemmershoek scheme consists of the Wemmershoek Dam (Fig. 4.9) situated on the Wemmers River, Wemmershoek water treatment plant and bulk pipeline. Water from the scheme serves Cape Town, Paarl and Wellington as well as some riparian releases. Wemmershoek Dam celebrated its 65th birthday in 2018. The Berg River Dam (Fig. 4.10) was fully commissioned in 2009, and thus has the shortest span of historical records. The dam is located less than 20 km from the Wemmershoek Dam, close to Franschhoek, with an average annual rainfall in excess of 1000 mm. Finally, the Palmiet Government Scheme feeds into the City’s Steenbras Scheme. The Kogelberg Dam is on the Palmiet River and feeds the Palmiet pumped storage scheme into the Rockview Dam. A canal and pipeline link the Rockview Dam with Steenbras Upper Dam. Both Steenbras Upper and Lower Dams are located on the Steenbras River (Fig. 4.11). Steenbras Upper Dam serves as headrace for the City’s Steenbras pumped storage scheme. Water from the upper dam can be released into the lower dam or released directly to the Faure water treatment plant from the tailrace reservoir of the

4.3  Supply Schemes and Dams

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Fig. 4.8  Voëlvlei Dam. (Photo courtesy of Bruce Sutherland, City of Cape Town)

pumped storage scheme and then via a pump station and pipeline. The Lower Steenbras Dam is linked by a tunnel to the Steenbras water treatment plant and from here provides water to Cape Town via three pipelines. Rainfall measured at the respective dam sites are shown in Fig. 4.12. With the longest record of the large dams, Steenbras Lower Dam has rainfall records dating back to 1916. The long-term average annual rainfall of 950 mm has been seen to vary between 500 and 1330 mm. While rainfall since 2015 has been much lower than the long-term average, it is still too early to tell whether there has been a step-­ change in seasonal rainfall at the dam. Wemmershoek Dam has a long-term average rainfall measured at the dam just shy of 1000 mm. Rainfall is variable, with a minimum of just more than 600 mm and a maximum of nearly 1700 mm recorded. Because of this relatively short span of records at the Berg River Dam, and its similarity to Wemmershoek because of the dams’ close proximity, the annual rainfall chart has been omitted.

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Fig. 4.9  Wemmershoek Dam

Recorded rainfall at Voëlvlei since its completion in 1971 has varied between 300 and 900 mm a year, averaging slightly less than 600 mm a year. Theewaterskloof is significantly larger than the other dams and also has the lowest average annual recorded rainfall at 540 mm a year, measured at the dam since 1981. Figure 4.13 shows the annual distribution of rainfall at the locations of the large dams. The number of records (N) is indicated on each graph. Wide variation is evident at all the major dams. Exceptionally low rainfall records have occurred in the

4.3  Supply Schemes and Dams

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Fig. 4.10  Berg River Dam

rainy months at all dams. The bulk of rainfall occurs fairly consistently in the winter months, between April and September. Apart from the main schemes described above, minor schemes also serve a number of small urban areas. For example, further minor schemes serving Cape Town include Table Mountain and South Peninsula water supply schemes, Atlantis aquifer and Somerset West abstraction from the Lourens River.

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Fig. 4.11  Steenbras Dams. (Photo courtesy of Peter Flower)

Agricultural users within the WCWSS can be grouped into three categories: • Those who rely on the main schemes for all their water supply; • Those who partially rely on the schemes, augmented by their own storage dams and water from rivers and tributaries, and • Those who rely entirely on their own sources.

4.3  Supply Schemes and Dams

Fig. 4.12  Annual rainfall measured at the major dams (mm)

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Fig. 4.13  Monthly rainfall distribution measured at the large dams

4  Cape Town Water Supply

4.4  Operating Rules

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It is also a consideration that in 2000, irrigation by own sources provided approximately two-thirds of the agricultural irrigation requirements, whereas in dry years, agriculture is much more reliant on system allocations. Cape Town has the capacity to treat 1650 MLD of raw water to meet potable water standards. Such potable water is conveyed in a bulk network of large diameter pipelines approximately 650 km in length, and stored in bulk water supply reservoirs with a total capacity of 2740 Ml.

4.4  Operating Rules The water supply system is governed by operating rules included in the RWSA, which ensure that the dams are operated in an integrated manner to maximise the stored water available for essential uses, especially during times of drought. While the wet winter months of April to September typically see about 90% of annual runoff, these months usually account for only about 30% of annual demand. The impact of drought is mitigated at a system level by minimising spillage and wastage during wet years and restricting supply during drought. Environmental releases can also be curtailed when drought conditions are encountered or appear to be likely. • Minimising spillage: Since Cape Town is consistently the largest water user throughout the year, the City’s demand is shifted to those dams more likely to spill during winter, while other dams still have storage capacity available. The City has provided additional treatment capacity at its water treatment plants, along with spare capacity in conveyance infrastructure to provide this flexibility. The raw water agreement recognises that while it is beneficial for the City to utilise gravity-fed water from its own dams—avoiding pumping costs for water transfer—by shifting the demand to any of the dams in the system, yield can be optimised. The shared ownership of dams and joint responsibility for operating the system enables optimisation. But it also requires trust and cooperation between the City and national DWS. • Minimising wastage: Through the City’s WCWDM programme (also see Sect. 4.6), the City monitors monthly urban demand and implements strategies to continuously reduce water wastage. Similarly, the agricultural sector has management structures in place to manage water use. Here, the authority for managing and enforcing responsible use falls to the national DWS. Continuous monitoring means that unexpected rapid increases in demand are identified and addressed, since these could potentially upset the balance of supply and demand. • Restricting demand: At the end of the hydrological year on 31 October every year, the system is evaluated to determine whether restrictions need to be implemented for the coming 12  months. The evaluation model considers available storage and demand, and forecasts different inflow scenarios to determine the appropriate level of restriction, if any, to be imposed. As water users have differ-

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ent allocations and assurances of supply, it follows that different restriction levels are applied. Typical restriction levels for droughts with return periods of one, ten, 20, 100 and 200  years were included indicatively, though actual restrictions would be determined from running the model on data specific to the year. Whilst the rules appear to be simple, they are underpinned by a host of actions requiring cooperation of multiple stakeholders and integration of system components. The integrity of the water supply system is dependent on all the rules being adhered to at all times.

4.5  Reconciliation Strategy The National Water Resource Strategy of 2004 identifies the need for reconciliation strategies to be developed for metropolitan areas and bulk water supply systems. In simple terms, a reconciliation strategy considers existing water resources and supply schemes and compares these with current and expected future water requirements, along with the potential water resources available to meet ever-growing requirements. The water requirements are thus reconciled with water resource availability, plus any supply interventions required to result in a positive water balance over a 25-year time horizon (Department of Water Affairs and Forestry 2004). In early 2005, the then DWAF, as the custodian of the country’s water resources, in partnership with the City of Cape Town, commissioned the Western Cape Reconciliation Strategy Study to facilitate the reconciliation of predicted future water requirements with supply available from the Western Cape Water Supply Scheme over a 25-year planning period. The reconciliation strategy is used as a decision-support framework for making timeous and informed recommendations on interventions that should be implemented to meet future water requirements. The strategy was first completed in 2007 and, since then, it has been regularly reviewed and updated by a strategy steering committee. The national DWS has engaged consultants to help develop annual status reports and with administration. The strategy steering committee responsible for the reconciliation strategy included representatives from national DWS, all urban users and irrigation boards, provincial government and other stakeholders. The specific objectives of the steering committee were to: • Ensure and monitor the implementation of the reconciliation strategy recommendations; • Confirm that studies begin timeously to enable ongoing reconciliation of supply and demand; • Update the strategy regularly to ensure it remains relevant, and • Communicate status quo to stakeholders. Since the detailed work required was highly technical in nature, an administrative and technical support group was established to undertake all the work necessary

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to support the strategy steering committee. The group met in between formal strategy steering committee meetings to further implement the strategy.

4.5.1  System Water Availability 4.5.1.1  Water Availability The three largest dams—Theewaterskloof, Voëlvlei and Berg River Dams—are owned and operated by the national DWS. Collectively, they hold approximately 85% of the system storage of nearly 900 MCM.  The balance of 15% storage is owned and operated by the City—in Wemmershoek, Steenbras Upper and Steenbras Lower dams. The other eight minor dams within Cape Town’s boundaries— Kleinplaats, Woodhead, Hely-Hutchinson, Land-en-Zeezicht, De Villiers, Lewis Gay, Victoria, and Alexandra Dams—store only 0.4% of the water supply, but due to their location near extremities of the bulk supply system, play an important strategic role in security of supply. The storage capacity of the major dams as well as Cape Town’s small dams are shown in Table 4.2. Dam capacity is calculated rather than measured, and small variations will naturally occur from season to season. The overall dam capacity is different to the volume of usable water, known as the system yield. The yield of the WCWSS is approximately two-thirds of the storage capacity, accounting for a reduction in volume as a result of evaporation, variability in runoff and so on. Table 4.2  Capacity of large and small dams in the WCWSS Dam Berg River Steenbras Lower Steenbras Upper Theewaterskloof Voëlvlei Wemmershoek TOTAL LARGE DAMS Cape Town Small Dams Alexandra (Table Mountain) De Villiers (Table Mountain) Hely-Hutchinson (Table Mountain) Kleinplaats (Simon’s Town) Land-En-Zeezicht (Helderberg) Lewis Gay (Simon’s Town) Victoria (Table Mountain) Woodhead (Table Mountain) TOTAL SMALL DAMS

Gross capacity (ML) 130,010 33,517 31,767 480,188 164,095 58,644 898,221

Percentage of total 14.5% 3.7% 3.5% 53.5% 18.3% 6.5%

126 243 925 1368 451 182 128 954 4377

2.9% 5.6% 21.1% 31.3% 10.3% 4.2% 2.9% 21.8%

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The national DWS uses two models to determine the system yield. The Water Resource Yield model (WRYM) determines the firm yield while the Water Resource Planning model (WRPM) considers the system operations to determine the stochastic yield for different levels of assurance. For example, the Berg Water Availability assessment study showed that the historical integrated firm yield was 556 MCM while the WRPM, based on a 1:50 level of assurance and optimal dam operation calculated the integrated yield to be 596 MCM. The level of assurance is correlated to accepting a risk of failure once every 50 years, where failure equates to severe restrictions being implemented. Long droughts were known to have serious economic consequences and also to have a depressing impact on morale when harsh water restrictions were imposed (Department of Water Affairs 1986). Ideally then, assurance of supply should be such that severe restrictions were rare lifetime events. A supply system’s capacity and yield can change over time should assumptions change and as operations evolve. Furthermore, it is calculated based on the extended system hydrology, typically updated every ten years. The WCWSS modelling since 2005 had been built on records spanning 77 years, from 1928/29 to 2004/05. The accuracy of the supply system yield is important because it has to be balanced with demand. There is a risk that overstatement in available supply may result in delaying additional supply schemes, should the system appear to be in balance. Counter to this risk is the fact that the system is large, and changes over time will generally be gradual. The accuracy of modelling can be assessed by comparing the actual dam behaviour with what is predicted by the model. Periodic variations of short duration can generally be explained and do not cause major concern as long as the correlation self-corrects. The 2007 reconciliation strategy recommended modelling for the impact of climate change, and that the calculated yield be reduced by 15% over 25  years (Department of Water and Sanitation 2007). Since the yield was updated regularly, the accuracy of this recommendation would evolve and would be adjusted over time to reflect the actual impact of changes in climate. In the 2010 reconciliation strategy update, the available yield, augmented by the Berg River Dam was 556 MCM as shown in Fig. 4.14 (Department of Water and Sanitation 2010). In 2011, the 1:50 year calculated stochastic system yield, with the Berg River Dam fully integrated and optimal, dam operation showed an increase of 40 MCM, bringing the system yield to 596 MCM (Department of Water and Sanitation 2011). The stochastic system yield remained the same in 2013 and 2014 (Department of Water and Sanitation 2013, 2014). In the 2016 update, the 1:50 stochastic yield was reduced to 570 MCM from preliminary model runs based on prevailing circumstances. To illustrate the effect of the level of assurance, a 590 MCM yield would reduce the level of assurance to 1:20—in other words, more water is available, but the chances of restrictions are assumed to be much higher.

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700 596

600

SYSTEM YIELD MCM

500

570

556 476

400

300

200

100

0 2007

2008 TWK

2009 Voëlvlei

2010 Berg River

2011

2012

Wemmer shoek

2013

2014

Steenbras Dams

2015 Palmiet

2016 Other

Fig. 4.14  Variation in calculated system yield in reconciliation strategy updates from 2007 to 2016 Table 4.3  Existing lawful water use of the City of Cape Town Source and owner DWS fixed water use (Theewaterskloof, Voëlvlei, Palmiet) DWS variable water use (Theewaterskloof) Cape Town major dams (Wemmershoek, Steenbras Upper and Lower) Cape Town own sources (small dams and rivers, Albion Spring, Atlantis aquifer) Subtotal DWS new source: Berg River Dam TOTAL

Volume MCM 263.9 28 94 12.8 317.7 81 398.7

4.5.1.2  Water Allocations The transition from old legislation to the National Water Act of 1998 employed a mechanism of existing lawful water use to establish water entitlements (Republic of South Africa 1998). Existing lawful use was based on the two-year period prior to the promulgation of the Act and was replaced over a period with compulsory licensing, whereby users had to formally apply for licences to confirm allocations. The purpose was principally to ensure that all South Africans had an equal opportunity to apply for water use and that water would be shared fairly. The secondary purpose was to protect the country’s water resources. In the RWSA agreement, the City’s existing lawful water use was confirmed to be slightly short of 399 MCM, composed as shown in Table 4.3. Allocations are complicated by changing regulations as well as levels of assurance over time. At the time of finalisation of the original reconciliation strategy,

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agricultural allocations had not been fully utilised. This was attributed, in part, to some farmers preferring a higher level of assurance for high-value crops and thus utilising a smaller proportion of their allocations. Agriculture had a capped allocation of 174 MCM and while below this cap, were receiving water at a 1:50 level of assurance. It had thus not yet grown into their full allocation at the concomitant level of assurance it was allocated. Compulsory licensing would require DWS to issue licences to agriculture based on historic maximum water use, as long as this value was less than the capped allocation. The City had a temporary allocation from Theewaterskloof based on a portion of agriculture that had not been taken up yet. Prediction of when agriculture would require the full allocation was complicated, with nearly half of agricultural use in the Berg Water Management Area being located outside of the WCWSS. Furthermore, agricultural take-up was correlated with weather patterns. The RWSA obligated DWS to consider any infrastructure investment made by the City with respect to use of this allocation at the time of compulsory licensing. As per the 2016 reconciliation strategy update, the urban requirement from the WCWSS is reflected in Table 4.4. For Cape Town, the lawful use had translated to a licensed abstraction of 370 MCM, of which 12.8 MCM was from its own sources. This was contentious given the size of reduction from 399 MCM in the RWSA. Agriculture in 2016 had an allocation of 198.57 MCM and a requirement of 216.24 MCM.  The total urban requirement, plus agricultural requirement, plus compensation releases and estimated river losses added up to 609 MCM, considerably exceeding the confirmed yield of 570 MCM. The total agricultural allocation (including losses and compensation releases) as stated in the RWSA was exceeded

Table 4.4  Permitted abstractions and allocations for the urban sector (MCM)

User City of Cape Towna West Coast District Municipality Drakenstein Municipalityb Stellenbosch Municipalityb Overberg Water Piketberg and PPC Lower Berg Wynland Urban total

Licensed/ permitted abstraction 370.700 22.990

Allocation from own sources 12.800 1.350

3.177

2.007

1.171

11.125

8.125

3.000

3.000 2.386 0.050 1.044 414.472

Estimated river losses 1.160

1.000 0.512 0.017 24.282

2.689

Requirement from WCWSS 357.900 22.800

4.000 2.898 0.066 1.044 392.879

Including full allocation from Berg River Dam; excluding temporary allocation from Theewaterskloof b Excluding supply via City of Cape Town or West Coast district municipality, which is included in their respective allocations a

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by ~50 MCM. And the 28 MCM had been double counted in a temporary allocation to the City, and full allocation to agriculture, once they reached their cap. Allocations need to be in balance. This can be achieved as an administrative process rather than physically producing additional water. The system yield needs to exceed system demand at any given point, irrespective of allocation. The first theme of the reconciliation strategy was to resolve and clarify allocations to both urban and agricultural users. But this not being an easy task, disputed allocations were still evident in 2018.

4.5.2  Water Demand By 2017, the City was using approximately 64% of total water used from the WCWSS system a year. Agriculture was using 29% and other urban areas the balance of 7%. Unrestricted water use peaked at 499 MCM in 2000. Because of drought restrictions and demand management, water use declined to 465 MCM by 2006, of which 310 MCM was from urban users and 154 MCM (33%) agriculture. Growth in Cape Town’s water demand went through distinct periods: 5.9% from 1972 to 1976, thereafter it dropped to 4.4% between 1977 and 1990. From then until 2000, growth varied between 2.9% and 3.9%. By 2006, growth had slowed down to between 2% and 3%. Between 1999 and 2005, economic growth was between 4.0% and 5.2%. Urban water demand growth is a function of economic and population growth. Changes from year to year in actual demand are generally small enough to be absorbed, while they have a dramatic impact on future demand and thus planning for additional supply sources. Agriculture is generally assumed to grow at a similar rate until it reaches the capped allocation. Figure 4.15 reflects system yield, historical use and a number of growth scenarios. Where a demand line crosses the shaded yield area, a new supply source becomes necessary, or demand has to be suppressed. A number of important points are illustrated in the diagram. The marked reduction in projected demand between 2004 and 2013 is particularly significant. System yield and dam capacity are reflected in the shaded areas. The grey shaded area is the storage capacity of the main supply dams, with the Berg River Dam since 2007 adding up to approximately 900 MCM. The dotted hatched area shows the calculated yield, which represents the volume of water available in any given year without extreme restrictions, irrespective of the preceding years’ rainfall, at a level of assurance of 98%. In an average rainfall year, it is likely that much more water will be available in storage than the calculated yield. A further increase was evident from the additional calculated yield in the system as a result of operating as an integrated system. Yield is a function of runoff that is highly variable. Factors such as the ability to transfer water between dams, controlled and uncontrolled outflows, evaporation, seepage and dead storage, among others, also play a role. Future demand projection is based on past water use. Growth in the overall system demand is generally predicted to continue along historic growth, smoothed over

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Million cubic metres (MCM)

750 700 650 600 550 500 450 400 350 300

1995

1997

1999

2001

2003

2005

2007

2009

2011

2013

2015

2017

System yield

Calculated yield

Dam capacity

Historical use

Adusted use

2004, 3%growth

2007, 3.01%growth

2013, 2.3%

2013, 3.38%

Fig. 4.15  System yield and water requirements

many years. In reality, external shocks such as drought and economic slowdowns reduce the rate of growth. The original reconciliation strategy applied actual use in 2004 as the starting point—growth is typically taken from a starting point to produce a conservative result. Because of drought and restrictions in 2005, water demand was significantly lower. Unconstrained growth was mapped at 3% as the high demand growth curve, without any demand management or conservation efforts. In 2011, growth was modelled on adjusted water use at a growth rate of 3.01% to reflect the actual growth between 2005 and 2009. Again, this was a conservative approach, given that demand had reduced sharply in 2005 and bounced back thereafter. In the 2016 reconciliation strategy update, the starting point was moved to adjusted water use of 2013. High demand growth was calculated at 3.38%, which translated to low growth of 2%, given implementation of the water conservation and demand management strategy. Since 2005, historical water use has been adjusted to reflect agricultural use to account for additional water that may be utilised in years of poor rainfall. Actual urban use is added to the capped agricultural allocation to result in adjusted historical water use. The original reconciliation strategy recognised that climate change was likely to introduce a drying trend from west to east with the likelihood of reduced, and less, regular winter rainfall. Intensity was also likely to increase, thereby increasing the risk of flooding, while warmer minimum, mean and maximum temperatures were anticipated. In 2011 the impact of climate change was modelled in reducing the available yield (Department of Water and Sanitation 2011). In terms of the RWSA, parties to it were bound to engage in joint long-term planning to ensure that water resources are developed timeously and responsibly, and to ensure that the City receives water at the required level of assurance of supply.

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Developments would have to fall within the framework of the National Water Resources Strategy, relevant catchment management strategies and development planning at both provincial and local levels.

4.5.3  Reconciliation The reconciliation strategy identified a number of scenarios that would cover the range of anticipated results based on the assumptions of water availability and demand. Three main scenarios were initially unpacked, which were thought to cover the full range of likely outcomes. 1. The 2013 base scenario used the revised system yield, high water requirement and 100% success of the water demand and conservation strategy and no climate change impact; 2. The 2013 planning scenario was the same as the base scenario, except that the success of demand reduction was reduced to 50%; and 3. The worst-case scenario was the same as the planning scenario, except that the yield was reduced because of climate change. Should demand grow more slowly than modelled, then additional schemes could be delayed. On the other hand, if the converse be true, then schemes would need to be accelerated. Therefore, the conservative approach reduced the risk of demand, exceeding supply significantly. At the time of finalising the reconciliation strategy in 2006/07, the system would have needed a new resource by 2011 to balance demand and supply. With actual demand suppressed, and in the circumstances at the time, this was delayed to 2015.

4.5.4  Augmentation Schemes While ownership of the bulk water assets that were to be developed was not unpacked, it was envisaged that the City would develop and own some of the new schemes under consideration. Commitment was explicit that the parties would cooperate and plan together to ensure a 98% level of assurance to the City. This was to happen within the framework of the national water resources strategy, relevant catchment management strategies, Cape Town’s Water Services Development Plan and the City’s Integrated Development Plan. Having established the available yield and scenarios for future demand, the next step was to identify supply initiatives to add to the existing yield at time intervals that would ensure no gap crept in between demand and supply. Criteria had been established for the consideration of the schemes that would be prioritised. These included implementation timeframes, cost, socioeconomic and environmental impacts, climate neutrality, energy requirements, flexibility and system storage,

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among others. By 2010, most of the feasibility studies needed to decide on the sequence of implementing the various projects were running behind schedule. Many had not even started. Because the outcomes of feasibility studies were not preconceived, the reconciliation strategy defined two selection processes: • A study selection process to identify interventions that needed additional studies to be undertaken, and • A second selection process to identify the best schemes for implementation based on yield, timing and cost. The potential yield of the supply systems appeared not to be a leading consideration in prioritising schemes. In the City’s water strategy, this was all important, given limitations on resources. Spending much attention on low yielding schemes was not a useful investment in our time because of the engineering effort required for even small alternative schemes. Economies of scale also dictate that small schemes are more costly per unit volume of water produced. The 49 interventions identified for further study in the original reconciliation strategy were classified into eight categories: agricultural demand management (four), water trading (three), changes in land use (two), reuse of treated effluent (four), urban water conservation and demand management4 (nine), groundwater (seven), surface water (18) and desalination (two). By 2010, the initial list of supply schemes was based on a reference scenario that assumed the City was successful in meeting its conservation and demand savings and following the high-water demand curve. Based at least on preliminary studies, the order of likely implementation is shown in Fig. 4.16, for 2010, and the five subsequent updated strategies. The period spans from 2010 to 2034 (x-axis), while the cumulative volume scale (y-axis) adds up to 500 MLD. The legends on the right indicate the respective schemes and volumes in sequence of implementation. Under the reference scenario in 2010, none of the interventions had to be fast-­ tracked for the system to be reconciled. In 2012, the available yield had been increased based on the Berg water availability study. It was most critical to increase supply in 2020 whereafter any number of schemes could be implemented to balance demand and supply. The 2016 reconciliation strategy status report indicated that a number of interventions were urgent, with allocations from the system exceeding the system yield. While actual use had been lower than planned for the preceding five years, it was acknowledged that this was largely because of negative growth in City demand as a result of reducing non-revenue water (NRW) to 21.8% and losses below 15% (as in July 2014). Modelling showed that water requirements were likely to exceed supply in 2019, requiring fast-tracking of at least one supply intervention to be in place by then. Various feasibility studies were in progress at the time to inform which 4  WCWDM was dealt with as a supply intervention, while we viewed this as a demand-side intervention during the drought. In other words, it was a given that we would continue the programme and that it would impact on future demand curves.

4.5  Reconciliation Strategy

Fig. 4.16  Evolution of reconciliation strategy additional schemes 2010 to 2016

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augmentation interventions should be implemented, and in what sequence. But none of the possible interventions could be implemented by 2019. DWS was responsible for the Berg River Voëlvlei Augmentation Scheme (BRVAS) (Phase 1), diverting surplus winter water into Voëlvlei Dam, while the City was responsible for development of the Table Mountain Group (TMG) Aquifer, seawater desalination and water reuse. The BRVAS was to be implemented in 2021. The risk of delay in the implementation of this scheme was deemed high. City representatives expressed concern at the lack of progress on BRVAS, which would result in a shortfall, as low rainfall in 2015 continued into 2016. In each update, a number of scenarios worse than the reference case were considered, where demand increased beyond what was planned, and yield was reduced because of climate change. As additional supplies were sometimes required sooner, the order of supply interventions was adapted, and interventions that could be fast-­ tracked moved up in priority. All reasonable scenarios were likely between the base and worst-case scenarios. In 2013, the planning scenario became the base scenario, assuming only 50% success of demand and conservation savings by the City, to further hedge against the risk of restrictions. Schemes that were included in the base scenario in 2016 in order of implementation were the Voëlvlei augmentation, water reuse schemes one and two, TMG schemes one and two, DWA artificial recharge West Coast, desalination phases one to three and Voëlvlei phases two and three. These, plus others included in Fig. 4.16 as well as in the drought response are unpacked below. 4.5.4.1  Surface Water Schemes Contemplated in 2016 Berg River Voëlvlei Augmentation Scheme (BRVAS) As a surface water scheme, this was seen to be the lowest cost option. As a surface water scheme still reliant on runoff from rainwater it would not be climate resilient. Originally, Phase One of the scheme was planned to add 35 MLD to the system through diversion of water from the Berg River to Voëlvlei Dam, reduced to 23 MLD in the 2013 update. In winter, water flowing at three cubic metres per second would be pumped over a distance of approximately five kilometres to the dam from a weir to be constructed close by. Phase 2 of the scheme involved raising of Voëlvlei Dam by nine metres. Phase 3 planned for a 7.5-metre high (4 MCM capacity) weir on the Berg River and a rising main to Voëlvlei Dam, with a diversion capacity of 20 cubic metres per second. A 1.5-metre diameter steel pipeline to Cape Town would also be required for Phase 3. In the 2016 reconciliation strategy status report, the programme showed that first water from BRVAS would be yielded in the first half of 2022, while the fast-tracked programme would deliver a year earlier. The compressed programme required a decision to proceed to be taken immediately, in 2016, to implement the project. DWS requested a meeting with the City on funding of the BRVAS late in 2018. This indicated that progress had still not been to plan, despite the urgency introduced by the drought.

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Lourens River Diversion This scheme involved diverting winter water from the Lourens River into the pipeline from Steenbras to the Faure Water Treatment Plant to add 19 MLD to the system. The 2013 status report revealed that progress had been hampered by a housing development on the site designated for a potential earth dam and that the feasibility study had yet to begin. This scheme did not feature again after 2013. 4.5.4.2  Groundwater Schemes Groundwater potential had been identified as water resource many decades prior, with possibilities to: • • • •

Abstract continuously as a renewable resource at a fairly constant daily rate; As a non-renewable resource, extracted to exhaustion; As a combination of the above, or With varying rate of abstraction depending on demand requirement to supplement other water sources (Department of Water Affairs 1986).

Since then, the environmental impact of aquifer extraction has led to interventions to ensure sustainability. While the Atlantis scheme was operated by Cape Town for use by Cape Town, the WCWSS focussed on two further aquifers. The long-term downstream impact of using these aquifers for bulk water supply sources became the focus of attention during the drought project acceleration. Table Mountain Group (TMG) Aquifer Investigations into harnessing water from the Table Mountain Group (TMG) aquifer had been progressing for many years at the time of the programme’s acceleration during the drought. The TMG is thought to be the second largest aquifer in the world. It consists of a number of aquifers that stretch from the Southern Peninsula to Grabouw and beyond. The City started investigating the aquifer in 2002 and first drilled exploratory boreholes in 2009. The nature of the TMG aquifer is such that artificial recharge is not required. The exploratory phase of this study was completed in 2012, but there had been a delay in the appointment of a consultant for the pilot phase as a result of legal complications. As part of the exploratory phase of the feasibility study, the City completed the drilling of 3000 m of diamond core boreholes as far back as 2009. The information collected from the rock cores and the geophysical logging informed a suitable location for a pilot wellfield. The pilot wellfield was originally designed for 5 MCM to be abstracted continuously for one or two years. The City decided to amend the scope of the study and extend the exploration to a new site identified during the exploratory phase. This included drilling additional exploration and pilot production boreholes, deepening boreholes and completing pump tests, after which

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the feasibility of a full-scale production scheme would be assessed. At the time, the extended exploratory phase was expected to be completed by the end of 2018. The City considered fast-tracking the implementation of the full-scale production by extending the exploration, which could then be operational by 2021, with a potential to yield about 50 MCM. At the time, the City ran a baseline monitoring programme, planned to continue until a decision for the full-scale development was taken. At this point, the monitoring programme requirements would be revised if necessary. A pilot wellfield would also have been used to assess the potential impact of abstraction on the broader environment, learn from the implementation and operation of a wellfield, and assess how to integrate a large groundwater resource into the operation of the WCWSS.  Further, the City had implemented an environmental monitoring protocol to collect background geohydrological, hydrological and ecological data to assess the impact on the environment of abstracting groundwater from the TMG Aquifer in the future. The City decided to pursue this option in a precautionary manner to minimise or eliminate any possible negative environmental impact. As part of the extended feasibility study, the City planned to apply for a licence to abstract water from the aquifer for full-scale production. This would expedite the possible implementation of the scheme, if found feasible and favourable. Depending on the EIA requirements, it became clear in 2016 that it would take at least two to three years after the City’s decision for full-scale production before abstraction could commence. So, the 2016 status report reflected first water from this resource early in 2024, and a year earlier under the accelerated programme. If the precautionary pilot phase was abandoned, first water was programmed at the beginning of 2021. But, of course, the environmental benefits of the pilot phase would be lost. Cape Flats Aquifer (CFA) The Cape Flats Aquifer (CFA) is a large unconfined sandy aquifer resting on top of a layer of impervious Malmesbury shale and Cape granite bedrock. A pilot abstraction and treated effluent recharge scheme was initiated as early as 1985 (Department of Water Affairs 1986). The CFA covers a vast area contained in the Cape Town metropolitan area and has a storage capacity estimated to be as large as 600 MCM. The sustainable yield was estimated at 18 MCM, translating to 50 MLD over a period of a year. When the reconciliation strategy was first finalised, the project entailed the planned establishment of production and monitoring boreholes, a lime-dosing facility and a 25 Mℓ buffer reservoir. Boreholes were to be situated in public open spaces, parks and school grounds in Mitchell’s Plain, sufficiently far away from existing wastewater treatment plants and solid waste sites. The feasibility study was initially due to begin in 2007. The CFA was not pursued in the strategy as one of the first interventions because of concerns about the sustainability of operating the wellfield in such a densely populated urban area. Therefore it did not feature in the 2016 update and was only reignited in mid-2017 as part of the water resilience programme.

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4.5.4.3  Water Reuse Cape Town had to develop and finalise an integrated effluent reuse policy that included various unnamed reuse interventions. The reconciliation strategy stated that approximately 60% of water used by Cape Town is discharged as wastewater into the sewer network. Potential for reuse stood at more than 50 MCM of treated effluent and 76.4 MCM for direct potable reuse. The strategy further recognised that social acceptability, possible health risks and operational issues called for extensive study and that the regulatory framework needed to be strengthened. Before 2007, much of the initiative for effluent reuse came from the private sector and was intended for industrial use and irrigation. A tender for the water reclamation feasibility study was advertised in 2013 and an appointment made in May 2014, for a contract period of 12 months. The City identified and screened possible reuse options. As at May 2016, with approximately a year remaining to completion, the City assessed the technical and financial implications of the selected options in greater detail. One of the favoured options under consideration was pumping treated effluent from the four WWTWs along the False Bay coastline to Zandvliet WWTW, where it would be treated with reverse osmosis technology and then pumped to the Faure Water Treatment Plant to be blended with raw water. It was clear that public acceptance would be a challenge and public participation would be all important. A draft communication strategy had been prepared at the time to start the public conversation. The required lead time for implementation of water reuse to augment water supply depended on the selected option. The selected option would take around eight years from the start of the feasibility study, concluding an EIA process, construction, and reticulation to getting first water into the distribution network. The 2016 status report indicated first water in the first half of 2022 and a fully operational resource in 2023/2024, with the fast-tracked programme providing water a year earlier, in 2021. 4.5.4.4  Desalination Early in 2015, the water and sanitation department presented a progress report on the seawater desalination feasibility study to the City’s utility services portfolio committee. It was projected at the time that the next water resource in the WCWSS would be needed by 2023/2024. Various water supply schemes were then under investigation, including surface water, groundwater, water reclamation for potable use and desalination. The City’s calculations also pointed to growth in demand exceeding the available allocation of just under 400 MCM from the WCWSS by 2023/2024. The desalination feasibility study was initiated in 2012, with the intention to complete development of a working plant by 2025. The idea was to get planning to a sufficiently advanced stage to undertake an EIA prior to embarking on detailed planning and design. The City emphasised that the plant was not to be built in

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response to a drought, but to provide for base demand and the spatial development and growth in Cape Town. The 2015 report described the system water mix as being overly reliant on surface water (98.4%), with only a small proportion coming from groundwater sources (Atlantis and Albion springs), resulting in a heightened risk of exposure to drought and climate change. The timing of the study is important in the context of the drought, when the City came under fire from all angles for its lack of foresight and planning for future water resources. The location of a desalination plant had been selected along Cape Town’s north-­ western coastline. At the time, the main growth corridor in Cape Town was along the north-eastern and north-western corridors. The plant’s location would thus minimise water conveyance cost. As all the surface water sources were located to the east of the metropolitan area, this provided geographic diversification—useful in mitigating the risk of major infrastructure failure. The proposed location had the further advantage that it would be located close to the 1860 MW Koeberg Nuclear Power Station and could potentially share ocean intake and outlet structures. While the study initially planned for a plant of 100–150 MLD, at early project meetings it was decided to extend the scope to three times this capacity. On the assumption of continuous demand growth, driven by increasing population, providing for additional supply seemed to be a sensible plan. At the time, it was thought that best practice would be to construct intake and outlet systems for final capacity, resulting in increased costs. There are advantages to phasing plant construction in this manner, but costs tend to outweigh the benefits. The study costed construction of large diameter concrete tunnels below the seafloor rather than the lower-cost option of high-density polyethylene pipes laid on the ocean floor. Such pipeline could serve a plant with capacity of up to 300 MLD. The principal advantage of constructing the final plant intake and outlet structures in the first phase of development is that environmental disturbance is a once-­ off rather than repeated occurrence. Furthermore, if the final configuration is constructed upfront, future public participation and acceptance is likely to be easier when the plant capacity is expanded. The capacity can also be increased more rapidly, should there, for example, be further droughts or a step-change in rainfall. A 150 MLD plant would add 55 MCM to the system, thereby diversifying the supply so that the surface water component reduces to 83% of the mix. The final plant capacity of 450 MLD would add 164 MCM to the allocation or provide approximately 30% to the bulk water mix. This would introduce significant redundancy and flexibility to Cape Town’s water, given that desalination is drought proof. In 2014, the capital cost of the first phase 150 MLD plant with tunnels and shafts to serve the final capacity, was estimated at R10.5 billion. To take this to 450 MLD final capacity would require a further R6.5 billion. Operating costs for the initial plant was estimated at R440 million a year for 150 MLD over 365 days, running to 54.75 MCM—in other words a cost of R8 per kl. So, for 450 MLD over 365 days, this would translate to 164.25 MCM at R1.4 billion a year, or R8.5 per kl. The operating cost excluded financing charges and appeared to be very low compared to our experience during the drought.

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Following the portfolio committee meeting, the media reported on the exorbitant cost and lack of support from some councillors, given the cost of desalinated water compared with surface water (Lewis 2015). Without overt support from the portfolio committee, the department proceeded cautiously and did not pursue fast-­tracking the project. The next step in feasibility was to establish a monitoring plant to test the pre-­ treatment processes and collect data on sea water quality for a period of 18–24  months. Further studies included ecological surveys, heritage assessment, geotechnical investigations, toxicity determination, operational noise, EIA and preliminary design. In the 2016 status report, with construction of the desalination plant planned to commence in 2019, first water from the plant would be possible in 2022. The accelerated programme resulted in water availability a year earlier. We were to learn later that this was an extremely optimistic programme.

4.5.5  Relevance of Status Updates From first principles, the reconciliation strategy approach to planning long-term supply that is aligned with demand is sound. The mechanism ensuring regular updates, and clear assessment of resulting risk was less sound. Frequently updating the reconciliation strategy allows amending of demand curves to match actual demand, and either accelerate or delay future supply schemes accordingly. The system supply yield was calculated conservatively, using models that consider variability in conditions such as rainfall on overall storage capacity, and was not expected to fluctuate widely from year to year. Discipline is needed to ensure regular updating and monitoring that new supply schemes are implemented in time. Neither of these disciplines were adhered to and difficulties in procuring service providers to administer and undertake the technical work led to the strategy not being updated every year as planned. Furthermore, a number of schemes fell behind in both planning and implementation, thereby endangering the whole strategy. The 2018 update report was eventually made available in 2019 (Department of Water and Sanitation 2018b). The first such update since that of 2016. Procurement challenges in South Africa have been known to add considerably to implementation timelines of infrastructure. To work around the procurement challenges, the various role-players could build internal capacity to take ownership of the strategy to a degree that external support was less important. This would also ensure consistency in methodology from one year to the next. Unfortunately, in an environment where government is not trusted and where there is pressure on the public sector to reduce salary costs, it is likely that service providers would need to be procured, and the anticipated timelines should reflect this.

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4.6  Urban Demand Management The WCWDM strategy had paid significant dividends by the time the first dry year came about in 2015. In the same year, demand exceeded that of 15 years before for the first time, as can be seen in Fig. 4.17. The need for water conservation and water demand management was recognised prior to the year 2000 and entrenched with the implementation of water restrictions during the droughts of 2000/01 and 2004/05. As a requirement of the RWSA, Council approved the WCWDM strategy in 2007 (City of Cape Town 2007). The projected annual savings by 2020 was a substantial 70 MCM, with non-revenue water reduced to just over 21% during the first half of 2017. The WCWDM strategy had various components, including financial and physical interventions as well exploration of additional water resources. Stepped tariffs for domestic use were introduced to provide an incentive for households to use less water (also see Sect. 3.2.2). At the time 6 kl per month was provided free to every household, which cost was to be subsidised by higher volume steps. The second step from 6 to 10.5 kl was introduced primarily to be able to process free water to indigent households. The third step, from 10.5 to 20 kl/month was priced at actual cost. Above 20 kl and up to 35 kl was provided for general outdoor use, with the intent not to penalise but to provide for watering and more indulgent use at a premium. Water use above 50 kl/month was discouraged through a higher tariff which encourage conservation and reduction of water waste. Since 2007, Cape Town has worked hard at managing water demand with a focus on conservation, reducing losses down to 15% and NRW close to 20%. This level was successfully maintained between 2013 and 2015. NRW is an international measure of sound water management. It is the difference between system input volume 700

6.0

5.0

500

4.0

400 3.0 300 2.0

Reducing per capita water consumption

200

1.0

100 0 1950

1960

1970

Water Treated

1980

1990

Population

Fig. 4.17  Population growth and water use efficiency

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4.6  Urban Demand Management

and billed, authorised consumption. The non-revenue portion consists of unbilled authorised consumption (including supply to informal households), and all losses, both apparent and real. Real losses accumulate as a result of undetected leaks, pipe bursts and the like. While apparent losses occur from illegal connections, water theft and metering inaccuracies. Figure 4.18 reflects NRW and water losses in Cape Town for the ten years to July 2018. System loss is the combination of losses in both the bulk and the reticulation water networks and was maintained below 15% for a number of years prior to the drought. Importantly NRW does not reflect leaks and losses on private property as these are theoretically metered and billed for. Importantly, as consumption dropped through the drought period, the NRW appeared to increase, but this is purely an apparent increase due to the real plus apparent loss volume being divided by the volume of water produced (input volume) as a percentage. In reality the absolute NRW volume reduced further. Worldwide, it is estimated that the average NRW is in the region of 34%. This varies greatly from country to country, depending on the relative scarcity and perceived value of water. Water losses should ideally be below 10%. Only a handful of countries have infrastructure of such quality that NRW is less than 10%. Overall in South Africa, NRW is estimated at 41% of potable water produced. In Cape Town, gross per capita consumption fluctuated between 200 and 220 litres a day for the ten years prior to the drought (Fig. 4.19). The unintended consequence of improved system efficiency is that the flexibility to reduce demand under restrictions is greatly diminished. The drought accentuated any remaining areas where water loss could be reduced, and these were attended to in order of priority. If the water reticulation system is maintained in good order, it will have a further consequence that there will be even less room for movement on the demand side in future droughts. 30%

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4  Cape Town Water Supply 300

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Fig. 4.19  Cape Town per capita water use 2006–2018

Bursts/100km

Fig. 4.20  Water Mains—bursts per month and bursts per 100 km

Numerous physical interventions were introduced, working in concert to reduce demand. With ageing infrastructure and inconsistent pressure across Cape Town, the first step in managing demand was to manage pressure to protect infrastructure and reduce water loss. This was followed by leak detection and an aggressive pipe replacement programme. The length of water mains replaced peaked in 2011 at close to 90 km. The programme continued thereafter but with slightly lower and more targeted replacements, the number of burst pipes more than halved between 2010 and 2015. Bursts per 100 km per year reduced from 65 to less than 30 during this period (see Fig. 4.20).

References

85

At the same time, a meter replacement programme was introduced to replace all meters at least every 15 years. Over time, water meters become inaccurate and especially where use is high such as for industrial customers, the inaccuracies can be significant. Bulk meters to enable zone metering and early detection of leaks further added to the efficiency of the reticulation system. Water management devices described in Sect. 3.2.3 also formed part of the WCWDM strategy—to limit water loss whilst providing sufficient free water to households who could not afford to pay for it. Operationally, the WMD programme required plumbing repairs at indigent households as well as retrofitting with water efficient plumbing fittings. On exploration of new small-scale water sources, the reuse of water in the guise of treated effluent found focus, with a target on the departmental scorecard for a minimum percentage of effluent to reuse of 7% by 2017. More than 250 users had been identified and a dual reticulation network installed in some areas, mainly for irrigation and industrial purposes. A study into Cape Town’s springs and potential for potable use had also been completed, with suitable springs identified for the application of water use licences and design of integration into the reticulation system. At the start of the drought, Cape Town was confident in its demand management progress even if gaps remained, and the WCWDM strategy was often used as a model for other municipalities to reduce their NRW.

References City of Cape Town (2007) Long-term water conservation and water demand management strategy. Available at: https://www.greencape.co.za/assets/Water-­Sector-­Desk-­Content/CoCT-­ Long-­term-­water-­conservation-­and-­water-­demand-­management-­strategy-­2007.pdf. Accessed Jan 2021) Department of Water Affairs (1986) Management of the water resources of the Republic of South Africa. Government Printer, Pretoria Department of Water Affairs and Forestry (2004, September) National water resource strategy, 1st edn. Government Printer, Pretoria Department of Water and Sanitation (2007) Western Cape Water Supply System Reconciliation Strategy Report. Available at: https://www.circleofblue.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/ Reconciliation-Strategy.pdf. Accessed Jan 2021 Department of Water and Sanitation (2010) Western Cape Water Supply System Reconciliation Strategy Report, October 2010. Available at: https://www.dws.gov.za/iwrp/RS_WC_WSS/ Docs/. Accessed Jan 2021 Department of Water and Sanitation (2011) Western Cape Water Supply System Reconciliation Strategy Report, November 2011. Available at: https://www.dws.gov.za/iwrp/RS_WC_WSS/ Docs/. Accessed Jan 2021 Department of Water and Sanitation (2013) Western Cape Water Supply System Reconciliation Strategy Status Report, October 2013. Available at: https://www.dws.gov.za/iwrp/RS_WC_ WSS/Docs/WCWSS%20Status%20Report%20Oct%202013%20Final.pdf. Accessed Jan 2021

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Department of Water and Sanitation (2014) Western Cape Water Supply System Reconciliation Strategy Status Report, October 2014. Available at: https://www.dws.gov.za/iwrp/RS_WC_ WSS/Docs/WCWSS%20Status%20Report%20Oct2014%20Final.pdf. Accessed Jan 2021 Department of Water and Sanitation (2018a) National Water and Sanitation Master Plan. Available at: https://www.dws.gov.za/National%20Water%20and%20Sanitation%20Master%20Plan/ Documents/Volume2%20(Printed%20version%20).pdf. Accessed Jan 2021 Department of Water and Sanitation (2018b) Western Cape Water Supply System Reconciliation Strategy Status Report, November 2018. Available at: https://www.dws.gov.za/iwrp/RS_WC_ WSS/Docs/Annual%20status%20report%20November%202018%20Final.pdf. Accessed Jan 2021 Lewis A (2015) Is Cape’s water plan worth its salt? Cape Argus, 3 March 2015. Available at: https://www.iol.co.za/news/is-­capes-­water-­plan-­worth-­its-­salt-­1826119. Accessed Jan 2021 Republic of South Africa (1998) National Water Act, No 36 of 1998. Government Printer, Pretoria

Chapter 5

The First Two Dry Years

When the well is dry, we know the worth of water –Benjamin Franklin

Abstract  The supply system dams exceeded storage capacity and spilt in 2012, 2013 and 2014. Thus for the first half of 2015, dam levels were no cause for concern. But rainfall in the winter of 2015 resulted in little more than half of average runoff, and Cape Town introduced water restrictions. Because the national department of water and sanitation (DWS) did not impose regional water restrictions, allowing agriculture and some municipalities to draw excessively from the supply system during the long hot summer of 2015/2016, the system then experienced the greatest ever decline in dam levels in one year. The year 2016 heralded slightly better runoff, but at only two-thirds of average, prompted DWS to introduce restrictions while Cape Town increased restriction levels. A convincing victory for the Democratic Alliance in the local government elections in 2016 won mayor de Lille a second term in office, and the mandate to fundamentally change the City structure. By year-end of 2016, the threat of water scarcity was recognised as the top detractor of the Cape Town brand.

5.1  The Water Situation: 2015 With dams spilling in 2012, 2013 and 2014, water supply was not top of mind heading into the drought. In fact, in 2015, electricity supply dominated the headlines, with a record of 99  days of load-shedding disruption. When electricity demand exceeds supply, the public utility, Eskom, interrupts energy supply to certain areas, rotationally reducing demand until the system is back in balance. This is locally known as load-shedding. Supply failure is because of a lack of maintenance of existing infrastructure over many years, neglect of infrastructure, as well as © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 G. Kaiser, Parched - The Cape Town Drought Story, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78889-6_5

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overruns in time (and cost) of new generation plants. The City set to work on a disaster management plan in the event of the country’s electricity supply tripping: if the entire country’s power supply fails, to recommission the grid is known as a black start—this may take up to two weeks to re-establish supply. Such an event would have been disastrous for the entire country, with a high risk of catastrophic societal breakdown. Load-shedding had also resulted in unusual pressure on water and sanitation infrastructure, with frequent service interruptions and sewage spillages due to power failures at pump stations. It was apparent that the electricity network would remain vulnerable for several years and that water and sanitation infrastructure needed to be more robust. Because most of the Cape Town’s 12 water treatment plants produce their own required electrical energy from turbines on the incoming raw water flow from the dams in the mountains, close to 80% of water supply can be delivered by gravity without electricity supply from the grid. Therefore the greater risk was to sustain a safe and secure sanitation system during a blackout. Part of the disaster management plan had funds re-appropriated to water and sanitation to provide generators at all major sewage, and some strategically important water pump stations. This became the priority project in the water and sanitation department throughout 2015. At the start of 2015, dam levels were at a respectable 84% of capacity, having filled to overflowing the previous winter. Water consumption was unconstrained, and dam levels continued to fall more rapidly than in previous years. Rainfall was late to arrive so that dam levels only began to increase in June 2015. July and August runoff boosted dam levels, but without much late seasonal rainfall from September, dam levels didn’t recover enough to even reach three quarters of storage capacity and ended the hydrological year at the end of October on 71% (Fig. 5.1). The long-term average runoff profile had been established over the life of the WCWSS, and rainfall records dating back to 1928. Runoff volume is deduced from the increase in dam level, balanced with outflows from demand, evaporation and other losses. Rainfall translating to runoff is usually delayed at the beginning of winter because of infiltration into dry ground. Figure 5.2 shows the annual distribution of the long term-runoff against that of 2015. That year 2015 followed three years of above average rainfall and runoff, with dams spilling in 2012 (818 MCM runoff), 2013 (1013 MCM runoff) and 2014 (821 MCM runoff). With only 54.4% of long-term average rainfall distributed throughout 2015, all months had below average runoff. Demand for the year had increased substantially from 2013 to 2014, averaging 981 MLD over the year 2015 as shown in Fig. 5.3. This was an increase of more than 12% year on year, by far the largest single increase since 2000. For the first time, demand exceeded what had been recorded at the start of this century. At the beginning of 2015, summer demand exceeded previous highs at 1200 MLD. Winter demand was especially high comparatively, never falling below 800 MLD, likely as a result of less rainfall. This coincided with the extensive electricity load-shedding during the winter and up to September 2015, which may have contributed to reduced concern for water use.

5.1  The Water Situation: 2015

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Fig. 5.2  Average and 2015 actual inflow

The year 2015 was just past the midway in the City’s political term-of-office integrated development plan which spanned from 2012 to 2017. The administration had worked towards improved service delivery and invested much effort in infrastructure development, paying particular attention to improved legislative compliance, setting policy and operationalising procedures (City of Cape Town 2012). The

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Fig. 5.3  Cape Town water produced in MLD, 2013–2015

summer of 2015/2016 also had a plethora of wildfires, with the City responding to nearly 10,000 incidents. Heat waves increased the incidence of fire, but sabotage and malicious damage was also suspected in many cases. At the end of winter 2015, after the first year of low rainfall, the water team motivated that water restrictions be implemented both by the City and DWS. DWS chose not to impose restrictions during the summer of 2015/2016, in spite of a formal recommendation from the Steering Committee of the WCWSS, because their model did not indicate the need for this. The model had not been recently updated or calibrated, and as a result extremely high draws were made from the supply system by agriculture and some small municipalities. Following the drought between the years 2000 and 2004, the City had developed a tariff structure for water and sanitation with three tariff levels, approved annually by Council. Level 1, the base level, aspired to a 10% saving in demand which was a requirement from DWS after the previous drought. Level 2 required a further 10% saving resulting in a total 20% reduction in demand, while Level 3 required an overall saving of 30%. The City based its restriction tariff structure on the national Strategic Framework for Water Services which stipulates that tariff policies include special tariffs for periods of water restriction (Department of Water Affairs and Forestry 2003). Delegation to move to a different restriction level is contained in the water bylaw (Section 36) and lies within the remit of the City’s director of water and sanitation, while the tariff is pre-approved by Council annually (City of Cape Town 2010). Water is relatively inexpensive, compared with other goods and services. The restriction tariff was intended to balance revenue rather than make water so expensive that demand was suppressed. The cost per unit of providing water is also largely independent of the volume used, since the cost of raw water is low compared with the fixed costs of reticulation. This is very different to electricity. For example, the

5.1  The Water Situation: 2015

91

cost of energy is high compared with fixed costs and revenue is very much directly impacted on, as demand fluctuates. Somewhat incongruously, under restrictions, if the aim is to sell 10% less water, with the cost of provision remaining constant, then the sales price must increase by 10% to achieve the same revenue. The tariff structure is complicated by the number of consumption steps per restriction level, along with the cross-subsidisation of tariff at low consumption volumes through high volume users (see Sect. 3.2.2). The three tariff levels had thus always aimed to balance revenue rather than restrict consumption by making water prohibitively expensive. The report required to obtain approval to move to Level 2 restrictions made its way to Council in December 2015, for implementation on 1 January 2016 (City of Cape Town 2015). City bureaucracy is such that a well-defined process is involved in submitting reports to the Council agenda. After finalisation of technical content, the report requires translation of the main sections into isiXhosa and Afrikaans. The report then follows a predetermined route of obtaining electronic signatures. While this changes over time, typically the sequence requires signature first by the author and line management (director and executive director), then to finance (budget office and Chief Financial Officer (CFO)) should there be financial implications, and to corporate services to check that delegations are correctly interpreted before entering the political domain. Legal compliance assesses whether the content of the report is compliant before the Mayoral committee member assesses the content for signature. Finally the mayor signs the report if satisfied that it may proceed to Mayco, and on to Council for approval. Since legislation is open to interpretation and opinion around responsibility constantly evolves, templates, delegations and required signatories also change frequently. It is not uncommon for reports to be redrafted repeatedly and sent back for changes numerous times. All this needs to happen within strict agenda deadlines. The above explanation illustrates that while identifying the need for Level 2 restrictions in October 2015, a separate chain of events had to trigger the final implementation of the decision on 1 January 2016. As it happened, and as the final signatory, the mayor returned the report to change one of the recommendations, so the approval process had to restart anew. In terms of the prevailing water bylaw, the director of water and sanitation has authority to remove restrictions. The mayor issued the instruction that the executive director instead be tasked with removing restrictions instead. This was aligned with the trend to centralise authority and raise the level of delegation to a higher office during the mayor’s term of office. At the end of 2015, dam levels had fallen to 55% of capacity, reducing at an alarming 8% per month. At only 55% of storage, this was nearly 30 percentage points lower than a year before—as a result both of decreased inflow and increased demand. With a single year of poor rainfall, dam levels can easily recover should the next year have average rainfall. Unfortunately climate models are not capable to predict future rainfall with any certainty, and my water team proceeded to curtail demand fully aware that we would only know more about the drought only after the next rainy season.

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5.2  The Water Situation: 2016 Having not yet established whether it was a single or multi-year drought, precautionary communications campaigns aligned with Level 2 restrictions were ramped up to reduce demand during the first half of 2016. There was no real tension on water supply in the early part of that year, although dam levels fell to 30% by the start of the rainfall season (see Fig.  5.4). They then rose encouragingly to above 50% thanks to good rainfall in July, but then August and September had less than average runoff. While rainfall in 2016 was an improvement on that of 2015, inflow was still only two-thirds of the long-term average. Dam levels recovered to just more than 60% by the end of October. This being 11 percentage points lower than a year before, the broad realisation dawned that demand required severe restriction, not only through the coming summer months, but also to address the risk of low rainfall in 2017. Distribution of inflow for the year is shown in Fig. 5.5. While the distribution was closer to normal, runoff was much lower than average in all months other than July 2016, which was marginally higher than average. Runoff for the year added up to an estimated 472 MCM, versus the long-term average of 711 MCM. In the summer at the beginning of 2016, the water team voluntarily reduced City abstraction from Voëlvlei Dam to ensure water security to the West Coast municipalities. The Voëlvlei Dam level had dropped to below 20% of its full storage capacity, and even though the resulting operations were more costly to our own account, it was in the best interest of other users in the WCWSS. 110%

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5.2  The Water Situation: 2016

93

160 140 120

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Fig. 5.5  Average and 2016 actual inflow

The national DWS finally implemented 20% restrictions on both municipal demand and agricultural abstractions from the WCWSS in mid-September 2016. The rainfall recorded for the year to date was clearly below average, signalling a drought of more than one year, and the incontrovertible need for restrictions. Usually the DWS runs its model to establish the level of restriction required only after the end of the hydrological year (31 October). In this instance it was clear that restrictions were required. The water team welcomed the restrictions on all users as we were concerned that other users in the supply system would continue extracting more water than the system could safely provide as had been the case during the previous summer. The City moved to implement Level 3 restrictions from 1 November (approved by Council on 26 October 2016). At this point the water department wanted to limit daily consumption to around 800 MLD and had reduced system pressures in the bulk network to help this along. Considerations were discussed to target daily consumption to either 850 or 800 MLD. There are good reasons to have a stretch target in such uncertainty but given that the unrestricted summer consumption was more than 1000 MLD, pushing it too far would also not be useful because we would not come even close to reaching the target. The City’s Level 2 restrictions had initially resulted in a 12% water saving, which had stabilised at around a 7% reduction in demand for the duration of this restriction level. Over the 2016 calendar year, daily demand averaged 845 MLD, a reduction of nearly 14 percentage points from 2015. This was also 3 percentage points lower than in 2014, as is illustrated in Fig. 5.6. With the City’s Level 3 restrictions coming into effect requiring an additional 10% saving and increase in tariff, business became slightly anxious. Business customers could apply for exemption from the reduced usage target, but there was no mechanism to be exempted from the restriction tariff. The increase in tariff provided

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1,200 1,100 2015 average 981 MLD

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Fig. 5.6  Cape Town water produced in MLD, 2014–2016

incentive for business to thoroughly assess their private water requirements and clamp down on leaks and losses. Many large establishments such as prisons and other government facilities dramatically reduced their metered use by attending to internal leaks. Commercial businesses often went further by installing ground- and greywater systems, and in the coming months, some installed small-scale desalination plants, providing resilience at individual level, off-grid from the City’s reticulation system. The reduction in demand was notable, although this increased the non-revenue water component in the City’s water balance as the overall volume of revenue-generating water decreased. Demand was still slightly suppressed, and well below the seasonal average. But with dams at only slightly more than 60% full, it was clear that drought efforts had to be intensified.

5.3  Elections and Organisational Change The political environment prevailing at the time of the drought was fractious, although it was only truly apparent in the spring of 2016 that the drought had not broken. Many natural disasters are aggravated by imperfections in the behaviour of leadership. In this instance, it must be acknowledged that things could have been much worse, but it could also have made managing the crisis much easier had it been smooth-sailing, politically. Local government elections on 3 August 2016 resulted in the Democratic Alliance (DA) winning 154 of the 231 seats in Cape Town City Council, as well as making significant gains in three of the eight remaining metropolitan municipalities. The gains were such that, in coalition, the DA took control of Tshwane, Johannesburg and Nelson Mandela Bay metropolitan municipalities. The election

5.3  Elections and Organisational Change

95

results were not all that surprising considering that the leadership had been transforming the way the City operated since coming into office in 2011, specifically in its media communications of successes. Furthermore, it was unsurprising to see the victory attributed to the mayor, because she had become the face of the City in the media. The elections took place during the rainy season and politically, not much attention had been paid to the drought by this time, even though the City had been at Level 2 restrictions since January of that year. The mayor first introduced the Organisational Development and Transformation Plan (ODTP) late in 2015. It appeared to be a wonderful idea with a grand vision to correct many issues in the City and align the administration with the strategy. Some of the principles that found broad appeal with officials were focusing on recruiting the right skills for service delivery, amending delegations to make practical sense, not punishing everyone for the transgressions of one, among other ambitions. Having enjoyed a successful first term in office, the mayor’s office masterminded the ODTP project, to ensure that the structure, priorities and values of the administration would be aligned to complete implementation of the Integrated Development Plan. At this time, Craig Kesson was the director of the strategic policy unit (SPU) in the mayor’s office and was responsible for the transformation project, advising the mayor on strategy and policy. What was initially not intuitively obvious was that the ODTP process would ignore formal management structures. For example, there was no vehicle for the executive management team to engage with the ODTP process, disempowering the executive leadership as a collective. The long-serving City manager, Achmat Ebrahim, a well-respected career civil-servant appeared to have decided to collaborate with the mayor in supporting the ODTP. Rumour had it that he wanted to see out one more term of office prior to retirement, and resistance to the ODTP would not align with his ambitions. An interesting group of in the region of 60 people from across the staff establishment were selected to participate in the ODTP process. Each directorate had the opportunity to nominate participants, but as I recall, none of the professionals whom I had proposed from my directorate were selected. Instead, there were a number of bright upcoming newly-appointed staff members, a few old-guard specialists with much experience, and the entire SPU from the mayor’s office. Only two executive directors were included: Melissa Whitehead, a close ally of the mayor, and me. The honour of being part of the group was a little dubious given its overall agenda and composition, but I took it as a positive sign that my position as executive director was likely to be secure after the elections. When the mayor announced her first executive team back in 2011, very few of the team who served under the previous mayor were retained or reappointed. The turnover rate of executives was alarming. In the four years since my appointment in 2012, the structure kept morphing, and nearly half the executive directors had left the City. The high turnover of executive directors was highlighted when, on the day before the August Council meeting, the executive management team was called to a special meeting. The City manager informed us that two of the remaining executive directors had their contracts terminated with immediate effect, because they did not fit with the future development plan of the City. It came as a shock, totally unexpected.

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The ODTP could only be implemented only by all executives reapplying for our posts as executives in the new structure, as amended in line with the ODTP. Since many of the executives who had been appointed in 2011 had been replaced, the time remaining on our five-year contracts varied. Some contract periods spanned significantly beyond the planned date for implementation of the ODTP, and the risk existing that the legality would be challenged. Paying out the remaining contract period of the two executives was a neat way of removing this risk, and if some professionals should have their careers ended as collateral damage, then so be it. Being part of the ODTP meant being more complicit in the bizarre way the process was undertaken than other executive directors, without knowing what the outcome might be. Later, having experienced just how little impact any of my particular workstream members had, participation proved to be rather meaningless. I was on the ‘values and culture’ workstream, which to my mind was very important in charting a proper, supported and implementable strategy. Amongst the various other groups, this workstream was clearly not considered terribly important and leaned toward the touchy-feely side. Nonetheless, my workstream built a solid team in the workstream and did some good work. But an internal poll had been conducted to determine which values staff felt that the City should stress. My subcommittee had made a recommendation on how to move forward, backed by a research report to support our recommendations. We were told that our recommendation, being at variance with the poll, was not acceptable, and that the poll results would stand. A short while later we were informed that the mayor’s steering committee identified a somewhat different set of values to be put forward. The integrity of the process was thus irrevocably damaged—ironic since integrity was one of the five values which the ODTP claimed to espouse. The executive management team was perplexed that the ODTP was developed without our input, given the significant experience we had. It had been apparent that the mayor’s office didn’t hold the management team in particularly high regard. But the exclusion of most of the senior directors was concerning. At most, the executive directors and some directors were individually interviewed by members of the workstream subcommittees. As a collective, the executive management team was briefed occasionally on ODTP progress, generally right before a wider staff briefing. We were told repeatedly to ‘trust the process’, and to be positive about the change, whether or not it would lead to personal job loss. We had to drink the Kool-­ Aid. There was no objecting without potentially being shown the door. No longer could one co-opt professionals and trust them to do the right thing. Forums had to be formally appointed and threatened with consequence management.1 For anyone outside the mayor’s inner circle, it was a stressful time. The ODTP macro structure was approved by Council on 24 August 2016 (City of Cape Town 2016). Interestingly, the final product was presented to the executive 1  National treasury requires that disciplinary action be brought against any state employee who fails to comply with the MFMA, or permits unauthorised, irregular, fruitless or wasteful expenditure. Consequence management in the City was formalised in the approval of a Consequence management policy approved by Council in May 2019.

5.3  Elections and Organisational Change

97

management team for the first time on 29 August, shortly before being presented to the top 800 senior City managers later on the same day. The approved ODTP provided the administration with the mandate to move and implement the plan, and to recruit a City manager and executive directors into the new structure. It also contained a new political structure. In the past, only one Mayco member was appointed for each directorate in the City, and each Mayco member held responsibility for only one directorate. The new structure had one directorate with four Mayco members, other directorates sharing a Mayco member, and for the first time, there was an executive director in the mayor’s office (see Fig. 5.7). The impact that the ODTP had on the administration was destabilising for a number of reasons. A period of great uncertainty followed because numerous departments and functions had been moved. Strategic power was now formally and effectively centralised in the mayor’s office, which was responsible for policy and planning, communication, performance management, enterprise management, innovation and probity. Probity included forensics, risk, audit, and ethics, as well as

Fig. 5.7  Organisational structure as approved in August 2016

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the office of the ombudsman. These functions fell within the responsibility of newly appointed executive director of the directorate of the mayor, Craig Kesson. Further centralisation saw the creation of the transport and urban development authority, which now encompassed all physical planning, housing, transversal projects on top of roads and transport functions. The third major change was the implementation of an area model, with the appointment of four Mayco members each responsible for approximately a geographic quarter of metropolitan area, working with the executive director of Area-based Management. The new structure had been meticulously crafted considering transformation from the pre-existing structure and in terms of Section 189 of the Municipal Systems Act, many senior staff members were retrenched. So many departments and posts had been renamed, that navigating the structure to locate a specific function became somewhat complicated over the next couple of years. To my mind the process wreaked further havoc on an administration that had been restructuring since the amalgamation into the City of Cape Town in 2000—the process of dealing with human resource issues from this major change took most of a decade to conclude. The ODTP appeared to be a convenient vehicle to rid the City of senior officials who were seen to challenge the direction set by the mayor. The experience, quality and character of some of the senior officials who were casually let go left me aghast. The process of retrenchment is comprehensively explained in A House Divided (Jonathan Ball Publishers), and I won’t dwell on it here any further (Olver 2019). To my mind, overall, the ODTP process wreaked further havoc on an administration that had been restructuring since the end of apartheid in 1994, when more than 50 separate municipalities had been divided into six larger transitional municipalities. These were amalgamated into the City of Cape Town on 1 September 2000, to give effect to the prescripts of the Municipal Structures Act (Republic of South Africa National Treasury 1998). The utility departments under my direction were also directly affected by the restructuring, mainly in the creation of an energy directorate, which was constituted by the electricity department, and a new department for sustainable energy markets. I had vehemently opposed this restructuring given the synergies to be had from managing the three utility services under the same umbrella, but the mayor had made up her mind that energy would be a standalone directorate. With electricity removed, my directorate would be known as ‘informal settlements, water and waste services’ with the clumsy acronym of ISWWS. The intention was to raise the profile of informal settlements by having the words in the title. But without the addition of the requisite human and financial resources, not much could be done to improve services on the ground. December was typically the time of year when the budget for the following financial year had to approach finalisation. Water and sanitation had trimmed down our actual tariff increase requirement for the following year from an outrageous 49% to 20.6%. Despite the reduction in requirement, this was still not seen as credible or palatable by the budget office or by the mayor. It merits emphasis that the budget approval included restriction levels for the year that would end in more than 18  months’ time. Based on prior experience, the suggested tariff structure was

References

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expanded from Levels 1, 2 and 3 to include a Level 4 restriction with concomitant tariff. Recruitment for the posts of City manager and the executives that would report to that position commenced in September, not only in Cape Town but in metropolitan municipalities around the country. Shortlisted applicants were interviewed, and top candidates sent for psychometric assessments and competency tests. The outcome of the process was closely guarded, because all the appointments had to be approved by Council before becoming known. November Council meetings are always held at the beginning of December, shortly before Council recess. Confidential Council reports are dealt with after all ordinary reports, to facilitate the public and officials leaving the Council chamber. After the Council meeting, the City manager called the executive management team to his boardroom in the late afternoon of 7 December 2016 to announce who had been re-appointed. Of the 12 executives whom I served alongside on the executive management team when I was appointed in 2012, only seven remained, with the balance of positions filled by acting staff members. Of the seven remaining, only four of us, plus the City manager, were reappointed. The structure had changed significantly, and the balance of executive posts were to be filled by three external and three internal candidates. By the end of 2016 water was recognised as being the number one detractor of the City brand. It was summer, and Cape Town was hot and dry. Communication campaigns were accelerated. The price of water increased with further restriction levels, public awareness on the drought grew, and the number of reported water leaks skyrocketed. The water and sanitation department had no mechanism to increase capacity to attend to leaks any faster than before, which annoyed an already frazzled citizenry. We tried to explain that leaks were prioritised to attend to the largest ones first, but this rarely pacified irate callers who felt the City to be irresponsible while consumers had to pay higher tariffs.

References City of Cape Town (2010) Water By-law. Available at: https://resource.capetown.gov.za/documentcentre/Documents/Bylaws%20and%20policies/Water%20By-­law%202010.pdf. Accessed Jan 2021 City of Cape Town (2012) City of Cape Town integrated annual report 2012/13. Available at: https:// resource.capetown.gov.za/documentcentre/Documents/City%20research%20reports%20 and%20review/2012-­2013_int_annual_exec.pdf. Accessed Jan 2021 City of Cape Town (2015) Implementation of second level water restrictions. Available at: https:// www.capetown.gov.za/local%20and%20communities/meet-­the-­city/city-­council/meeting-­ calendar/pc-­meeting-­detail?RecurrenceId=13829. Accessed Jan 2021 City of Cape Town (2016) The ODTP, Macro Organisational Structure and Filling of Section 57 Positions. Available at: https://www.capetown.gov.za/local%20and%20communities/meet-­ the-­city/city-­council/meeting-­calendar/pc-­meeting-­detail?RecurrenceId=14670. Accessed Jan 2021

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Department of Water Affairs and Forestry (2003) Strategic framework for water services. Government Printer, Pretoria Olver C (2019) A house divided. Jonathan Ball Publishers, Cape Town Republic of South Africa National Treasury (1998) Local Government: Municipal Structures Act, No 117 of 1998. Government Printer, Pretoria

Chapter 6

A Tumultuous Start to 2017

Truth lifts the heart, like water refreshes thirst –Rumi

Abstract  With a new organisational structure in place and a political appetite for change, Mayor de Lille adopted the drought as a risk to be managed directly by her office. The number of days of water storage that remained made headlines every day and this created sufficient panic to capture the public’s imagination. High-­ consumption customers were identified and received phone calls or personal visits to encourage responsible water use. As dam levels dropped throughout summer, Cape Town declared a local disaster, and the notion of augmented supplies grew in popularity. In parallel, a devastating informal settlement fire occupied City resources and media attention, and through a series of events, eroded the fragile trust between the mayor and the water department. As a result, and crafted solely by the mayor’s office, the City introduced the water resilience programme at the start of winter. The programme promised to provide water from augmentation schemes to function completely independently from surface water—within a year.

6.1  The Water Situation: January to May 2017 At the start of 2017, dam levels were at a concerning 46.5% of storage capacity (see Fig. 6.1). The Level 3 restrictions imposed by the City in 2016 had reduced demand, closing the gap between the previous year’s dam level in the first months of the year. At the rate of dam drawdown prevailing in January, and with no certainty about when winter rainfall would start, 46.5% was not a comfortable figure. The average monthly inflow into the WCWSS system dams for 2017 is shown in Fig. 6.2. Notable is the extremely late and low inflow in 2017, adding up to only 283

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 G. Kaiser, Parched - The Cape Town Drought Story, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78889-6_6

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Fig. 6.1  Dam storage volumes 2000–2017

Fig. 6.2  Average and 2017 actual inflow

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Fig. 6.3  Cape Town water produced in MLD, 2015–2017

MLD—less than 40% of average. May, June and July saw only a fraction of the average inflow with rainfall. Because of growing awareness and extreme efforts at water saving, demand was curtailed to below 900 MLD in the summer at the beginning of 2017 and below 650 MLD by summer at the end of the year. This was a notable achievement, reducing average demand to 679 MLD by 30% within the space of two years. The impact of reduced demand can also be seen in tracking dam levels in Fig. 6.3—the slope of the curve up to April 2017 was flatter than that of 2016, or any previous years, with demand management reducing dam draw-down. However, within the City administration, opinion was however not agreed that demand management would be enough.

6.2  The Mayor’s Office Takes Over There are a number of listed phobias associated with water—xerophobia being the fear of dryness, ariditaphobia the fear of drought as it relates to food shortages and wildfires, and baragalophobia, the fear of impending drought, suffered by generations of communities reliant on agriculture. A newer term recently coined is solastalgia—a feeling of distress associated with environmental change close to home. These are not so much of scientific interest but the fear of running out of water arguably impacted on Cape Town. Rainfall records dating back from 1928 reflected a history of winter rainfall. But a seed had been planted—what if it just doesn’t rain? If climate change had impacted on variability enough for the high-pressure system to push all fronts south into the ocean?

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Trust and confidence within the City dwindled in the first months of 2017. Not only was the public uneasy with the media countdown of the number of days of water left but conflicting opinions were very evident within the City administration itself and between the City and national government.

6.2.1  Strained Relations In times of crisis, the expectation is universally implicit that those in power will take charge and solve problems. It is also known that cognitive bias impedes decision making. Behavioural economics posit that most people have a propensity to do nothing when faced with a challenge—to default to the status quo. I tend to err on the side of caution—to thoroughly assess a situation before acting, when such action may prove not to be necessary or even detrimental to the challenge. I witnessed this to be the same approach that most of my senior management staff in utility services followed in addressing problems. We would meet to unpack and analyse the problem from all angles, identify all potential solutions, and calmly proceed, usually with a conservative solution that could be adapted to suit future changes. The opposite to defaulting to the status quo is called action bias—the impulse to act with the aim to take control over a situation, specifically when it is expected of those in charge to do something. Action bias results in taking action in ambiguous circumstances, whether it is confirmed to be a good idea or not, often without full consideration of unintended consequences. Action bias is more evident in overconfident individuals—those who have a firm belief in their own power (Dobelli 2014). For them, the risk of being judged for inaction is seen to be higher than the risk of acting, even if the action is wrong. From my point of view, there was no lack of confidence in the mayor’s office, and their action bias on the drought response stood in stark contrast to my own. Compared with my staff, they were flamboyant, eloquent, often derisive, and quick to make decisions. It was evident that the more tentative and measured approach to decision making that the water team practiced was often disparaged, and seen as weakness (Kahneman 2011). Early in 2017, with dam levels at 46%, and many hot summer months ahead prior to any hope of real rainfall, my water team continued to emphasise the need for managing demand rather than augmenting supplies. The oft-repeated refrain, “you can’t build your way out of a drought”, reflected the notion that it was not possible to complete projects to first water within the duration of a drought. The water team aimed to restrict overall system demand while continuing our long-term augmentation efforts. We knew that silver-bullet remedies were seldom viable, from both our own experience and many exploratory studies in South Africa and elsewhere. If it was easy and cheap to make water, engineers would have done so long ago to reduce the impact of droughts. In mid-summer, urban use comprised around 40% of the daily system demand, with agriculture using around 45%, and evaporation taking care of the balance. In peak summer, losses to evaporation totalled in the region of 135 MLD! At drought

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meetings with the provincial office of DWS, the water team raised concern about the continued unrestricted agricultural releases. By this point, agricultural allocations for the year had already been exceeded. We further appealed to DWS to issue a communication regarding restricted groundwater use. Groundwater had always been a national responsibility, and while the City required boreholes to be registered, we had no control over installation or abstraction. Progressively more of our urban customers were installing boreholes and we were concerned about the combined impact on groundwater resources. The mayor finally announced the mayoral committee (Evans 2017), and the new Mayco met on 17 January 2017. My new Mayco member, Councillor Xanthea Limberg, was appointed to both the utility directorates of Energy, and that of Informal Settlements, Water and Waste Services. While I had been appointed to the latter directorate, I acted as executive director for energy for the first six months of 2017 since the selected candidate had declined the offer. Xanthea had been the Mayco member for corporate services prior to the elections, and I knew her to be thoughtful, quick to understand and hard-working. The delay in the appointment of Mayco was an early indication of the political rift not only within the City but also between the DA leadership and the mayor. It was however a relief to have a direct representative for my directorate on Mayco within the City Council. At the same Mayco meeting, the mayor highlighted her priorities for the new term of office which included a new methodology of planning. This involved delivering services transversally. While operating in silos is sometimes detrimental to services, should they cross or collide, many municipal services operate independently, and forcing transversal integration was not always useful. The portfolio project management unit was established in the directorate of the mayor to oversee all the City’s programmes and projects transversally. The mayor’s notion that City officials did not plan or know how to manage projects coloured much of what was to follow. From the beginning of January, after a brief end-of-year break, the mayor’s interest in the drought grew progressively. Control of urban demand relied heavily on the behaviour of our customers—the nearly four million inhabitants of Cape Town. Monitoring and managing daily water production were the main tools the City had in crafting media releases. Typically, Cape Town’s water use exceeded the 800 MLD daily target. In media statements, the City appealed to all citizens to be vigilant and report water restriction transgressions since it was impossible for the City staff to identify and address private wastage. With well over a million households, policing water restrictions across the vast metropolitan area was a tall order. This was well illustrated when a law enforcement operation sent 45 officers into the field to identify water wasters during January. Only a single fine of R2000 was issued for washing down hard paving using potable water. The drought communication approach was intended to punish individual over-­ consumption, in the hope that savings would accumulate to an overall drop in demand. Imposing water restrictions is a tool to provide information on the status quo, how individual water use needs to adapt, and confirms the authority of the municipality to manage demand. Despite the terminology, water restrictions are not

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necessarily punitive: it is a tool to match consumption with a lower volume of available supply. To address those using too much water, the mayor requested detailed information on top consumers in the different categories of use. This was somewhat more challenging than I had hoped. While the City runs on an integrated resource management information technology platform on SAP, meter reading and billing were not automated to the extent required to quickly compile accurate information to be used for punitive action. Within any single month, top residential consumption cases were commonly the result of catastrophic and/or undetected leaks. This complicated the timeous identification of truly water-squandering households. With each passing day of summer in early 2017, water became more prominent in newspaper headlines, and demanded action on a number of different fronts. The new City structure was now in place and with the four-area model implemented, it seemed sensible to take advantage of this new political capacity to highlight the need for water conservation. Thus my water team identified a suburb in each of the four area-based Mayco members regions to host an event over the weekend, where we could engage with the public and get media attention while encouraging people to consume less water. On the last Friday in January, a corrosive meeting was held that turned out to set the tone for the rest of that year. At the mayor’s suggestion, the Premier of the Western Cape, Helen Zille, called for a meeting for her to be briefed on the drought at her residence at Leeuwenhof. A number of us must have been keen to have tea in the premier’s official residence, and as a result, the City was well represented with the mayor’s office, Xanthea Limberg, the communications department, and my water team all present. The premier was flanked by a number of provincial officials from environmental affairs, disaster management and local government affairs. We sat down to tea and the premier began to ask questions. As the water team answered the premier’s questions, it was apparent that the mayor was becoming more and more agitated. We had not briefed her prior to the meeting, and it was obvious that she did not agree with much of our strategy. In contrast, the premier seemed quite satisfied with our approach. We worked through our immediate actions to drive demand down further. Alderman JP Smith, the Mayco member for safety and security was aware that the water department lacked sufficient enforcement staff to make a dent in acting on transgressions and offered to have his law enforcement officers work with us to enforce water restrictions. The operation was scheduled to commence the following day to last the weekend, with each of the area-based Mayco members visiting transgressors, accompanied by law enforcement. The mayor was not impressed with this plan. Another point of contention was the naming and shaming of those not adhering to restrictions. The water team had obtained an internal legal opinion which confirmed that we were correct to be cautious and not to use private consumption information to publicly name and shame our consumers. The mayor challenged this and undertook to seek a legal opinion she could trust. Further, there was a view that the City should sponsor rainwater harvesting tanks which from a legislative point of view was problematic. Municipalities are not allowed to fund infrastructure on

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private property, but the mayor was known to challenge this interpretation and drive novel solutions to supporting poor households more readily. The premier raised the matter of additional water sources, from desalination to the use of local mountain springs. The water team informed the premier that the yield from this source was only a tiny fraction of a fraction of our daily demand, and that desalination plants are not only exorbitant, but at scale, have a considerable implementation period. We also discussed our draft letter addressed to high consuming households with information around restrictions and their implications, which was due to be disseminated with the next run of municipal bills. After an icy end to the meeting, I received a call from the mayor while returning to the civic centre. She rebuked me for much of the content of the meeting. Perhaps the most obscure outrage was expressed at the notion that the director of water and sanitation, Peter Flower, could sign the draft letter to top consumers. The director was responsible for running a department with a budget of billions of Rands and a staff contingent of about 4000. In terms of the water bylaw, Peter had final authority over a myriad of water management functions. For decades, previous directors had signed such communiques. But following the rebuke, my office elected to send out communications under the City manager’s hand. The mayor also instructed that the planned weekend media initiative with law enforcement and the four area-based Mayco members be cancelled, and that I had to meet with her early on Monday morning. Henceforth, she would take charge of the drought response and all communications around the drought. On the following Monday morning, the four area-based Mayco members joined the rest of us who had been in the premier’s briefing on Friday, in the mayor’s office. Over and above the issues she had raised with me earlier, she now insisted on changes to the high consumption letter as well as the areas selected for the media event. From a water resource management point of view, the water team explained that with dam levels as low as they were, and consumption continuing apace, the likely combined dam storage at the end of summer would be around 20% of capacity (in reality they bottomed out just below 20%). The provincial officials had spoken of the WCWSS reconciliation strategy at the meeting with the premier. The mayor had not been aware of the strategy and we committed to providing the mayor with a copy of the latest strategy update report. She also requested copies of all feasibility reports and studies related to water augmentation projects that the water team had developed to date. The mayor had learned that the last bit of water in dams was typically difficult to access, and enthusiastically latched onto the simplistic notion of last 10% being unusable. This figure was thereafter used in all future communications around the drought from the mayor’s office that when, for example, dam levels were at 30%, the City would communicate that we had 20% usable water remaining. This meeting signalled a key turning point. The mayor made it clear that the water department would no longer be responsible for leading the drought response, that it was a citywide crisis, and thus the mayor would take control. All future communications around water would be made only in consultation with her office.

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A number of suburbs of high domestic use were publicised in the media release accompanying the news of the restriction increase, along with the message that the City’s area-based Mayco members would bring the top 20,000 transgressors to book. It was cold comfort that high consumption was evident in some households in virtually all suburbs (Daily Voice 2017). We were well aware of the potential political fallout that would be inevitable should only affluent, or indigent suburbs be highlighted. Around February 2017, some radio stations had been reporting on how many days of water the City had left, based on the rate of change in dam levels and daily demand. My team felt that we had to respond and started calculating and reporting on the theoretical number of days of water left, given a variety of assumptions of past consumption, evaporation and so on. This calculation was based on so many assumptions that it would never be wholly accurate, but as a communication tool, it arguably was effective as a metric virtually anyone could understand. The media briefing at the end of February was strongly influenced by my water department emphasising that augmentation of water supplies in time to make a significant difference to supply levels would not be feasible, and that the City would continue to drive down demand in any way possible (De Lille 2017). The media release even stressed that the schemes as per the 2016 update of the WCWSS reconciliation strategy were on track to secure medium and long-term water supply. Our influence in media messaging reduced sharply from here onwards, until early in 2018. An estimated 121 days of water was available before dams reached 10% storage, based on the current daily demand without any inflow. Following a disastrous media fallout in March 2017 on naming and shaming top consumers, the strategy on managing leaks changed to send technical teams to the top 100 consumers to assist in identification of reasons for the excessive consumption. The mayor’s spokesperson did not fully comprehend that the City was not responsible for fixing leaks on private property and when challenged during a radio interview, had no answer for why we hadn’t fixed them prior to naming and shaming (De Villiers 2017).

6.2.2  M  unicipal Functions and Service Delivery Continues in Parallel For a number of years the utilities directorate had been at loggerheads with the leadership on annual tariff increases. The requirement to provide the level of service expected, allowances for growth in distribution and increased level of service, along with inflationary impacts almost always resulted in tariff increase requirements higher than inflation. Early in 2017, the CFO facilitated a meeting with the mayor prior to finalising the budget because he agreed that a significant increase was needed in water and sanitation to align the service more closely with the cost-­ reflectivity stipulated by national treasury. I was cognisant of the importance of the

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affordability of tariffs on the average household and the repulsion with which any tariff increase is viewed by politicians and the public alike. But certain realties demand that above-inflation increases are commonly needed in South African utilities, as a result of years of inadequate maintenance eroding the condition of assets over time. Merely to keep the system running, an average annual increase of 15% was required in the five years prior, while the actual increase implemented averaged approximately 10%. The recent example of failed maintenance at South Africa’s power producer, Eskom, left a vivid impression on the detrimental impact on the economy of load-­ shedding as a result of insufficient power generation capacity. This can happen to any utility when infrastructure is inadequately maintained. Looking at municipalities across South Africa, the collapse of infrastructure is broadly apparent even to the layman. Over and above the maintenance and progressive improvement of water and sanitation services, the demand profile of consumers had changed significantly by now. The introduction of the WCWDM programme (see Sect. 4.6) had resulted in significantly reduced per-capita demand, and the absence of an availability charge left the water budget vulnerable to large weather-dependent fluctuations in revenue. To catch up on providing sufficiently for infrastructure maintenance alone required a 32% increase in 2017, on top of which an additional 15% was required for improvements to service delivery, particularly to indigent users. I tabled the calculation that we needed the tariff to increase by close to 50%. The mayor had been convinced by the argument that an increase higher than inflation was required and agreed to an increase of nearly 20%. In another budget-related victory for the utility services, the moratorium placed on structural tariff changes some of years earlier was lifted. This allowed the introduction of a charge for the first 6000 litres supplied to non-indigent domestic households. This was a significant development. The drought encouraged households to consume less, and it was not inconceivable at this time that many households would reduce their consumption to below 6000 litres per month, and thus decimate the City’s water revenue. The tariff was introduced at R4/kl per month—approximately a quarter of the real cost of providing water. The plan was to increase this over time until the tariff was closer to being cost reflective. Poor households would be unaffected because they would continue to benefit from subsidisation through the indigent programme, receiving the first 10.5 kl per month free of charge. At the end of January 2017, our water resource modelling showed that at current consumption and reflecting historic usage patterns, dam levels could drop as low as 18% by mid-May. This was somewhat lower than DWS modelling allowed for when the model was run at the start of the hydrological year in November 2016. A number of reasons could have caused such a discrepancy, such as climate change having a greater impact, or human error. A third option not explored at the time was that the system rules were being transgressed, which lead to far less available water than expected (see Sect. 10.1). Around the same time, as the crisis escalated politically, the water team regretted including only one additional restriction level tariff in the budget for the 2017/2018

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financial year. As the City was about to move to Level 3B, having only one further level to restrict to, four restriction levels now seemed inadequate. But all calculations and documentation on the budget had already been finalised in December, with only the final increases to be agreed in the new year. The CFO advised us that it would not be possible to introduce further levels of restriction. This was understandable given the fact that the draft budget had been tabled. In terms of legislation, tariffs could thereafter only decrease whereas an additional restriction level would have led to further increases. As time passed, the detrimental impact on water revenue continued to grow with no space to increase the tariff until the national minister of finance approved a special in-year adjustment, paving the way for the introduction of Level 6 restrictions from 1 January 2018. Additional restriction tariffs would have made a real difference, not only to the effectiveness of the drought management but also in generating water revenue during the second half of 2017.

6.2.3  High-Consumption Households The mayor’s request for high consumption user information continued. This was complicated by an application from a member of the public for information on the top 500 consumers in the City. Such requests for information are made in terms of the Protection of Access to Information Act (PAIA), and we grappled with whether it would be reasonable to provide the information—previously we would not have considered relaying billing information, but everything had changed about who had the authority to make such decisions. The legal department would have to make a final ruling on whether or not such information could be released. It was not a simple process to provide accurate information on high usage customers. I had personally spent time in the office while some members of my staff performed the myriad of functions related to metering and billing. I saw how long it took to run online extracts from hundreds of thousands of records, and then confirming the veracity of this information. Verifying the data was complicated by factors such as not all meters being read every month, leaks causing anomalies in consumption patterns, large properties having multiple meters, and so on. Both the mayor and deputy mayor were calling top consumers by telephone and giving their feedback to the water department to do whatever could be done to reduce consumption. Debates around the most useful daily consumption target continued. The water team now grappled with the feasibility of aiming for citywide demand of 700 MLD or 800 MLD.  The daily value fluctuated from day to day—not only with actual water consumed but also with water conveyed in the bulk and reticulation systems. Mondays often reflected a higher consumption rate because of it generally being laundry day. Even though garden watering was restricted, hot days usually saw increased demand. Using a seven-day average made for a smoother and more realistic demand figure, with lower fluctuations. Outside of the mayor’s meetings my water team engaged with the communications department on producing new material such as infographics on operational

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matters including our leak fixing programme and how to read water meters and detect leaks. We were trying to consolidate the bulk water narrative since so much misinformation was in circulation, and we did this in a manner easily understood by non-technical people. Facts we wanted to emphasise built on the historic information of runoff into dams in the WCWSS. The information, backed up by climate scientists at the time, could not conclude that there was a trend in drought patterns. They pointed out that a single event cannot be extrapolated into a trend, and at that time, the drought was estimated to be a 1:150-year event. Issues around WMDs continued to escalate. The response time to attend to notifications of leaks and faulty meters was growing ever longer as the number of complaints increased. The numerous problems with the WMD programme were exponentially multiplied in the drought: one of the types of meter procured by the City shut down when the battery failed, leading to irate customers without water. The other type of meter opened on battery failure, resulting in unconstrained supply, and leading to increased water use and revenue loss. By March 2017, close to 90,000 indigent households still did not have WMDs while the City had installed approximately 210,000. Debt of more than R700 million could be ascribed to only 6600 accounts. These had been prioritised for the installation of WMDs, on accounts with balances in excess of R50,000. A further 9000 accounts amounted to nearly R300 million in debt. These accounts were continually prioritised, but there were issues and back-office delays. The structural problems around the entire programme would eventually be resolved as an outcome of the drought, but only much later. The impact of procurement on service delivery is difficult to explain unless you found yourself in a government department in South Africa in the 2010s. Virtually every decision made was in some way connected to a procurement process. In the WMD programme, too, several supply contracts, for a variety of meter sizes, were awarded to more than one contractor in an effort to ensure service continuity. Contracts were also awarded to a different set of contractors for the installation, replacement and repair of WMDs. To reduce inequality, the progressive supply chain regulations in the country require that barriers to entry be reduced as far as possible, and work allocated regionally provided opportunities for more vendors. The duration of contracts is limited to a maximum of three financial years to ensure that vendors do not benefit for excessive periods, so that the financial advantages of technological advances are exploited. Moreover, in terms of Section 33 of the Municipal Finance Management Act (Act 56 of 2003), Council cannot make financial commitments for longer than three years. As media reports on the drought continued to grow in number, more requests were received daily to meet with vendors promising silver-bullet solutions. I simply did not have time to see every vendor, so I saw none, instead referring everyone to the water and sanitation new technology forum. Political approaches sometimes resulted in my joining Xanthea Limberg in meetings with vendors. One such example was with a vendor peddling a household-level water evaporator that could provide 100 litres per day. The rental cost (excluding electricity) was R1.40 per litre, while outright purchase was R80,000 (contrasted to the price of water at that point of about1.2c per litre). From a municipal water supply point of view, there was little

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merit in the City supporting this, and we were cautious of endorsing products—the water team did not have the capacity to perform any control given multiple other priorities, and the risk of failure and of a supplier holding the City accountable was ever present.

6.2.4  Disaster Declaration The existing drought disaster management framework had been updated to deal with the eventuality of dams running low, as they were at the beginning of 2017. The disaster management function was the responsibility of the provincial fire and disaster management department, who coordinated closely with the City’s safety and security directorate and the bulk water branch, as well as other stakeholders in the WCWSS. At the time, risk codes, water production targets and demand measures were determined for dam storage levels as follows: (i) 20–35%: If this range in dam level occurred in autumn, the City’s water production target would be 700 MLD and in winter, 600 MLD. All water supply sources from WCWSS would be available. Level 3 restrictions and tariff would be in place in autumn, and possibly Level 4 restriction in winter, after approval by Council. Automated pressure management would be implemented where available; (ii) 15–20%: The production target would be reduced to 500 MLD should dam levels drop to below 20%, under Level 4 restrictions. Over and above automated pressure management, supply would be throttled in residential areas; (iii) 10–15%: 400 MLD would be the new production target, and water from Theewaterskloof and the Berg River Dams would be limited. Low pressures may result in intermittent supply on higher-lying residential areas; (iv) Below 10%: The City would reduce daily production to 300 MLD.  Supply from Voëlvlei Dam would also be curtailed, along with that from Theewaterskloof and the Berg River Dams. Punitive fines would be aggressively imposed on water abuse, and supply would be available intermittently in most residential areas. Compared with the disaster plans developed later in the year, these disaster measures were moderate, and clearly relied on winter rainfall to provide at least some relief in 2017. The water team determined restrictions not only with the current year in mind, but given the uncertainty of rainfall, we were always more concerned with ensuring water supply to be sufficient for the following year. The emergency supplies that could be practically fast-tracked to be available in the first half of 2018 was 15 MLD from the TMG, 15 MLD from water reuse and 15 MLD from desalination. Though 45 MLD was nowhere near the daily demand, at a 100% level of assurance and over time, it would assist the drought relief effort. The plan was low key,

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practical and devoid of drama, based on previous experience in managing drought. And not foreseeing an eventuality that it would not rain, ever again. The mayor declared a local drought disaster on 3 March 2017, largely because of frustration with the lack of action from national government (Petersen 2017). At the time of the declaration, dam levels were only six percentage points lower than they had been the same time a year before. The declaration was made in terms of Section 55 of the Disaster Management Act (Act 57 of 2002). This was a strategic move that allowed the City a number of powers such as releasing resources, emergency procurement and disaster management (Republic of South Africa 2003). The declaration was initially in place for three months, whereafter it could be renewed from month to month by notice in the provincial gazette. The response to the disaster declaration from the regional director of the national DWS, was that it was premature signalling publicly that there was discord between the City and national government (Mortlock 2017). The mayor’s intention was for the disaster declaration to unlock funding that could be used to procure and fast-track additional water supply sources. As the City manager has the delegated authority to deviate from the official procurement process, he was pivotal to meetings around fast-tracking augmentation. Direct deviations were not favoured in the City. Instead a procurement process could be expedited, or an existing contract could be extended by deviation. To fast-track procurement, it had been decided not to reduce the steps in compliance as provided for in case of emergency, so the strategy was to execute each step faster. The disaster declaration resulted in R21 million being made available by the National Disaster Management Centre, specifically for use in the drought response. The funds were allocated to the Table Mountain Group Aquifer, which had a valid tender in place. All possible mechanisms were used to fast-track this effort, but it would not result in any meaningful volumes of water in the time of drought. The disaster declaration paved the way for additional benefits. The provincial Department of Environmental Affairs and Development Planning (DEADP) issued a Section 30A directive in May 2017, allowing the City to undertake some listed activities in terms of the National Environment Management Act (NEMA) Environmental Impact Assessment Regulations, 2014 (as amended). The directive would remain in effect for the duration, stating that ‘the City of Cape Town (CoCT) is declared a disaster area as defined under Section 1 of the Disaster Management Act (Act No 57 of 2002), and until such time as the CoCT can demonstrate the ability to provide adequate water supply to all the areas which fall within its jurisdiction’. Method statements still had to be submitted to DEADP, but the elimination of full environmental impact assessments on project timelines made fast-tracked implementation possible (Republic of South Africa 1998). Provincial government eventually followed the City’s March declaration with Premier Zille declaring a provincial drought disaster in May 2017 (De Klerk 2017a).

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6.2.5  Augmentation Trumps Demand Management Council approved the City’s draft budget at the end of March with four water restriction levels (increased from three levels) and a tariff increase of 19.25% to water and sanitation. While the public was not overjoyed by the increase, the threat the drought posed made the increase somewhat more palatable (De Klerk 2017b). What was not understood was that the increase was completely unrelated to the drought, but rather the result of a number of years of increases that were too low to cover the cost of operations or maintaining infrastructure. By the beginning of April the water team had established that technical interventions had reduced demand by around 25 MLD by throttling the bulk supply from the Faure water treatment plant. This posed some risks to our infrastructure, but it proved that further savings could be made down the line by aggressive infrastructure management. My water team reached agreement with the mayor that Level 4 restrictions would come into effect from 1 June, while the Level 4 tariff would come into effect only on 1 July 2017, the start of the new financial year (Etheridge 2017). After discussion, the mayor made the decision that the City should keep the daily use target at 600 MLD rather than the 500 MLD we had motivated for. As winter approached, media messaging centred around the need to save water even after winter rains started. The mayor increasingly emphasised the impact of climate change on the City’s water supply, and that rainfall will forever be unreliable. The obsession with new potable water supplies being available by winter 2017 had been boosted by the additional funds from the disaster declaration, paltry as R21 million was in terms of costly water augmentation schemes. Work was accelerated to produce 2.5 MLD from each of the projects underway at the Oranjezicht springs, temporary desalination, the Cape Flats aquifer (CFA) and the Table Mountain Group (TMG) aquifer, at a total cost of R55 million. From an operational viewpoint, it was not surprising that with vocal calls for reporting of leaks, the number of service requests escalated exponentially, while staff and contractors available to attend to repairing infrastructure had not increased. This led to further public anger and more pressure from the mayor’s office to do the impossible. The notion that it might not rain at all in winter became increasingly common in drought-related meetings in the mayor’s office. Keeping the focus on managing demand became increasingly difficult. The mayor was the City’s chief spokesperson, and it was imperative for us to have a message that she could accept and broadcast, but this proved to be extremely difficult to achieve in the absence of trust.

6.3  Losing Trust in a Dry Autumn On the night of Friday, 10 March 2017, a fire devastated the bulk of the Imizamo Yethu informal settlement (Davis 2017). While the fire was not directly drought related, it did shape the drought management effort in that it further eroded trust and

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caused yet a greater breakdown of relationships in the administration. For a number of months, the aftereffects of the fire demanded virtually all my time, not only during the week but in the evenings and at weekends as well. This was the most emotionally harrowing project I have ever been involved with. The tragedy is that many years later, despite the professional effort and substantial budget applied, the situation remains intractable. The relationship between ‘the people’ and local government requires much work to build sufficient trust for a partnership of improved service delivery. I am not sure that with the current resources at hand this will ever be achievable. As a result, the director of water and sanitation, Peter Flower had to take more and more responsibility on the drought interaction in the second quarter of 2017. Peter had grown up through the ranks in the bulk water branch in the City since graduating in 1978. Not only did he enjoy the respect of the industry, but he also had extensive knowledge of all matters related to bulk water supply. He had managed the bulk water branch for many years, and I appointed him as director in 2013. I had a sense that the mayor was not very enthusiastic about this appointment and for a number of years I tried to limit contact between them as much as possible. Ironically, the tables turned after my relationship with the mayor deteriorated, and she began to favour Peter to smooth the waters. Both of us had the technical knowledge and experience to manage the drought response, but the skills required to contend with the vitriolic political environment were not fully developed in either of our armouries. We supported each other throughout the drought, applying our energies to the crisis where it made most sense. In an environment where gaslighting was common, we worked together to reason through wicked problems and arrive at a rational approach. Mindful not to fall into the trap of group-think, I was well aware of the value of collectively determining the best options and including as many diverse skillsets in conversations as possible. I had witnessed the trend of executives or other leaders reaching a point of such power that they based choices solely on their own opinion, often to the detriment of the organisation. I was determined not to do this. April 2017 passed with hardly any rainfall, and the forecast for May was similarly depressing. The mayor had been talking about hosting a forum as soon as possible on alternative water solutions to gather intelligence from the public rather than from City staff. She emphasised that City officials needed to develop a culture of “not knowing it all” and learn from the public, giving voice to anyone who had an idea or a product. She had been impressed by the design ideas emanating from a request for proposal issued by the transport department for the unfinished freeways in Cape Town and wanted us to do something similarly innovative. The ideology behind this appeared to be that not only would the private sector come up with better ideas, but it would also pay to implement these. I was aware that drought solutions on offer ranged from efficient shower heads to desalination plants and suggested that separate platforms would be required. Furthermore, it had to be clear that a procurement process would have to be followed should a solution be relevant at municipal scale. The smaller household solutions forum was a quick win in making available information of water saving devices to domestic and commercial

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customers that could be implemented at retail scale without further involvement from the City. To keep the momentum of water saving in the public eye, media events continued and were scheduled as frequently as possible, often more than once a week. The mayor would visit businesses, from hairdressers who had changed their processes, to waterless carwashes. Informal car washes in Cape Town had long been a political bugbear. Typically these carwashes tap into municipal supplies illegally, not paying for the water they use. This often leads to leaving water running all day, resulting in plenty of wastage. Despite numerous City efforts at issuing fines and securing infrastructure, the business model persists. As for hairdressers, many small business owners work from home. As such, they are registered as residential and beholden to residential restrictions. The media events were not only good for City public relations as well as for keeping small businesses operational. A business leadership briefing to discuss the water situation in Cape Town was held at Greencape on 9 May. Peter Flower gave a lengthy presentation on water management in Cape Town where after the mayor spoke about how the City and business can work together to get through the crisis. That evening I was surprised to receive an email from the mayor’s office asking me to speak on a Financial Times/ International Finance Corporation panel in London on 8 June, on the topic of Energy. I was still acting executive director for the energy directorate, but it was the first time that I had received such a request from her office. I was slightly perplexed, given our fractious relationship and a little resistant to the idea since I had arranged a personal trip in May. But after some consideration, I changed my plans to return a week later and participated in the forum in London on the mayor’s behalf. Shortly before leaving, the Africa Utility Week conference took place at the Cape Town International Convention Centre. I had declined the opportunity to speak at the event and instead suggested that Xanthea Limberg be engaged. As it happened, she was unable to do so and at short notice asked me to present on her behalf. From the time I was appointed in 2012, the mayor had made it clear that politicians were the public face of Council and officials were not to speak to media unless unavoidable. As a result I had not spoken at a public forum for a number of years. Nonetheless, I had a long-planned holiday to look forward to, so I agreed and worked with the Mayco member’s office on a TED Talk style of presentation. The talk covered many aspects of drought, starting with recounting the Gauteng drought, which had been broken by miraculous drenching rainfall early in 2017, thanks to cyclone Dineo. For the first time in six years, dams such as the Vaal were full and overflowing, while a week earlier the area had been in drought crisis. The main point was that although the tropical front had been predicted, the unprecedented scale and intensity of the rainfall, which fundamentally altered the region’s water situation, caught everyone in the country off guard. Extreme weather conditions can blindside even the experts. I then explained how water demand had been reduced in the City, how we were working towards becoming a water-sensitive city, and how we worked with DWS in reconciling demand and supply, decades into the future. I covered why we hadn’t invested in expensive desalination plants yet, given all the other priorities that social

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inequality delivers, and explained how the tariff was structured. I concluded: “Ultimately, this water crisis is challenging the City and its residents to think and act differently about water now, and into the future. We are striving towards becoming a water-sensitive city. We are learning about and starting to implement new and more intensive ways to source and use our most precious resource. It is, above all else, an opportunity to completely shift ideas and behaviours relating to a resource so often taken for granted. Aside from that, we are waiting for a miracle.” Unfortunately, what stuck was the final line—that we were simply waiting for a miracle, implying that we had no plans, and were doing nothing to get through the drought (Isaacs 2017). I cannot be sure to what extent this one line influenced what happened next, but I suspect it played a significant part. Reportedly, at around this time in conversation between the mayor and Peter Flower, he reiterated that one could not build one’s way out of a drought. The threatening response is said to have been along the lines of “well if you can’t, I will find somebody who can.” The mayor had announced the launch of Cape Town’s participation in the 100 Resilient Cities initiative late in May together with appointing Craig Kesson as the City’s first Chief Resilience Officer (CRO) (Cape Argus 2017). The launch took the form of an agenda setting workshop, one of those where all attendees are included and get to place sticky-notes on notice-boards. With some trepidation, I left for the airport directly from the workshop. My concern was not without cause. I am not privy to the detail of exactly how it came about but emanating from the gradual breakdown in relations, while I was overseas, an urgent report was put to Council on May 31: “Building a water resilient city: A portfolio response to the drought and avoidance of water shortages” (City of Cape Town 2017). One of the recommendations approved was: “the mandate to establish a water resilience task team under the CRO, reporting politically to the executive mayor to implement and oversee the action required to ensure diversification of water supply in the medium term to improve the City’s water security, as well as any interim measures required to procure temporary water supply capacity to provide a stable water supply in the case of prolonged drought.” The report was signed by the CRO, the CFO, the City manager, as well as the mayor. While both operating and capital implications tick-boxes had been checked in the report, it included no detail, as noted on the report by legal compliance. When I read the report, it was not clear how this impacted on my responsibility as executive director for water and sanitation. In my experience, submitting a report this late, with incomplete information, would never be accepted onto the Council agenda, but these were extraordinary times. Council approved the report, and the water resilience plan was a born. I thus returned from my trip to a completely different landscape, where my department’s water engineers were acting on instruction from another executive director and his staff. Trust is all-important in running any organisation efficiently, especially in times of crisis. Where trust is absent, information can easily be ignored or misconstrued, and poor decisions made. The information from the water augmentation feasibility studies were used in crafting the water resilience programme. However, without any significant input from the engineers familiar with the

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projects, the resulting plan was not implementable. In the middle of a crisis, with the mayor in complete authority, and seemingly not believing me and my staff, the water team felt as if we had no option but to play along. The emperor may have been stark naked, but it was not the right time to point it out, unless one was prepared to walk away from the City and one’s responsibility towards it. At this stage, I realised that local government, under these circumstances, was not a place for any reasonable professional to build a career. While I thoroughly enjoyed the challenges of delivering basic utility services to diverse communities, and the opportunities to effect positive change, such a toxic environment was not conducive to positive development or good health. I resolved to leave the City as soon as the time was right, and once the crisis had calmed down. Of course it would have been unconscionable to jump ship while the drought was still intensifying.

References Cape Argus (2017) De Lille appoints Cape Town’s first chief resilience officer. Cape Argus, 21 May 2017. Available at: https://www.iol.co.za/capeargus/news/de-­lille-­appoints-­cape-­towns-­ first-­chief-­resilience-­officer-­9256106. Accessed Jan 2021 City of Cape Town (2017) Building a water resilient city: a portfolio response to the drought and avoidance of acute water shortages. Available at: https://www.capetown.gov.za/ local%20and%20communities/meet-­the-­city/city-­council/meeting-­calendar/pc-­meeting-­ detail?RecurrenceId=15387. Accessed Jan 2021 Daily Voice (2017) Keep saving water. Daily Voice, 31 January 2017. Available at: https://www. dailyvoice.co.za/news/keep-­saving-­water-­7566565. Accessed Jan 2021 Davis R (2017) Fire and wind: Cape’s curse hits townships hardest again. Daily Maverick, 14 March 2017. Available at: https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2017-­03-­14-­fire-­and-­wind-­ capes-­curse-­hits-­townships-­hardest-­again/. Accessed Jan 2021 De Klerk A (2017a) Western Cape declared a disaster area amid worst drought in more than a century. Sunday Times, 22 May 2017. Available at: https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-­ africa/2017-­05-­22-­western-­cape-­declared-­a-­disaster-­area-­amid-­worst-­drought-­in-­more-­than-­ a-­century/. Accessed Jan 2021 De Klerk A (2017b) Drought-hit Cape Town scraps free water for all. Sunday Times, 29 March 2017. Available at: https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-­africa/2017-­03-­29-­drought-­hit-­ cape-­town-­scraps-­free-­water-­for-­all/. Accessed Jan 2021 De Lille P (2017) How the city will cope with the drought. Available at: https://www.iol.co.za/ capetimes/news/how-­city-­will-­cope-­with-­the-­drought-­7978192. Accessed Jan 2021 De Villiers J (2017) Cape Town’s top 100 water customers revealed. News24, 27 February 2017. Available at: https://www.news24.com/news24/SouthAfrica/News/cape-­towns-­top-­100-­water-­ consumers-­revealed-­20170227. Accessed Jan 2021 Dobelli R (2014) The art of thinking clearly. Harper, New York Etheridge J (2017) City of Cape Town approves Level 4 water restrictions. News24, 31 May 2017. Available at: https://www.news24.com/news24/SouthAfrica/News/city-­of-­cape-­town-­ approves-­level-­4-­water-­restrictions-­20170531. Accessed Jan 2021 Evans J (2017) De Lille shakes up Cape Town mayoral committee. News24, 16 January 2017. Available at: https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/de-­lille-­shakes-­up-­cape-­ town-­mayoral-­committee-­20170116. Accessed Jan 2021

References

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Isaacs L (2017) Water crisis: ‘Waiting on a miracle’. Daily Voice, 19 May 2017. Available at: https://www.dailyvoice.co.za/news/water-­crisis-­waiting-­on-­a-­miracle-­9231979. Accessed Jan 2021 Kahneman D (2011) Thinking fast and slow. Penguin Books, London Mortlock M (2017) Too early to declare Cape Town a disaster. Eyewitness News, 28 February 2017. Available at: https://ewn.co.za/2017/03/01/too-­early-­for-­cape-­town-­to-­be-­declared-­a-­ disaster-­area. Accessed Jan 2021 Petersen T (2017) Cape drought officially a disaster. Weekend Argus, 5 March 2017. Available at: https://www.iol.co.za/news/south-­africa/cape-­drought-­officially-­a-­disaster-­8051301. Accessed Jan 2021 Republic of South Africa (1998) National Environmental Management Act, No 107 of 1998. Government Printer, Pretoria Republic of South Africa (2003) Disaster Management Act, No 57 of 2002. Government Printer, Pretoria

Chapter 7

An Impossibly Ambitious Political Response

The many are more incorruptible than the few; they are like the greater quantity of water which is less easily corrupted than a little –Aristotle

Abstract  The water resilience programme was crafted under the direct instruction of the political leadership, contrary to the utility department’s drought management convention. The program was premised on the City operating independently of the existing regional system water supply scheme. This required reducing Cape Town’s demand to 500 million litres a day while building mostly temporary, new supply capacity to match, within the space of just more than a year. Such supplies would obliterate reliance on existing rainfed dams, in the event that it didn’t rain again. The programme had a number of laudable characteristics such as emphasis on public engagement, integration of various disciplines and a focus on resilience. It also included the development of a comprehensive disaster management plan, in the event that dam levels should reach a critical level despite augmentation efforts. But the proposed build program was patently both unaffordable and unachievable. Modelling of dam storage showed how vulnerable the system was to low runoff and normal demand, but that the risk was technically manageable. The political appetite for science remained low, favouring augmentation and disaster planning.

7.1  The Water Situation: June to October 2017 Rainfall in May 2017 had been upsettingly poor. We woke up to many foggy mornings, and much cloud cover, but these never translated into rain. Cape Town had pinned hope on a much publicised storm in the first week of June. The storm arrived, causing plenty of damage to electricity infrastructure with gale-force winds, but unusually not much rain fell in the catchments and dam levels remained depressed © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 G. Kaiser, Parched - The Cape Town Drought Story, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78889-6_7

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Fig. 7.1  Dam storage volumes 2000–2017

(Loewe 2017). Weather forecasts seemed abnormally unreliable. The community of South African climatologists met in April 2017 in an effort to agree on a forecast using numerical models from reputable international and South African institutions (Wolski 2020). Consensus could not be reached, and it was thus concluded that “…the Western Cape needs to consider the full range of possibilities which comprise that the 2017 winter season may be drier than normal (which may greatly exacerbate the current situation) or normal (which may fail to relieve the current situation) or wetter than normal (which may bring relief to the current situation)” (Applied Centre for Climate and Earth Systems Science 2017). The lack of peak winter rainfall and runoff could not be compensated by rainfall slightly closer to average in the later months of 2017, leaving dam levels at a paltry 38.4% at the end of the hydrological year (see Fig. 7.1). Water users in the WCWSS would have to figure out how to get through the summer months with very little water stored.

7.2  The Water Resilience Programme From May 2017, the drought response was built on the Water Resilience Programme (WRP). The WRP was based on the premise that rainfall was not reliable and was likely to reduce over time. It was a different approach to that taken historically in

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pragmatic long-term water planning. Much of the focus was on politically palatable risk and disaster mitigation, and building resilience, as opposed to following the science. In the worst-case scenario, the ambitious build programme proposed projects providing 500 MLD of new water, as fast as possible and without budget constraint. This would extend beyond disaster mitigation to build new capacity to see through the current drought while also coping under a more permanent drought-like future state. The mayor publicly announced the details of the WRP at a media briefing in August 2017 (Petterson 2017). The WRP was built from a portfolio perspective, whereby the line department of water and sanitation was not solely responsible for the plan but an initiative the City would steer corporately, in an effort to distribute risks. This was aligned with what the mayor had been driving since the start of the year. The benefit of such a corporate approach was the facilitation of matters of procurement, legal opinion, environmental prioritisation, all theoretically paving the way for smoother project implementation. A move away from reliance on rainwater was built into the provision of permanent augmentation with higher reliability than surface water. It was acknowledged that it would be expensive, and that the revenue model for water would potentially change, especially if infrastructure was decentralised. These factors were to be accepted in light of the risk of disaster. Apart from it being corporately led, the WRP introduced the requirement for an advisory body of water experts and civil society representatives to assist the City. In law, the vehicle for this was identified as a Section 80 committee on water resilience. Section 80 committees are established under Section 80 of the Local Government: Municipal Structures Act (Republic of South Africa National Treasury 1998). Operations of the committee were streamlined by having a minimum of political office-bearers as members until 2019. Representation by the academic and private sectors was encouragingly enthusiastic. The committee membership included experts in the water industry, academics, national DWS, provincial government, GreenCape, the World Wildlife Foundation, Chamber of Commerce, and the hospitality industry. Xanthea Limberg was appointed as chair. Much later, the water team was instructed to extend the Section 80 committee to include inter-faith leaders and organised labour. The CRO steered a robust team of project managers from CPPM in his directorate to orchestrate the drought response, to the protestations of the flummoxed water engineers. In July, the WRP reflected planning of budget to have containerised desalination plants online by November 2017, only four months away, groundwater abstraction within three months, and Zandvliet temporary reuse online by December 2017. The estimated cost for renting a desalination barge from December through to winter 2018 was a staggering R278 million, at around R80/kl. This programme was used to forecast the required operating budget. My water team was obliged by mayoral directive to act on instruction of the water resilience task team in developing augmentation projects, even though the programme dates were very obviously hopelessly unachievable.

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The CPPM team behind the WRP was impressive in the producing information that aligned with exacting project management principles. Statistics of progress were produced daily in well-composed graphics, backed up by written reports and timeously signed-off minutes and mandates. The professionalism of the unit was truly world class and not readily found in a municipal environment, certainly not in South Africa. The intent was that since it was centralised, processes would be adopted and duplicated across the City in the implementation of all projects. In reality, bulldozing progress seldom works as it should, and while the processes may have been faultless on paper, the process design never considered the reality of the complex content of the augmentation schemes. My sense of unease as the WRP unfolded was difficult to verbalise. The bulky reports and colourful graphs were very impressive, but they weren’t real, and there was no way that they could become real. In his book Skin in the Game, Nassim Taleb expresses how the world has changed that those without skin in the game are nowadays often in charge (Taleb 2018). The curse of modernity is that we are increasingly populated by a class of people who are better at explaining than understanding, or better at explaining than doing.

The engineering departments were both responsible and accountable for planning, designing and building infrastructure, and then for operating the infrastructure to provide services to people. While all the steps along the way are important in achieving the end result, from an engineering perspective, the measure of success is that the infrastructure delivers the service. From a corporate perspective, the steps along the way are all-important, while the end result is easily taken for granted. In my view, as the City progressively focused more on compliance and perfecting process, the measure of skin-in-the-game changed from delivery of physical goods and services to meeting targets on paper. This is not unique to Cape Town. Government at all spheres has leaned progressively more towards this approach, with legislative competence far outweighing the resources capable of implementation. The WRP assessed three scenario responses: 1. Grind-it-out (the historical, pragmatic approach): This was the response followed by the water and sanitation department, on the understanding that droughts are part of the natural cycle, and temporary in nature. Dam levels will fall during summer, and again be replenished during the next rainy season, and restrictions could be imposed to ensure that water will last long enough. This scenario response was rejected in the WRP because if it did not rain at all in 2017, or if it did not rain enough, the City would run out of water, which would signify a substantial planning failure. The worst-case outcome would be that the City would run out of usable water prior to the 2018 winter rainfall. 2. Ramp-it-up (taking a risk averse approach over the short-term): This was premised on the drought continuing with substantially lower rainfall in 2017 and 2018, and that significant augmentation was required to supplement the historical pragmatic approach. However, the permanent, long-term impact of climate

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change was not part of this scenario. Restrictions would be markedly increased, small scale new water augmentation schemes would be undertaken, and substantial desalination projects pursued in the short- to medium term while the disaster response plan would be finalised. As with the grind-it-out scenario, should ­rainfall not materialise in 2017, there was a risk of running out of water with a host of practical and reputational impacts. 3. The-new-normal (building a resilient city): This was the preferred approach, and approved by Council, that previous climate models could no longer be relied upon in the face of climate variability and change and that drought could continue in perpetuity. The scenario posited that the historical approach to water planning and management was no longer relevant, and reliance on surface water exposed Cape Town to unacceptable risk. The response included that of the ramp-it-up plan with restrictions, scaling up small-scale augmentation and triggering significant volumes of desalinated water, ultimately moving away from reliance on surface water. It also proposed decentralised water provision through incentive schemes and implementing water-sensitive city principles. In a worst-­ case scenario of no or very low rainfall in 2017, it acknowledged that dams running dry was the worst-case outcome, even for this scenario. Building a water resilient city was certainly a good goal to have. Part of this would be developing a new respect for water and diversifying water supply. As the plan was built on water and sanitation information, much of it was sound. For example, the transition to a water sensitive city had been part of the water and sanitation strategy for some time, as had permanent augmentation schemes to keep in balance demand and supply. Where the water team differed, was that it was not rational to believe that it would not rain, nor for Cape Town to ignore that it was part of the WCWSS which supplied potable water to the entire south-western Cape province and all its municipalities, including Cape Town. The WRP plan implied that the City could stand alone while balancing 500 MLD demand and supply. Furthermore, the water team was well aware that it was both impossible and unaffordable to implement such large-scale unconventional water projects prior to the next winter. Water provision may seem to be a simple process to the layperson. It is anything but. Finally, crafting a disaster response plan in the event that dams would run dry was a distraction from ensuring that the system didn’t run dry. The water team was committed to ensuring that demand was reduced sufficiently for society to continue functioning in Cape Town instead of working on a detailed plan for what to do in the unlikely event of no rainfall. The water resilience task team was mandated by Council to implement the WRP and oversee the actions required to ensure the diversification of water supply in the medium term to improve the City’s water security and build a resilient city, as well as any interim measures required to procure temporary water supply capacity to provide a stable water supply in the case of a prolonged drought. The task team was chaired by the CRO and comprised of many executive directors including that of finance, safety and security, energy, along with the SPU and anyone else required to

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provide input. The task team met regularly and had in response identified key deliverables in terms of the phases of the programme. When the CRO was not available, any one of his direct reports would chair task team meetings. As it happened, the portfolio manager of probity chaired the sixth WRP task-team meeting. This felt incongruous to me but was testament to how transversal management had been literally implemented. Another quote from Taleb came to mind (Taleb 2018). Bureaucracy is a construction by which a person is conveniently separated from the consequences of his or her actions.

The task team was in reality solely a monitoring platform. Virtually no interest in content existed, as long as process was documented, and milestones reported. I saw no point in managing like this. In my experience, relevant content had to be discussed in meetings to ensure a common understanding. The checkbox style of reporting served little purpose. A further consequence of dabbling in a paper-based process-oriented world was that impossible targets could easily be agreed to without argument—I was aware that this had been one of the first reasons why I had fallen out of favour with the mayor. I could not agree to interventions that were not practical nor aligned with the way utility services were delivered. The City has a myriad of processes and policies in place, mainly developed to ensure consistency and fairness. Understanding the breadth of service delivery, and the layers of bureaucracy, I always paused before implementing new solutions without first ensuring that there would not be unforeseen consequences. The mayor had little patience with this mindset and would then approach another executive director instead of me. While the WRP implementation was proceeding apace, it was usually reported that progress in terms of process was on track, as if the City would be able to produce water within the impossible timeframes. The process was being perfectly executed to the mayor’s satisfaction, but this did not mean that any new water would be produced. The WRP was written in impressive project management language that rendered it almost credible. The action plan consisted of phases. First came the emergency phase, which would run from the end of May to August 2017. The second, tactical phase, would run from August 2017 to June 2018, designed largely to overlap with the emergency phase, and moreover, to initiate long-term adaptation to a water-­ scarce environment. The final phase would be ongoing, from June 2018 into the future. It was termed the strategic phase. And while building on the previous phases, it would also focus on diversifying water supply sources away from surface water. After approving the WRP at the end of May 2017, the City issued a request for information (RFI) on 10 June for “potable water augmentation and resilience technology”. An RFI is a common business practice that seeks to gather information on the capacity of the market to provide solutions to particular problems. The mayor had been sceptical of the water engineers’ proposed augmentation solutions for some time. In contrast, I had much confidence in my staff and, with so much else to do, had not prioritised it. Under the WRP, my bulk water department had no choice but to prepare the necessary, if brief documentation and go to market on the RFI.

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While the RFI asked for specific information to be provided, it was not binding, and no appointments of service providers could be made based on the request. There was thus no cause for the disqualification of any of the submissions. At closing on 10 July, in the region of 300 submissions had been received from a variety of vendors and contractors with drought-related solutions. These were first classified at a high level and then had to be technically evaluated by the water team. At the time that the RFI was advertised, the WRP had not quite finalised the combination of schemes required to make up 495 MLD. The draft composition of augmentation had more than 400 MLD of desalination capacity of which 100 MLD would be from containerised plants, 30 MLD from a barge and 300 MLD from a ship. The simplistic plan was to lay a pipe, two metres in diameter, from a ship moored in Gordon’s Bay to the Steenbras pumped storage scheme from where it would be reticulated. At this stage, the balance of the 495 MLD would be provided through 30 MLD of direct reuse and 45 MLD of groundwater. The estimated cost at this point in time was R770 million in operating expenditure and between R455 and 550 million in capital expenditure. Much hope was pinned on the RFI to provide solutions that the City could procure directly, using its disaster status. The City pulled out all the stops to ensure maximum coverage. Premier Zille, an avid Twitter user with hundreds of thousands of followers, further publicised the RFI by tweet. Preliminary classification showed most of the responses—65, all in—to be related to desalination, largely for short-term containerised plants. Several suggestions were received for the permanent extraction of groundwater, including from the Cape Flats aquifer. Although the credible submissions were based on technology and projects not unfamiliar to us, the extraction of groundwater was most promising. The Cape Flats extraction plan had not been pursued in the 2016 reconciliation strategy, but through the request, it became top priority again, especially amongst the WRP leadership. In reality, first water from the CFA happened long after the crisis had passed. Also, the water from the CFA would turn out to be expensive. Where we encountered good yields, the quality was poor and required expensive treatment infrastructure, and vice versa. The RFI process was a bit of a distraction. The mayor’s office had high hopes that the market would respond with miracle solutions that the water team had not previously considered. At the time, the WRP was not concerned with affordability: the only intention was to source additional water. In reality, the RFI resulted in no credible new solutions and led to a further breakdown in trust. When the desalination tenders were submitted later in 2017, they had much higher prices than those submitted in the RFI. A number of more unusual large-scale proposals were made but not pursued. When water is cheap, there are only a few practical alternatives that are competitive. In contrast, when supply sources such as temporary small-scale desalinated water schemes are considered at a cost higher in order of magnitude, then the market will deliver a range of options. These included:

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• • • •

Cloud seeding and electro-magnetic rain installations; Building pipelines from wastewater plants to dams; Widespread installation of domestic rainwater tanks; Procuring tankers to convey water from other metros. (we made the point that around 20,000 tankers would be needed daily to provide 500 MLD); • Playing music to the sky (with upfront payment required!); • Towing ice-bergs to Cape Town to melt into the reticulation system; • Shipping water from a major river on the Atlantic coast in Angola etc. If these systems had been offered at cost plus profit, some may even have been considered, but vendors put forward solutions at prices comparable to the cost of desperation.

7.3  The Augmentation Plan The WRP aimed to be technically sound, but in its establishment, it focussed clinically on the process of project management, completely ignoring the content of water supply practicalities. Water management is nuanced. At scale, there are a myriad of variables at play, and neatly boxed solutions are unlikely to be sufficiently flexible to ensure good value. Initially, 17 potential sites for small-scale desalination plants were investigated over two weeks. Requirements included appropriate sites on accessible land, availability of marine infrastructure and electricity, available intake and concentrate discharge points, land use, access for construction transport among other factors. The initial plan consisted of seven temporary plants yielding 45 MLD located at harbours along the coastline as well as three desalination ships of 100 MLD each to be moored in various locations. Locating plants at existing harbours would have facilitated easier seawater intake and concentrate discharge points. At this time the cost estimate of desalinated water was estimated to be between R20 and 70 per kl. It was soon realised that of the 17 sites, ten were located in marine-protected areas, leaving only seven to be further explored. The project list evolved and was finalised in October 2017 (see Table  7.1). It comprised 12 desalination projects, four ground water and six wastewater reclamation projects. Projects were to be triggered in tranches, as required by the available dam storage and projected demand. The immediate tranche consisted of six small, containerised desalination plants with a combined capacity of 32 MLD. The projects were distributed along the coastline in locations not environmentally protected, with capacities determined by the regional reticulation infrastructure capacity. A 50 MLD desalination plant at Cape Town Harbour was included, potentially permanently. The immediate tranche also triggered a 10 MLD water reclamation plant at the Zandvliet wastewater treatment works.

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Table 7.1  Water Resilience Programme in October 2017 Tranche Immediate

Tranche 1

Tranche 2

Extreme

Solution type Desalination Desalination Desalination Desalination Desalination Desalination Desalination Reuse Desalination Groundwater Groundwater Reuse Desalination Desalination Groundwater Groundwater Reuse Reuse Reuse Reuse Desalination Desalination

Site Hout Bay Granger Bay Simon’s Town Strandfontein Monwabisi Strand Cape Town Harbour Zandvliet WWTW CT Harbour (Barge) Atlantis Cape Flats Fisantekraal Universal sites x 3 Maiden’s Cove TMG (Cape peninsula) TMG Potsdam Cape Flats Bellville Macassar Gordon’s Bay (Ship/barge) CT Harbour (Ship)

Supply (MLD) 4 8 2 4 4 10 50 10 50 25 25 10 20 2 20 20 10 10 10 10 150 50

Tranche total Total (MLD) (MLD) 504 92

110

102

200

By mid-2017 when seasonal rainfall was much lower than the long-term average, the focus was on the emergency phase which included: • pushing out the date of water storage depletion (Day Zero) as far as possible in a scenario of ‘no rain’ by reducing water use to as close to 500 MLD as possible; • preparing for an emergency scenario in which water supply was depleted and temporary water sources and disaster relief were required; • providing additional temporary water supply to provide for whatever was required to support a minimum of 500 MLD production until permanent interventions could supply water, and • initiating steps to bring online additional and diverse water sources (non-surface water) as soon as possible. Apart from being expensive, many of the temporary desalination plant sites were peppered with problems. Adjacent landowners and communities objected and issued a legal challenge at one of the sites, arguing that the desalination plant would devalue properties. At another, the local community insisted that 30% of the total contract value be used for local labour employment despite the fact that the bulk of

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the cost was comprised of capital equipment. Awarding tenders subject to budget availability also became problematic. The conventional City process required budget to be available prior to award, to ensure that it was not contractually committed to projects that it was unable to fund, but a deviation process requiring the CFOs signature had been implemented because of the drought. Tender award was a milestone achieved, but without budget, it was meaningless. This was new territory, and the successful tenderers were also unsure of how to plan, with an unspecified commencement date. The tender-winning contractors were ramping up to start construction, planning their resources, and in some instances incurring costs at risk. The water team very much wanted to communicate our thoughts, but within the supply chain management process and with prevailing uncertainties, we were wilfully ignored. Planned groundwater projects contributed 90 MLD to the supply total. The Atlantis aquifer, operated for 30 years by that time, needed refurbishing, and could potentially yield additional water to increase supply by 25 MLD. The CFA, a shallow, sandy urban aquifer was seen as a quick win and added an additional 25 MLD.  TMG was down for an additional 40 MLD at two sites. By nature, these projects would be permanent, providing additional water either continuously or only during drought when needed. Six wastewater reuse projects formed part of the projects identified, each contributing 10 MLD of new water supply. The yield was predicated on quick installation via a containerised plant, thus limiting the volume at each site. In its favour, such distribution would have been useful in a public participation process given that distribution of reused water was widespread and not focussed on a single area. Unfortunately the wastewater technology employed at all but a few of the City’s 27 WWTWs did not lend itself to potable reuse. A host of tenders were prepared and issued at record speed for the projects triggered in the WRP during the second half of 2017. The responses were not encouraging. A number of contractors chose not to tender because the tender period had been reduced to a week initially, which didn’t allow sufficient time to complete and submit the documents. Bullishly, the City awarded tenders and made public announcements around three temporary desalination plants, promising more projects to be implemented (African News Agency 2017).

7.4  The Disaster Management Plan The disaster plan formed a significant component of the WRP and continued long after many of the short-term components were abandoned. The plan was to address the scenario when water would no longer be reticulated to households, with limited supply in some areas, and no supply in others. In the first scenario of no winter rainfall, the plan needed to be complete for implementation by August 2017, when dams would run dry. If rainfall in 2017 was sufficient, June 2018 would potentially be an implementation date, if 2018 saw no rainfall. The final scenario was that of

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above average rainfall, in which case the plan would not be implemented though it had to be updated annually. The disaster management plan required many members of staff from a host of departments to collaborate and coordinate. The plan extended to the public and other spheres of government, for example with national government agreeing that the national defence force would be on standby in the event of Day Zero to ensure public order. The disaster phase of the plan stipulated that water be shut off to most suburbs in Cape Town, while commerce, industry and informal settlements would be supplied with potable water via the reticulation system. One hundred and eighty-nine points of distribution had been identified where it was may have been possible to logistically serve between 3000 and 5000 households to collect water every day, while reticulation to these households would be shut down. The City had a media briefing at a pilot site (Fig. 7.2) late in 2017 (Charlie and Dougan 2017). A significant amount of work went into planning and developing a site. From a planning perspective, infrastructure was key, both for water and access. For points of distribution to work, the reticulation system had to be shut down along the way to the site, but sufficient water was required to serve hundreds of taps at a time at the site. Water pipes are sized according to flow and pressure, and thousands of valves control thousands of ring mains and reticulation networks. Shutting down of partial networks would be highly challenging. It was imperative, from my point of view, that the viability of society in Cape Town be protected at all costs. Running out of water was not an option since it would disrupt every aspect of society. It would instigate panic, loss of investment and lead to civil unrest. When one of my staff members suggested late in 2017 that the City engage provincial government on closing schools and sending scholars to other provinces, I dismissed the notion outright. Objecting to the status quo did not seem like a beneficial use of our time and the water team chose to focus on not running out of water, instead of what would happen if we did. In my view, the disaster management plan was premised on flawed logic. It was devised in mid-2017, at a time when public statements were issued that

Fig. 7.2  Pilot Site Point of Distribution 16 November 2017. (Photos courtesy of Pierre Maritz)

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“a well-run city does not run out of water”. The caveat was that, if the well-run city were to run out of water, it had to have a plan to deal with it. Very little thought went into the basic premise of the plan: that should dam levels fall to a certain level, then supply to households would be stopped by physically turning off supply to residential areas. So as not to damage the economy too much, supply to commerce and industry would be maintained. Crafting such a detailed emergency plan in the event of empty dams seemed a distraction to a rational drought response. The disaster management plan known as the “Critical Water Shortages Disaster Plan” was publicly launched at the beginning of October at a media briefing that saw the mayor and the CRO share the stage (Etheridge 2017). The status of dam levels meant that the drought restrictions late in 2017 was included as Phase 1 of the disaster management plan. At this restriction level, 500 MLD was the target for Cape Town. The plan was premised that further levels of restriction would be correlated to Phase 2 and Phase 3 reducing the available volumes. From a reticulation point of view, the water team knew that there was a minimum threshold volume the system could deliver before infrastructure failing operationally, but that exact volume was not known. Furthermore, the system is far from homogenous, and failure would not occur equally across the metropolitan area. We thought that 500 MLD was the likely limit citywide, with 350 MLD to residential areas, without the reticulation system collapsing. Phase 2 would be linked to a further critical stored water level, triggering major disruption. This would provide a contingency plan premised on much of the City being disconnected from the reticulation system and households having to collect a volume of 25 litres per person from designated points of distribution. Based on consumption scenarios, the Day Zero dam level was set at 13.5% (see Sect. 9.1), which would leave approximately three months’ worth of water at a reduced volume supplied of 350 MLD. Phase 3 would kick in when insufficient water was available to feed the reticulation system, and only drinking water would be provided at distribution points, supplemented by bottled water. In the first instance, consider the operational reality of isolating most residential properties from the reticulation system, in a city of over a million households. Informal settlements, commerce and industry were expressly excluded. Such change would require physically closing of valves across the municipal area which would take weeks to implement. While every effort had been made to accurately reflect the infrastructure on as-built drawings, Cape Town has grown organically over decades, and many areas have undocumented infrastructure. This became evident in the accelerated pressure management programme, since not all infrastructures could readily be found, and isolating areas was very challenging. Furthermore, the infrastructure is designed to provide water throughout the system, with redundancy built in. The reticulation had not been designed not to provide water—unintended and unforeseen consequences were more likely than not. Mainly though, the plan did not consider the timing of shut-down in relation to rainfall. Should the targeted low dam level be reached on 1 June, would it make sense to proceed to shut down at the start of the rainy season? Shutting down the

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system would take weeks, if not months, and then if dam levels increased, would need to be reversed. Alternatively, should the critical level be reached in say, October of any year, with no substantial rainfall expected for at least six months, would people really be willing to collect 25 litres per person for three months, thinking that by February, there would be no more water to collect? Disrupting the functioning of society in a single city in the world risks that city decaying into irrelevance. Investment would have left town if it was clear that Cape Town would truly run out of water, and civil unrest would undoubtedly have followed. Despite its flawed foundations, the plan has won the City of Cape Town numerous awards and high praise for its complexity and thoroughness and is lauded as a good example of disaster planning. Many good staff members were seconded to the project of developing the plan. The SPU ran the project solemnly, and with devotion. Life is not an exact science. While thoughtful action can obviate many disasters, there will always be instances where decisions need to be taken as information becomes available. Reality tends not to follow a neat recipe. It was certainly not the only instance when a snap decision was made in the mayor’s boardroom, tying up masses of City resources on a potential wild goose chase.

7.5  Panic Intensifies Level 4B was introduced on 1 July, with the same general restrictions as Level 4, but with the higher tariff now in place. An average potable water consumption rate of 87 litres per capita per day was now encouraged (Payi 2017). The debate around using a target of 87 litres was long and hard, but it turned out to be a good number, since it stood out and was surprisingly easily remembered by the public. When dealing with such vast volumes, and a population size that can at best be estimated, 87 litres per capita per day was a figure for which the City could present a solid argument for. It was premised on a 70: 30 split between domestic and other users. With a target of 500 MLD, domestic use should thus be limited to 70% or 350 MLD. Divide this by approximately four million people, and the result is that each person can use only 87 litres per day. A further calculation was that indigent households were granted 10.5 kl of water a month free of charge. With an average of four persons per household, this also yields 87 lcd. Storage probability curves are modelled at the start of the hydrological year, based on historical runoff data. Figure 7.3 shows the 50%, 20%, 10% and 2% probabilities of dam storage modelled throughout the year. Actual gross dam storage tracked only slightly below that projected up to the end of April 2017. In the absence of rainfall, dam levels respond mainly to demand drawdown which was only slightly higher than restrictions required. The different probabilities thus track virtually along the same line, up to the anticipated start of the rainy season, usually in May, where they diverge based on the probability of rainfall.

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Fig. 7.3  Storage projections from 1 November 2016 versus actual storage

By the beginning of June, with hardly any autumn rainfall, actual storage was tracking below the 2% probability of available storage capacity curve causing real concern. For the winter months to the end of August, some rainfall improved the situation and actual storage tracked the two percent probability quite closely. By 1 October, rainfall was so poor that actual storage was significantly lower than the two percent probability curve. The rainy season was all but over, with little chance of dam levels increasing, and understandably, panic intensified. This heralded a significant change. The water department had based its arguments and drought response on historical modelling methods. That runoff had been so low that it deviated far below the lowest probability modelled, was very much cause for concern and the water team had no option but to continue driving the WRP while reducing demand. For three days running in October, consumption had dropped below 500 MLD, buoying spirits just a little. The City still had the option of rolling out restrictors, although the opinion on the merits of restrictors was not united. A restrictor is a small metal disk of the same diameter as that of the household leading (the water connection on the household side of the reticulation main), with a small aperture in the centre. I had asked for a restrictor to be installed at my house so that I could have first-hand experience of it. It significantly reduced the pressure, and I was perfectly happy with the performance. My water consumption was already low but after this installation averaged between one and two kilolitres a month. The preference for restrictors was that, in theory, at 15 minutes per connection, a team could install approximately 80 a day and rollout across the city would be far faster than WMDs. An added bonus was that no back-office work was required. Those not in favour argued that restrictors had a tendency of reducing the accuracy of metering, and a propensity to block, given the small hole in the disk. In practice, it took rather longer

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to install and ensure pressure was adequate, but it remained a last resort option— one we never used in the end. I was not privy to the intrigue of the newly emerging rift in the relationship between Craig Kesson and the mayor during this time. Tempers were frayed and Craig was clearly under pressure because he lost his temper and stormed out of a WRP meeting which he chaired early in October. I had questioned the high number of interventions (since I realised my staff lacked capacity to implement) on top of the unaffordable costs. Craig emphasised that the mayor had agreed publicly to augment 500 MLD and would not deviate from that. When I continued to discuss the practicality of doing so, he abruptly ended the meeting and left the room. It was the type of behaviour I was accustomed to seeing in politicians chairing meetings, but most of us in the room were rather flummoxed at how such a dictatorial approach could be useful in a technical meeting on the drought. I think this may have been the last WRP Steercom meeting he chaired. By the end of October, Craig was caught up in other non-water related priorities, and seldom physically present in WRP or drought-related meetings. This progressively provided more space for me and my water team to influence the drought response. There was now a decided rift in the administration between those actively supporting the mayor and those who were fighting for normalcy in the administration. I was cautiously optimistic about having a better relationship with Craig—while he had been so close to the mayor, it was difficult for me not to see him principally as a politician. All of us are in need of allies, and relationships of trust go a long way in providing a little security when swimming with sharks. I now focused more closely on water projects with the CPPM, and my bulk water staff working on the augmentation projects and demand management, and I left disaster planning and the other water-resilience task team streams to others.

7.6  Further Breakdown in Trust While the WRP was in full swing, great uncertainty reigned in all quarters as to whether the region would in fact run out of water. It seemed inconceivable that the City would run out, but technical information was not readily available to prove anything to the contrary. For some time, I had been gathering information from my water engineers and consultants and developed my own simplified model. Together with the model, I wrote a brief strategy on how demand could be managed and tracked and communicated, matched with the augmentation that would be required. The plan to balance demand and supply entailed: • Communicating the simple strategy publicly; • Publishing target daily use, actual consumption for the previous day, and then implementing measures to remain on target; • Implementing Level 6 restrictions;

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• Restricting demand through throttling, pressure management, and planned outages; • Adjusting targets in response to uncontrollable losses, for example evaporation; and • Implementing the additional augmentation resources by way of a realistic programme. Daily water use varied quite widely, but by using a seven-day rolling average this could flatten such variances. The fluctuations had long been discussed. From a water perspective, it was not concerning because reservoir levels and demand peaks evened out over a week. I discussed my plan with a number of water experts and no fatal flaws were apparent, so I was confident that it was solid. I realised that the City still lacked an overall water PR strategy and the plan for how to get through the next couple of winters in the drought was not a simple one to communicate, but it was a start. The plan had been developed to model the impact of both our demand management and augmentation efforts, given the existing assumptions. The resulting graphs painted a clear picture of how little difference augmentation would make prior to the winter of 2018, even if the emergency programme was possible. Notwithstanding the stochastic modelling based on rigorous analysis, to simplify the model and communicate clearly, I modelled the dam level scenarios using very simple assumptions with starting dam levels as of November 2017. Runoff was modelled on that achieved from 2017 rainfall, the worst on record. Given that only Cape Town’s consumption was even moderately within our control, I assumed that we would be able to achieve and maintain demand reduction to 500 MLD. Prior to the announcement of restrictions by DWS in September 2017, I assumed a 50% restriction on agriculture, (which turned out to be 60%), and maximum calculated evaporation. Augmentation as per the WRP was modelled, with either 300 MLD or 500 MLD of additional water being produced. Figure 7.4 shows that under a “no rainfall” scenario tracking from November 2017, the dams would simply run dry by the end of 2018, whether the City delivered additional water or not. At a very unlikely 60% of 2017 runoff, the City would have needed 500 MLD according to the programme for dam levels to stay above 10% during the winter of 2019. On the flip side, should rainfall be closer to the long-term average, that is, 200% of that in 2017, dams would spill in the winter of 2019 if we were to implement the augmentation programme. The difference between producing 300 and 500 MLD would be evident after about six months of additional water produced entering the system. The investment was required up front though, with close to perfect uncertainty whether the expensive water would be required when it became available. I was desperate to share this plan with the mayor so that panic could be averted not only in her office but among the public, and we could calmly work on the way forward. Up to this point it seemed that the City was not putting any real news out to the public. The average Capetonian really had no idea whether or not it was likely that we would run out of water. The messaging that a well-run city does not run out

7.6  Further Breakdown in Trust

Fig. 7.4  Selected rainfall scenarios modelled for 2018

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of water was a little different to the panicked calls for reduction in demand now evident in the mayor’s media releases. As it happened, the mayor was briefly overseas on a work-related trip just as my plan was finalised. In a meeting with the deputy mayor who was acting mayor at the time, I briefly discussed the plan with him. The deputy mayor, Ian Nielsen, was himself a water engineer turned politician with extensive technical experience prior to leaving engineering. He grasped the concept readily and I left a hard copy of the document with him. Fresh from the airport, the mayor had scheduled a meeting with the executive management team, Mayco and as many consultants and contractors as were available to meet with her. It was quite a performance, and as was often the case, one didn’t know quite where to look for fear of laughing out loud. There was only one contractor in the room, specific to the WRP, but many of the bulk water consulting companies. It was not every day that they were invited to a meeting with the mayor. Not disappointing, she gave an impressive speech about the drought emergency, public pressure and the need for superhuman action. She didn’t fail to throw in the usual insults directed at the officials who in her view, unilaterally changed deadlines and ignored concessions made in supply chain processes. Overarchingly, it appeared that she wanted to motivate the consultants to achieve more, and that she would take the liberty of directly engaging with any of the consultants and contractors. At this forum the mayor stated that she had cleared her diary and would be available on drought matters all day, every day. And that she would track dam levels and demand, first thing every morning, and have daily water meetings. She stated that her career was on the line, and she was taking personal responsibility for the crisis because she couldn’t leave it in the hands of the officials (or professionals). Starting at the weekend, there would be daily media events at the various sites and projects. After the meeting I walked with the mayor to her office and gave her a hard copy of my plan. I realised it was crucial to get her on board, and she was agreeable to my waiting outside and briefing her whenever she had a free moment outside her boardroom. I managed to get through an introduction before she had to go into a DA party political meeting, but she told me to wait in her reception area. Other than her office staff, some of my staff were there as well and we informally talked and continued working while we waited. At the conclusion of the political meeting, the mayor came out and yelled at me. I did not take notes of exactly what she said, but the gist of it was that my plan would never see the light of day, and that somehow the drought was all my fault. What appears to have happened in the meeting is that in discussing the drought, the deputy mayor said that we didn’t need to panic because my plan showed that we’d get through to 2018, and beyond 2018. I infer that the mayor saw it as a betrayal that I had shared my plan with the deputy mayor. She accused me of playing politics. The fact that I had tried but had not had the opportunity to explain the plan to her was of little consequence.

References

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Any trust which I had managed to rebuild after the IY disaster was once again destroyed. Not only that, but I had now been instructed not to use nor circulate my plan on how to navigate through the drought to 2019. Daily water meetings started at the end of October, resulting in another chapter of fruitlessly trying to somehow materialise and manage new water into dams.

References African News Agency (2017) Cape Town will not run out of water, says mayor De Lille on visit to desalination plant site at V&A Waterfront. Engineering News, 30 October 2017. Available at: https://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article/cape-­town-­will-­not-­run-­out-­of-­water-­says-­ mayor-­de-­lille-­on-­visit-­to-­desalination-­plant-­site-­at-­va-­waterfront-­2017-­10-­30/rep_id:4136. Accessed Jan 2021 Applied Centre for Climate & Earth Systems Science (2017) Access position on the winter rainfall in the Western Cape. ACCESS, 17 May 2017. Available at: https://www.access.ac.za/access-­ position-­on-­the-­winter-­rainfall-­in-­the-­western-­cape/. Accessed Jan 2021 Charlie A, Dougan L (2017) Water crisis: City of Cape Town reveals plan for 200 distribution points in the event of ‘Day Zero’. Daily Maverick, 17 November 2017. Available at: https:// www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2017-­11-­17-­water-­crisis-­city-­of-­cape-­town-­reveals-­plan-­ for-­200-­distribution-­points-­in-­the-­event-­of-­day-­zero/. Accessed Jan 2021 Etheridge J (2017) How Cape Town plans to tackle water disaster. News24, 4 October 2017. Available at: https://www.news24.com/news24/SouthAfrica/News/how-­cape-­town-­plans-­to-­ tackle-­water-­disaster-­20171004. Accessed Jan 2021 Loewe M (2017) Eight dead, hundreds homeless in worst Cape storm in 30 years. Reuters, 8 June 2017. Available at https://www.dispatchlive.co.za/news/2017-­06-­08-­eight-­dead-­hundreds-­ homeless-­in-­worst-­cape-­storm-­in-­30-­years/. Accessed Jan 2021 Payi B (2017) Level 4B water restrictions enacted in Cape Town. IOL, 2 July 2017. Available at: https://www.iol.co.za/news/south-­africa/western-­cape/level-­4b-­water-­restrictions-­enacted-­in-­ cape-­town-­10095498. Accessed Jan 2021 Petterson D (2017) Cape Town announces Water Resilience Plan. Infrastructure News, 19 August 2017. Available at: https://infrastructurenews.co.za/2017/08/19/cape-­town-­announces-­water-­ resilience-­plan/. Accessed Jan 2021 Republic of South Africa National Treasury (1998) Local Government: Municipal Structures Act, No 117 of 1998. Government Printer, Pretoria Taleb N (2018) Skin in the game: hidden asymmetries in daily life. Allen Lane, Great Britain Wolski P (2020) Predicting drought. Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf), (2020). Quest: Science for South Africa, 16(2). Available at: https://research.assaf.org.za/bitstream/ handle/20.500.11911/150/Predicting%20Drought.pdf?sequence=7&isAllowed=y. Accessed Jan 2021

Chapter 8

A Change in Direction

If you can’t go through an obstacle, go around it. Water does –Margaret Atwood

Abstract  Abominably poor rainfall in 2017, an escalation in political conflict, expert international advice and crisis fatigue resulted in the City revisiting the flawed assumptions and reconsideration of the water resilience program. In crafting the mayor’s augmentation plan, cost had not been a consideration during planning and early procurement. Once bids were received on a number of small-scale temporary desalination plants, the economic reality landed, and the political leadership realised that the programme was not affordable. Eventually, a number of international experts advised against implementing the programme, in favour of managing demand and planning for longer-term resilience. This signalled the end of the ambitious water resilience augmentation build-programme, other than the couple of small-scale temporary augmentation projects that were already in progress. Public trust in the administration consequently hit an all-time low which was countered by a media strategy aimed at keeping from running out of water. But it was too late. The political response to the escalating fiasco was for the mayor to be replaced by the deputy mayor to oversee the drought response at the beginning of 2018.

8.1  The Water Situation: November to December 2017 Starting the hydrological year with less than 40% dam storage in November 2017, the best all users in the WCWSS could hope for was to make it last to the winter of 2018 (Fig. 8.1). Spring usually arrives quite late in Cape Town, and everyone was delighted at the cool weather and occasional rainy days the region experienced in November. December even had runoff slightly above average. Cool weather also resulted in urban demand being low as pools were full and gardens drenched, © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 G. Kaiser, Parched - The Cape Town Drought Story, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78889-6_8

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Fig. 8.1  Dam storage volumes 2000–2017

addressing any temptation that households may have had to break restrictions. In the last two months of this record-breaking dry year, dam levels fell by only 7.4 percentage points.

8.2  The Prohibitive Cost of Augmentation After months of the relationship between the mayor and Craig Kesson deteriorating, the latter prepared a protected disclosure1 which was tabled at Council in November 2017 (Republic of South Africa 2000). The disclosure pertained to an alleged failure in governance, both by the City manager and the mayor in failing to institute disciplinary action against another executive director on the executive management team, on top of other irregularities (Kesson 2017). This was unprecedented, adding significantly to the political rift between the mayor and the DA. In response to the protected disclosure, the mayor alleged that Craig’s affidavit was not truthful, and that he had committed a criminal offense, by tabling the disclosure (Dolley 2017).

1  The Protected Disclosures Act provides procedures and offers protection in terms of which any employee may disclose information relating to an offence or a malpractice in the workplace by his or her employer or fellow employees.

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It was against this backdrop of mayhem and general distrust that the worst weeks of managing the drought played out at the end of 2017. Going to work in the Civic Centre felt progressively more like being an actor in a political soap opera. Mercifully, compared with the Imizamo Yethu disaster earlier in the year, dealing with the drought was somewhat energising in that the challenge was more technical in nature. And engaging with international experts introduced new ideas as well as confidence in our own strategies. When the mayor instructed the CRO to craft a plan to deal with the drought through augmented water supplies back in May, cost appeared not to be a consideration. The original plan contained only high-level estimated costs. Over time, the cost estimates increased, but somehow didn’t quite land with the political leadership as being unaffordable until funding the budget became an issue. Extrapolating the cost of the RFI submissions was wholly inadequate since there were no contractual commitments, and the prices offered were much lower than would eventuate through tender. Initially, changing and rephasing of the Integrated Development Plan was considered. National treasury requires that each City administration formally convene a budget steering committee to engage with budget requirements. In terms of the Municipal Budget and reporting regulations, a Budget Steering Committee must comprise the councillor responsible for budget matters, the municipal manager, the chief financial officer, three executive directors who oversee the largest votes in the municipality, the directors of budgets and planning and other technical experts (Republic of South Africa National Treasury 2009). As a consequence of the administration having very little strategic input into the mayor’s budget, the budget steering committee virtually stopped meeting she was in office. Instead, the mayor instituted a different structure in determining the budget, which became known as the “budget strategy meeting”. Membership of this structure changed from time to time, but at a minimum required the mayor and the finance directorate to be present. In the second half of 2017, the budget strategy meeting committee was expanded to deal with the drought, and included the entire Mayco, as well as the full executive management team and numerous other members of staff. Following a number of budget strategy meetings within the City in September, October and November 2017, and after the first bids were received for temporary desalination projects in November, the full implications of the programme not only on the water tariff but on the entire City finances became more obvious to the political leadership. Since some of the small-scale desalination tenders had closed, a cost comparison had been done with the RFI and the costs were substantially higher. For example, in the case of one of the small plants of 2 MLD, the cost more than doubled, to R48.50 per kl. The increase could be attributed largely to the very short operational time which meant the contractor repaid the capital over the short contract period. Whilst the Municipal Finance Management Act allows for a three-year contract period, over time the interpretation had changed to mean three financial years, which effectively meant two years unless contracts were awarded from 1 July of any year. Because these were emergency tenders that would start as soon as possible rather

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than on 1 July, they would run for less than three years. The other major cost difference was attributable to the cost of electricity. A permanent connection would not always be immediately available, and generators thus had to form part of the capital equipment to be acquired by the City. The WRP team had consistently emphasised that the costs were only estimates, and the further away from tender, the less accurate they would be. Cost estimates in the original WRP approved by Council increased over time as more information became available. It was acknowledged in project management terms that the confidence level in initial estimates was low and would increase over time, as indicated below: • May to June 2017, R2 to R8 billion excluding infrastructure; • July to August 2017 R4 to R8 billion including infrastructure; • September 2017 R4 to R14 billion depending on volume required. Now after months of telling City officials not to worry about costs, the WRP team was instructed to cut their cloth to fit the budget. Instead of rephasing the Integrated Development Plan and moving money around in the City budget, there was a notion that the City could tap into goodwill of local business, who would be willing to fund water projects. This was preferable to service delivery suffering wholesale as a result of budget cuts. It was no longer deemed appropriate to reprioritise the City strategy for the water crisis, as had been agreed previously. Instead, the water crisis had to be rephased and reconceptualised to fit into the funding available. The executive management team was accused of running the administration as if it was a spaza shop,2 a term used often, one to which we had to hide our ironic amusement. Even if my simplified dam modelling plan had not seen the light of day, it was useful to be able to model various scenarios while sitting in meetings to inform responses. In the unrealistic worst-case scenario, there would be no rainfall whatsoever, for which there would be no remedy: dams would simply run dry. Should rainfall in 2018 be significantly less than in 2017, the City would have needed to augment supplies with at least 500 MLD. Such low rainfall was highly unlikely, but I felt it necessary to flag, because there was no way of forecasting with any certainty, other than using historical rainfall data and the public was on board that the next winter may provide no rain (Henson 2018). But it also was not possible to augment such large volumes in the time available. Judging by some Australian case studies presented by our consultants, a multitude of risks were identified, and quick desalination seemed like a pipedream. Unfortunately the water team was not confident about producing water at scale from any other source either. By mid-November 2017, five small-scale desalination tenders had been approved, subject to funding. A report to Council was needed to redirect funding to water projects with budgets moved from other departments and projects. The City had publicly announced that it would build temporary desalination plants at Strandfontein,

 A spaza shop is a South African term for an informal convenience store typically run from home.

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Monwabisi and the V&A Waterfront, and these had to be funded (De Klerk 2017a). The water team analysed which other projects would add the most value and have the least potential for regret for the balance of the funding. The temporary schemes were highly expensive, and if we were to have only this funding, I would choose to rather apply the funding to long-term schemes that would offer better value for money. The money available would fund not much more than Strandfontein and Monwabisi, and their combined output of 14 MLD would not go far. However as public commitments had been made by the mayor, the City had to fund these projects first (Van der Merwe 2017). The funding strategy mooted to boost water revenue decimated by the restrictions, was to introduce a drought surcharge. The specific purpose of the surcharge was to remain in place for the duration of the drought and compensate for revenue lost as a result of not having had the usual volume of water to sell. The surcharge was to be specifically paid only during the drought, and would be a progressive tax, linked to property value. A property valued at R 600,000 would have to pay R 35 per month, while a property value of R 50 million would attract a charge of R 2800. Commercial properties were similarly valued on a sliding scale. The drought surcharge would have resulted in an additional revenue of R 600 million in the five months to July 2018. By the end of 2017, the budget shortfall had increased to R 300 million—and this was before Level 6 restrictions being imposed, which would result in an even more dramatic revenue loss. Public lobbies mobilised during the drought took a keen interest and in the region of an unprecedented 45,000 submissions against the drought surcharge were received from the public. In terms of public engagement and in the hope of a more engaged citizenry this boded well. Yet, at the time it was difficult to welcome the vehement public lobby, given the state of water finances.

8.3  Desperation Grows The political discord on top of the drought reality frayed tempers further and reached a boiling point in November 2017 (De Klerk 2017b). It appeared that the mayor had consulted others and had realised that rephasing the Integrated Development Plan would not be politically expedient. She was also disappointed that the WRP had not yet delivered any new water, despite programming initially promising first water in August 2017, later revised to October 2017. Following the barrage of budget meetings, the finance department had compiled a report to move funding from non-­ priority areas to fund the WRP, which required the mayor’s signature to proceed to Council. She was upset by the content of the report and saw it as political suicide to sign. It appeared that the report was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Especially, everyone involved in the drought effort had fallen out of favour, which included Achmat Ebrahim, the CFO, Craig Kesson, me and everyone reporting to us. As a consequence, the mayor identified a number of external experts to advise on the drought, City finances, water management, and groundwater. She had spoken to

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Minister Patel of the national department of economic development, and he would make available his advisor on water on the Presidential Infrastructure Coordinating Committee. Neil Macleod3 was well-known as a level-headed expert in water management, and the water team uttered a sigh of relief to have him involved. Other experts she engaged came directly from national treasury’s city’s support programme, the World Wildlife Foundation and Trans-Caledon Tunnel Authority. The international experts sponsored by the World Bank overlapped with the mayor’s advisors in spending time in Cape Town, and with so many high-level experts in the Civic Centre, my office was delighted to find common ground. At the November 2017 meeting of the Section 80 Water Resilience Committee, I presented on the water outlook. In my presentation, I had included a slide on the dam model and possible scenarios of rainfall and demand. Much debate ensued. The slide was still on the screen when the mayor joined the meeting and sat down. I was curious to see how she would respond, after she’d told me in no uncertain terms not to use the dam model. While many academics on the high-level committee emphasised that this information should be made available publicly, the mayor contrarily insisted that it would not go out into the public domain. It was one of those twilight moments where no-one really knew where to look and I was not displeased that the committee of academics and other organisations present had an opportunity to witness the challenges the water team constantly faced in navigating the mayor’s mercurial management swings. It sometimes seemed impossible to complete anything without an enormous amount of unnecessary conflict.

8.4  Crafting a Media Strategy Despite the daily meetings and unmanageable workload, it seemed that the public perceived the City as being rudderless. Its media strategy was not clear, and daily media releases and campaigns appeared to confuse rather than build confidence. Communications was in the realm of politicians, but it was impacting increasingly negatively on the administration. Using whatever channel of influence available to me, my office suggested that a public relations intervention might be useful in crafting a cohesive strategy. This indirectly led to a specialist company, Resolve Communications, being appointed to assist in the overall communication effort. It was with some relief that Resolve’s management team joined the mayor’s daily meetings on the last day of October 2017 in an effort to steer her into a more cogent media strategy. The nature of decisions taken in the mayor’s meetings was such that not much time was wasted on unpacking consequences and detail. If one tried to introduce nuances and unpack complexity in more than a couple of sentences, it was likely to be shot down. After only a couple of days, a public relations strategy had taken shape and was presented to the mayor. Having a public relations strategy steer

 See Annexure B.

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the drought response provided a little relief from having politics in the driving seat. For the City to rebuild trust, messaging had to be changed from the panicked ‘we’re running out of water’ to the more proactive ‘drive demand down to 500 MLD’. The new media strategy was technically far from flawless, but at least it was clear: Fear needs to be balanced with hope. On the fear side, if we don’t ALL do our best and it doesn’t rain again, we get Day Zero. This would require the Armageddon of Day Zero to be explained in detail. On the other side, the hope was that IF it rains AND our augmentation works, we can start shifting to more water use per household.

In short format, communication would entail: (a) An estimated half of households were using 87 litres per capita per day. We need all households to do so, otherwise we’re heading for Day Zero; (b) Augmentation—the City is bending over backwards, but if there are any delays, we’re heading for Day Zero; (c) If we all do our bit, then no Day Zero. The premise was that if both the public and the City did what they had to do, Cape Town wouldn’t run out of water. For the public, this meant driving demand down to 500 MLD. For the City, this meant that the augmentation projects in progress needed to proceed as planned. In reality, the City’s augmentation would make little difference, because projects simply could not provide water fast enough. Also, even if demand was reduced to 500 MLD, if there was no rainfall, our water supply would not survive another summer. Furthermore, the water team also had some difficulty in developing metrics to easily show progress against targets. For demand, we extrapolated statistical monthly household demand data correlated with daily demand, to provide a hypothetical percentage of households using less than 10.5 kilolitres a month, and thus, a proportion of people using less than 87 litres a day. This notwithstanding, the new media strategy was accepted. As far as the City’s responsibility in progressing augmentation projects was concerned, it was difficult to show daily progress in any meaningful way. Most of the augmentation projects were on hold as it became progressively clearer that they were unaffordable. That the WRP projects had been introduced with fanfare meant that it was risky to announce any large-scale change in plans. The strategy was thus to keep the projects alive, but subject to funding. The WRP was still reporting on 24 projects, which had been whittled down to seven, of which at least one would show no quick progress. It would erode confidence if the City changed plans too quickly, and we were urged not to cancel tenders. This translated into an analogy of floating ducks—the seven projects were ducks alive and kicking while the rest were floating dead ducks. From an engineering perspective this was troubling because we could not cancel tenders. But not knowing whether the projects may yet be triggered, we had no option. The plan was thus to simply speak less about the seven and 17 projects. Despite reporting on only seven projects, daily progress was mostly marginal as construction had not started, and the City risked falling behind on tracked progress if even the smallest activity did not go according to plan. The dashboard that

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displayed the PR strategy was eventually launched at a media briefing on 23 November 2017. The daily water meetings remained challenging—presentations had to be submitted prior to every meeting, minutes had to be finalised directly afterwards, and the water team would have to work on answers for the following day. While Resolve tried to steer the meeting along a sensible agenda, the mayor was chairing and thus had the freedom and authority to introduce whatever other matters were on her mind. The invitation list grew over time. Bizarrely, initially Xanthea Limberg, the Mayco member actually in charge of water, was not invited, while a number of other Mayco members were. The room was so full that additional attendees were seldom noticed, or had their presence questioned. As public relations were steering the overall strategy of dealing with the drought, the City’s communications consultants reported daily on trends in social media, news reports, and polls around messaging. Resolve fashioned several small victories along the way, and generally with some practical insight, managed to convey messages to the mayor that officials simply couldn’t. Such as that it was detrimental to the City for all drought related decisions to be made by the mayor. Also that a spokesperson from the water department would lend credibility to media communications. Without reservation I recommended Peter Flower for this role. There was something about an experienced water engineer with grey hair and a professional disposition that seemed to be just what was necessary. Media releases in future could thus be better balanced between the political and technical commentary. In the City’s endeavours to be accessible, multiple entry points for media queries became available. This often resulted in inefficient responses and a duplication of effort. Instead, it was agreed that Xanthea Limberg’s office would be the official entry point, for everyone to forward queries to. Resolve also emphasised the importance of working together as a team and playing by the rules. This request was a little amusing as the political rift meant there were plenty of different agendas and factions in the meetings. Once leadership of the drought moved to the deputy mayor, daily drought meetings ceased, and Resolve became far less involved. Criticism was later levelled at the PR intervention because of Resolve Communication’s political links, but in my view, their input and presence in the room over some of the most chaotic weeks in the administration was invaluable (Kamaldien 2018).

8.5  External Review During the drought, offers of assistance came from across the world. Those with commercial interests—mainly consultants, contractors or suppliers of water related products—offered silver bullet solutions with clear potential to make a profit, while many others thought the City required professional help (pun intended). The latter was in large part the result of to the bizarre stream of information available in the

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media which led many international professionals to believe that the City had little idea of what it was doing. It was often with frustration and in disbelief that those offering help had their offers rejected. Within the public sector’s procurement system, accepting any assistance which is paid for by the public sector requires due process. In the City, this is prescribed by a procurement policy that follows the letter of the law to ensure transparency, equity and compliance. All of these traits are highly commendable, but it doesn’t provide a particularly easily navigable enabling environment for implementation. The lack of national and international exposure to specialist innovation in itself is not ideal—consultants are procured through a very complicated legally determined process. While every attempt is made to procure the best consultant for a project, it is not a simple thing to do and often the relief is great simply to make an appointment without a contract ending up in court for resolution. Inspired by the City’s bullish messaging on the implementation of several of desalination plants, the public discourse on the topic of external assistance ran amok from time to time. Desalination suppliers criticised the City for not taking up their offers, while political statements about the City procuring only Israeli desalination plants were common. At the end of 2017, news reports were common, that the City had rejected help with desalination plants. Specifically, a story that persisted in the media, was that Israel had offered assistance but this offer was rejected. “South Africa’s Israel-haters should be held to account for pressuring to limit sharing of Israel’s water-management technologies,” tweeted former Israeli ambassador to South Africa Arthur Lenk (Jewish Report 2017). He had done whatever he could to make Israel’s expertise in water management and drought relief available to South Africa for the four years he was based here. This was in contrast to another story that persisted, namely that ties between Israel and the DA had led to the City procuring only Israeli contractors to build desalination plants. The fact that the Western Cape was the only province run by the official opposition in South Africa continued to contribute to politics playing an elevated role in the urgency of the drought (Saunderson-Meyer 2018). It was easy enough to provide facts to counter the story, but many detractors harped on it for months. Late in 2017, the minister of water and sanitation also offered the mayor a 10 MLD desalination plant procured by Umgeni Water in Richards Bay, in the province of KwaZulu-Natal. The details of the deal were never finalised, but it appeared that the City would have to pay an unknown operational cost, if not the capital cost. As officials, we were immediately suspicious given perceptions and rumours of large-scale procurement corruption in the national department. The last thing the City needed was a plant that we had to pay for that did not produce the correct quality or volume of water, on top of a possible corruption scandal. After a number of weeks of correspondence, the City eventually rejected the offer early in January 2018 (Capeetc 2018). I was aware of the challenge officials faced in staying up to date with international developments in municipal infrastructure. Over the years, with austerity measures in place and in an environment of distrust, representation of City officials at conferences, both local and overseas, was curtailed. As delegations of authority

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changed to require sign-off by the City manager for any travel outside of Cape Town, and by the mayor for any international travel, events in Cape Town became the only option for meeting with professionals from elsewhere. Even where events were fully sponsored, requests were frequently turned down. This affected City officials’ interaction with the outside world, and often we had to rely on consultants to do the interaction. As mentioned earlier, my directorate embarked on a feasibility study for a large-scale desalination plant in 2011. As desalination had not yet been implemented in Cape Town, part of the contract covered a learning trip to Australia’s desalination plants, operators and consultants. This was to be undertaken by the consultants and the client, in other words. The City. At the time the mayor did not support bulk water head Peter Flower’s accompanying the consultants. This turned out to be a great pity. Balancing the benefit of the assistance offered, with the time and process required to procure service providers was front of mind at the height of the drought. All the same, the City was most fortunate to gain a number of specialist advisors who were funded by external parties, a benefit that was broadly supported through national treasury. Through the city’s support programme, national treasury funded Dr. Rolfe Eberhard, to consult with the City over an extended period. In turn, Rolfe advised and assisted in identifying suitable experts to address the various areas of concern, such as the augmentation programme. Some advisors were specifically procured to report directly to the mayor, but there were several advisors and organisations who played significant roles in assisting me and my water team at various times during the drought (see Annexure B). With Swiss donor funding, the World Bank sponsored two well respected water experts from the US to visit Cape Town in November 2017. The detail reports by these two, Manuel Marino4 and Nikolay Voutchkov,5 were made available on the City’s website early in 2018. This was a rather watershed moment in disclosure of factual information from third parties and I am grateful to the deputy mayor for agreeing to it. In summary, the review at the end of 2017 advised that the City: • Manage demand and dam draw-down • Assuming it would not rain again was not realistic. Augmentation would not make a significant difference to dam levels in the summer of 2017/2018 so there was no alternative but to ensure effective demand management during the summer. Ensuring agriculture was restricted was very important and the City also had to pursue opportunities for water transfers from agriculture. The critical point for dam levels would be June 2019 if rainfall was poor in the winter of 2018. • Prioritise ground water • Ground water should be much quicker to exploit and would be cheaper. A large resource was available in the Cape Flats aquifer. It was allowable to over-exploit the groundwater resource in the short-run as part of the emergency, taking future recharge into account.

 See Annexure B.  See Annexure B.

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• Do not pursue temporary desalination and reuse • Water from temporary desalination and reuse plants is very expensive. Multiple small plants would be logistically complex and was not sustainable. Providing temporary desalination at scale would not be a quick solution—it would take longer than planned and anticipated. • Do not use ship or barge-based marine desalination plants • Experience taught that such plants were very costly and had a poor track record of producing quality freshwater at any significant volume. The reason for this is that plant production is a function of source seawater quality, which is often a challenge when the plants are docked in ports located in urbanised or industrial areas. • Reuse is cheaper than desalination and may be faster to execute • Pursue the most promising opportunities for reuse in a cost-effective and time-­ effective way, in parallel to permanent desalination. • Pursue permanent desalination at optimal scale • Plan and execute permanent desalination at an optimum scale, at a plant size or in modules of 120 MLD to 150 MLD. Do not build desalination plants of capacity larger than 200 MLD. • Procure time- and cost-effectively • A competitively bid turnkey approach for reuse and desalination, using the private sector and with a water purchase agreement, would yield the lowest cost per unit of water compared to the alternatives and be quicker to implement provided regulatory processes are fast-tracked as part of the emergency. • Make decisions on the long term as soon as possible and implement • Do not prevaricate on decisions about permanent reuse and desalination and implement without delay. The report and presentation to the mayor by Manuel Marino landed with a thud, and the mayor immediately moved away from prioritising desalination, instead focussing on groundwater. When Nikolay Voutchkov presented his findings two weeks later, the new strategy was set in stone: no more temporary small-scale desalination would be supported. At the same time, Neil Macleod’s visits to Cape Town to assist in crafting the new water programme began. In technical meetings, he provided much-needed the moral support, but also played devil’s advocate, challenging our plans and solutions. He kept emphasising that the region was in crisis—it needed to challenge obstacles and unearth more innovation. The interval of his visits varied from weekly to monthly depending on his availability, but in every instance, he provided a brief, punchy feedback report. The mayor meticulously worked through each report at her daily water meetings, resulting in much progress and common sense being introduced. To have an independent professional with first-hand knowledge of managing a municipal water utility in South Africa through drought and political transformation, was priceless. The mayor embraced Neil’s advice, and it certainly influenced the thought process around finalising the adjustment budget on the WRP. Neil introduced the story of what happened during the Durban drought, when the price was increased from 28c/kl to R600/kl for use over 400 litres per day. This sent a clear

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signal to consumers and demand dropped dramatically. He further emphasised to the mayor that there had always been a strategy for the provision of water within Cape Town’s water department, and while it was under review because of drought conditions, the City had never been without a plan. He pointed out that water finance challenges are complex, and buying water at R40/kl while selling at R4/kl was a road to certain bankruptcy. And, of course, this was exactly where the City was heading with the small desalination plants and subsidised water tariff. While in town, Neil was a most welcome contributor in my office, but importantly, also in all of the mayor’s meetings. In fact, all external experts seemed to be welcome at the daily water meetings. When they were in attendance, more (and better) decisions were often made. To my delight, the introduction of the concept of having Clem Sunter advise on the communication and modelling came from Neil, and had the mayor’s tacit approval. Neil was also able to show the dam model and various scenarios that I had prepared. These confirmed that agriculture had failed to adhere to restrictions in previous years. Even if the sector stayed within the current restriction, with maximum evaporation, the water supply model showed that dam levels were likely to dip below 20% in May 2018. It was clear that even with all hands on deck, augmentation would not make a difference before the winter of 2018—it was always going to be too little, too late. With the assistance of Wesgro and the Cape Town Partnership, the water team arranged a scenario planning session with Clem Sunter early in December 2017. I thought that as with the international experts, the mayor would be agreeable to consider releasing more sensible technical information into the public realm. The workshop was useful in that it helped build trust. There was strong support to develop a single, go-to website with accurate and up-to-date information on the status of the drought, dam draw down, agriculture and urban use among other information. It would also publish a working model on the website with a clear explanation of the assumptions and parameters in the model. The participants agreed on the following as take-outs from the session, which over time formed part of the water strategy: • We needed to integrate the scenario-based resilience approach with the new direction of the resilience strategy, including the effective monitoring of, and reporting on, red and green flags; • Participants strongly supported the implementation of a Level 5 drought tariff that had incentives to reduce demand to below 500 MLD and included a penalty tariff for consumption in excess of 10.5 kl a month per domestic connection. They far preferred this over a drought surcharge linked to property tax that had no incentive effect on water use. Implementing such tariffs have been very effective elsewhere; • The need for adaptive leadership was critical across the complex system— between different spheres of government, between sectors (urban centres), across sectors (between urban and agriculture), between government and business, and between government and citizens; • We had to support the development of an integrated communications platform across government;

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• We had to move away from a fear-based communications strategy to an active partnering strategy; • The City needed to continue with targeted engagements with different sectors, in particular business and financial sector scientists, bloggers and the like; • The City needed to communicate on the status of the outstanding tenders, and • A decision on the harbour desalination plant was needed soon. It was proposed that the City sought expert advice on this. It was a breath of fresh air to be in the company of rational professionals and have an honest conversation around the drought. At last, clear thinking and sanity began to prevail. As it happened, the outcomes of the session with Clem Sunter were not really needed in turning the tide but would have been invaluable if it was. In my view the transition away from the WRP was inevitable, simply because the plan just wasn’t technically sound. This truth would have become apparent as time passed, but at great expense. Fortunately politics intervened, in the shape of a fall-­ out between the CRO and the mayor in large part paving the way for reduced political appetite to implement the plan. During the last months of 2017, I was pretty much obsessed with water and communicating more effectively, but this work alone would never have been enough for me to officially get responsibility back and overturn the mandate for the WRP. Nonetheless, from December I had scheduled and taken control of numerous water meetings in the streams of what would become the New Water Programme.

8.6  Flawed Assumptions Exposed While I was not part of the team who identified the projects comprising the 500 MLD augmented supply initially, over time, the principles of selection became apparent to me. Pursuit of the fast-tracked implementation of these projects arguably did more harm than good during the drought, but some lessons can be learned from unpacking the assumptions and principles. The flawed assumptions were mainly: • Money was not to be a consideration in supplying 500 MLD • The logic behind this assumption was that money could be obtained by various means such as grants and loans, but once the dams ran dry, water could not be. This assumption was made in a vacuum of how much money was required. The cost of providing an additional 500 MLD over a year, even at a totally unrealistically low cost of R10 per m3 is just under R2 billion. With containerised desalination costs averaging closer to R50 per m3, this would balloon to more than R9 billion per year. This would be over and above covering the cost of the existing water supply system which would have to remain operational. The City’s total budget for the 2017/2018 financial year was R44 billion, of which the capital budget comprised slightly short of R7 billion, and obviously couldn’t fund the programme. Money has to be a consideration in any emergency response;

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• By generating 500 MLD, Cape Town could operate independently from the WCWSS • The strategy of driving down demand to 500 MLD while implementing augmentation projects to supply 500 MLD assumed that by winter 2018, when dams were forecast to run dry, the City could operate independently from the WCWSS. The inequity of using water from the system until there was none left and then go off-grid appeared not to have struck anyone as problematic. Cape Town would be fine, but the rest of Western Cape users would have to deal with their own lack of water. The WRP paid scant attention to the existence of the WCWSS, its relationship with Cape Town and the role both played within the system. The reconciliation strategy was hardly recognised as a strategy, evident in the mayor’s repeated allegations that the Water department had failed to plan; • It would not rain again • Reliance on rainfed dams was not part of the WRP because the City had no control over rainfall, while it could fully control, and project manage an augmentation programme. Mentioning winter rainfall in the presence of the mayor resulted in biting comments and a hard stare. But, and this is supported by climate science, it was simply unrealistic to assume that winter rainfall would reduce to zero within the space of a season. Figure 8.2 represents the band within which runoff plots scale from 1928. In the future, with climate change over time, the band is likely to become wider, potentially with far lower runoff, but climate models do not forecast a dramatic change within the space of a year; • It was possible to procure 500 MLD supply to balance demand reduced to 500 MLD within less than a year • Projects totalling 500 MLD thus had to be identified, initiated and implemented in the space of a year. Half of the required supply was attributed to three desalination ship and barge projects. Fortunately, these did not progress beyond the

Fig. 8.2  Runoff range over time based on 90-year records

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Fig. 8.3  Emergency programme: water delivery estimate (City of Cape Town 2017)

stage of ‘expression of interest’ to gauge the available market. Even if money were no object, legislation and policy around municipal procurement in South Africa made this a non-starter. Project development takes time, using unfamiliar technology and international contractors would only have added to the period prior to first water; • Implementation programmes could be compressed to fit the time available • Simplistically, if there were to be no more rainfall, supply was required to compensate at the time when rain would have filled dams. Programming was thus accelerated to deliver water by the next winter, in July 2018 (Fig. 8.3). In project management terms this is not rational. Various tasks may be fast-tracked, but sound project implementation cannot simply have programmes squeezed into the time available. While the project managers driving the programme must have been aware of this impossibility, on the mayor’s instruction they worked as if it was possible and demanded deliverables from the water engineers accordingly.

8.7  The Water Situation: 2018 Although April and May of 2018 had rainfall and runoff far below average (Fig. 8.4), Cape Town breathed a sigh of relief that it rained at all. June’s inflow was nearly 1.5 times the average, and dam levels rose at a rate which I could not have dared hoped for. The realisation that dams would spill if the trend continued led to the development of a drought recovery plan (see Sect. 10.2). Apart from September, which also had rainfall far above average, the balance of the hydrological year had lower than average runoff (Fig. 8.5). Nonetheless, rainfall in the dam catchments, combined with reduced demand, was enough to raise dam levels by 55 percentage points to nearly 75% of storage capacity at the end of October. It was with further relief that

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Fig. 8.4  Dam storage volumes 2000–2018

Fig. 8.5  Average and 2018 actual inflow

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Fig. 8.6  Cape Town water produced in MLD, 2016–2018

temperatures throughout October and November remained cool, and that November and December had a fair amount of rainfall. From the high consumption level of 981 MLD in 2015 to 537 MLD in 2018 represented a reduction of 45% in average annual demand. Summer demand reduced by a remarkable 55% from 2015 (Fig. 8.6).

8.8  Another Change in Water Leadership Late in December 2017, the City manager indicated that he would be taking leave for two weeks over the holidays. Looking back, it seems strange that once he returned, he would spend only two more weeks in office before resigning with immediate effect. Over the preceding weeks, I had developed a document that provided information on the drought in an honest and comprehensive, yet simple manner. I had sent many drafts to external collaborators, and in discussion, we decided that it had to be released as soon as possible. The mayor was due back in the office after the holidays on the first Monday of 2018, and I believed that it would never see the light of day if it had to earn her approval first. I had over the years realised that too much technical information simply didn’t land well, and my predicament was that if she rejected it, I wouldn’t ever be able to publish it. The time therefore seemed opportune. Given that my office had not put out any such information directly to the public for years without political approval, I was curious about the reaction. I thought that our group of external advisors would be perfectly placed to assess both its usefulness and potential impact. At short notice, we managed to convene an impressive number of advisors to GreenCape. We all proofread the document, and we fixed

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small errors. We decided the title would be Water Outlook and all agreed that it needed to go on the City’s website, so that it would be accepted as official. I opted to credit the City of Cape Town’s Department of Water and Sanitation as the author. I had asked the communications IT department whether they could post the document and send me the link as soon as possible, late on a Friday afternoon. I circulated the link to all the stakeholders in the group and they disseminated it further (City of Cape Town 2018). It was hugely exhilarating to finally get information into the public arena, having prepared numerous documents over the preceding months that never saw the light of day. I also knew it could spell the end of my career in the City, despite the content of the outlook being nothing but factual. I gave a copy of Water Outlook to the deputy mayor and my Mayco member and advised them that it was online. In the Water Outlook, I tried to crystallise the most pertinent issues. Following the discourse in the media, it was important to explain how the water system worked, and to emphasise that the current situation was not the result of mismanagement or poor planning in the City, province or even DWS. Instead, it was because of multiple years of exceptionally low rainfall. A further critical point to be made concerned rainfall. Climate is variable, so that Cape Town experiences wet years and dry years, and while global forecasting predicts more relatively dry and fewer relatively wet years, it is not reasonable to expect no rainfall. The actions required was listed as: • Imposing Level 6B restrictions to reach a 450 MLD target, aiming for a personal usage of 50 litres per capita per day; • Introducing a drought surcharge for the financial sustainability of the water service; • Physically restricting urban demand to 450 MLD and tracking a weekly water budget; • Using all mechanisms to ensure that DWS stops agricultural releases when the allocations are reached in the various agricultural regions, and • Improving communication and reducing blame games and public spats, placing all spheres of government on the same page to ensure all people in Cape Town are informed and are working together on avoiding catastrophe. Back in the office the following Monday afternoon, the mayor instructed IT to remove the Water Outlook from the website. Over the weekend, her office had received calls querying the document, which alerted her to it. Later that week, the mayor expressed her displeasure that she had not been consulted or given the opportunity to vet the information. It was not a pleasant meeting, but public interest was such that the Water Outlook was published on the web again a few days later. That same week, Craig Kesson had arranged a final WRP task team meeting in his office to formally close out the WRP. The mayor saw me walk past her office on my way to Craig’s. While we were talking, she burst into Craig’s office demanding to know what the meeting was about. She reiterated that her daily water meeting was the only platform where the drought could be discussed and that we were not allowed to meet. She followed up the next day by instructing us individually and in

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writing that we were forbidden to meet to discuss water matters outside her daily meeting. After she left, we nonetheless had a fruitful meeting and determined a path to undertake the steps required to close out WRP and for me to take ownership of the NWP as it had changed. My boss of more than five years, the City manager, resigned with immediate effect on 15 January 2018 (De Klerk 2018). While I’d not always agreed with him, I was sad to see him go. In a role like this, one will always make enemies and compromise—the only way to stay sane is to be true to one’s own beliefs, despite external clamour. Times were unprecedented, and while I was a little shocked, it was understandable that leaving with a public service career intact was more important than fighting in a drawn-out and potentially6 dirty political fight. On 18 January 2018, the City’s media release announcing that Day Zero would be almost a certainty in three months’ time captured the world’s attention (Van der Merwe 2018a). I watched as CNN headlines screamed Day Zero. This day had been calculated as the day when dam levels would reach 13.5% of storage capacity, assuming demand stayed static, and with no rainfall. The 3.5% down to 10.0% provided use for approximately three months at a Cape Town consumption of 350 MLD. Business and industry were allocated 150 MLD, and the approximately four million residents of Cape Town 200 MLD, at 50 litres per person per day. Below 10% storage, water is more difficult to abstract from dams, but down to 7% of capacity, still reasonably easy to get into the system. Thereafter, dead storage would need to be pumped to obtain usable water. So Cape Town had at least nine months’ water left at the yet further reduced consumption. The political front was moving fast with regular special Council meetings. A special meeting on 19 January 2018 considered the drought surcharge. The DA caucus did not approve the report and its recommendations were changed. In light of the overwhelming number of comments received from the public, introducing the drought surcharge was an unpopular decision and Council did not consider it further (Phakathi 2018). Levels 5, 6 and 7 consumptive water tariffs were approved. Further recommendations were tabled by Xanthea Limberg and the deputy mayor, limiting the mayor’s powers with immediate effect, so that her delegated powers be exercised together with the mayoral committee. This turned out to be rather onerous for Mayco members over the coming months, since they now also had to sign all reports and reach agreement. But it was a quick win that achieved what the politicians wanted. Another recommendation introduced and approved was for me to replace Craig Kesson as leader of the water task team, and that the task team would no longer report to the mayor, but to the deputy mayor and Xanthea Limberg (Dolley 2018). This day changed my world and the trajectory of the drought response. Resilience

6  The protected disclosure had also implicated the City manager and there was no way of knowing how events would unfold.

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comes from flexibility in the face of change. It was with much relief that I found the deputy mayor followed a much less constraining schedule, requiring mostly small meetings once a week, with ad hoc communication whenever required. With political support, and Council approval in January 2018 for me to lead the new water programme, overnight, the drought appeared to be manageable, targeting the three areas identified: managing the system to keep water in the dams, managing demand, and accelerating augmentation. The structure of how the water team would manage was useful in explaining the plan. We would start with the status of the supply system, and how releases to agriculture and other urban areas were likely to influence dam levels. In terms of demand management, we looked at potential gains the City could make and the various aspects of reducing consumption. The water team emphasised that a minimum level of about 450 MLD had been estimated, for the reticulation system to work. Much of the system is gravity fed, and starving parts of the system of water would inevitably lead to infrastructure and quality failures. And for augmentation, the water team covered projects that had begun, along with those requiring tenders to be cancelled, and how the Section 29 report had affected the programme. On 24 January 2018, the then leader of the DA, Mmusi Maimane, had a public meeting in Athlone, branded as #DefeatDayZero. The move was widely criticised in the media but for me, at the time, anything that could cement the fact that the mayor was no longer involved in managing the drought was good news. He stated that as leader of the party, he was not satisfied with the City’s response to the drought crisis, especially its communications of it. He proposed a drought crisis team, including the deputy mayor, Xanthea Limberg, the Western Cape Premier, and a number of provincial ministers. At the update, he followed an agenda outlining the current status, what the City was doing, and what everyone needed to do. The water team informed the technical content and thus were broadly aligned with the presentation. My notebooks over the coming months were filled with notes on managing the drought, and rainfall was yet many months away. Thanks to the change in leadership, the narrative became far more rational and technically oriented, so the story changed. While the changes in water leadership meant that the mayor was no longer directly in charge of our efforts, she was still the executive mayor and responsible for all that title entailed. I interacted carefully for the balance of her time in office, doing my best to keep my head low. Our relationship was cordial and professional from this point forward. The protected disclosure highlighted failures in governance which eventually led to the City manager’s, and circuitously, contributed to the mayor’s departure. To my mind the failure in governance was nothing compared to the damage done by the radical change in corporate culture in the City administration. This included the centralisation of power, the abject lack of respect, crossing of political lines, breakdown in trust, and the changes implemented without understanding the consequences, inter alia. If a local authority expends all its energy on internal conflict, the

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public is not well-served. The challenges facing South African cities needs not only competence and good governance, but also cohesive, innovative and optimistic government to eliminate poverty and increase equality. In response to being removed from the responsibility for water, the mayor submitted reasons to the DA why she should be retained as mayor, including allegations that both the WRP team and my water team had mismanaged the drought. The content of the submission was made public in the media, claiming that officials cared more about buying furniture than the water projects (Engineering News 2018). We prepared a detailed response, but as far as I recall, our rebuttal was never submitted for publication. Craig Kesson, the CFO, Kevin Jacoby, and I had to collaborate on the response since all of us, and our staff, had been implicated in the spurious allegations. The headline catching allegation that furniture was prioritised over water projects was simply not true. The mayor had been very excited about the creation of a war-room, until it was disclosed that it would have to be in a location remote from the Civic Centre, at which point her enthusiasm dwindled. With the breakdown in trust with the WRP, she had refused to sign off on resources to accommodate around fifty contract staff which were supposed to be recruited to implement the WRP. This included not only office space, but furniture and IT equipment as well. Change in responsibility of the drought response did not end the political turmoil in Council. The mayor narrowly and surprisingly survived a vote of no confidence in council, on 15 February 2018. The DA had a two-thirds majority, but with three abstentions, the vote of no-confidence was defeated by a single vote (Van der Merwe 2018b). In May, the DA terminated the mayor’s party membership following a radio interview in which she stated her intention to resign. The court reinstated her as mayor temporarily, before ruling that the DA had acted against their own constitution, reinstating her fully at the end of June (Davis 2018). In July, another vote of no confidence was on the Council agenda but withdrawn prior to the item being heard. At the beginning of August, the mayor reached agreement with the then leader of the DA to step down as mayor at the end of October 2018 and that all disciplinary charges against her would be dropped (Kahn 2018). Her final weeks in office provided more of a rollercoaster ride, and much speculation on whether the mayor would in fact leave office. But on 31 October, she had her last day in office, resigning both as mayor and from the DA, a day before her disciplinary hearing was due to start. The mayor had a very successful first term in office from 2011 to 2016. She was poised to create a legacy of transformation in Cape Town. Then the drought intensified, and she must have been aware that she could be judged for whatever transpired on her watch as the public panicked. Whether she thought that building expensive water infrastructure was really possible (or necessary) and would boost her legacy, or whether the risk of following the science, and trusting City-staff seemed too high, I am not sure. It was a wild time, and goodwill was in short supply.

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Many Capetonians, a number of councillors, and indeed, many officials within the City administration believed that the mayor was the best that Cape Town had ever had. She was fearless in challenging convention and opinion. She was ruthless in eliminating her detractors. She had a vision and proved to stop at nothing to implement it.

References Capeetc (2018) City told govt to hold off desalination plant. Capetown etc. magazine, 28 January 2018. Available at: https://www.capetownetc.com/news/city-­rejected-­governments-­help-­last-­ year-­mokonyane/. Accessed Jan 2021 City of Cape Town (2017) Water Resilience Programme, Briefing to Water Resilience Advisory Committee, 24 October 2017 City of Cape Town (2018) Water outlook, Revision 12  – updated 5 January 2018. Available at: https://www.investcapetown.com/wp-­content/uploads/2018/10/Water-­Outlook-­2018-­ Summary.pdf. Accessed Jan 2021 Davis R (2018) Indestructible De Lille is still DA member and mayor. Daily Maverick, 27 June 2018. Available at: https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2018-­06-­27-­indestructible-­de-­ lille-­is-­still-­da-­member-­and-­mayor/. Accessed Jan 2021 De Klerk A (2017a) Can desalination save Cape Town from water crisis in nick of time? Sunday Times, 16 October 2017. Available at: https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-­ africa/2017-­1 0-­1 6-­c an-­d esalination-­s ave-­c ape-­t own-­f rom-­water-­c risis-­i n-­n ick-­o f-­t ime/. Accessed Jan 2021 De Klerk A (2017b) Cape Town speaker rejects ANC bid for vote against De Lille. Sowetan Live, 30 November 2017. Available at: https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-­africa/2017-­10-­16-­ can-­desalination-­save-­cape-­town-­from-­water-­crisis-­in-­nick-­of-­time/. Accessed Jan 2021 De Klerk A (2018) Cape Town city manager quits amid disciplinary probe. Sunday Times, 15 January 2018. Available at: https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-­africa/2018-­01-­15-­cape-­ town-­city-­manager-­quits-­amid-­disciplinary-­probe/. Accessed Jan 2021 Dolley C (2017) It’s criminal, not whistleblowing  – De Lille hits back at executive director’s claims. News24, 29 November 2017. Available at: https://www.news24.com/news24/ SouthAfrica/News/its-­criminal-­not-­whistleblowing-­de-­lille-­hits-­back-­at-­executive-­directors-­ claims-­20171129. Accessed Jan 2021 Dolley C (2018) Cape Town’s drought crisis team closed down – City. News24, 30 January 2018. Available at: https://www.news24.com/news24/SouthAfrica/News/cape-­towns-­drought-­crisis-­ team-­closed-­down-­city-­20180130. Accessed Jan 2021 Engineering News (2018) Managers focused on furniture needs, not water  – De Lille on Cape Town’s ‘derailed’ drought plan. Engineering News, 30 January 2018. Available at: https:// www.engineeringnews.co.za/article/managers-­focused-­on-­furniture-­needs-­not-­water-­de-­lille-­ on-­cape-­towns-­derailed-­drought-­plan-­2018-­01-­30/rep_id:4136. Accessed Jan 2021 Henson B (2018) Weather Underground, 19 January 2018. Available at: https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/its-­true-­cape-­towns-­water-­supply-­three-­months-­away-­shutdown. Accessed Jan 2021 Jewish Report (2017) Day Zero: Can Israel save Cape Town? Jewish Report, 25 January 2018. Available at: https://www.sajr.co.za/day-­zero-­can-­israel-­save-­cape-­town/. Accessed Jan 2021 Kahn T (2018) Patricia de Lille to step down as mayor of Cape Town. Business Day, 5 August 2018. Available at: https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/politics/2018-­08-­05-­breaking-­news-­ patricia-­de-­lille-­to-­step-­down-­as-­mayor-­of-­cape-­town/. Accessed Jan 2021

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Kamaldien Y (2018) Tony Leon firm runs Cape Town water campaign. IOL, 13 January 2018. Available at: https://www.iol.co.za/weekend-­argus/tony-­leon-­firm-­runs-­cape-­town-­water-­ campaign-­12711981. Accessed Jan 2021 Kesson C (2017) Affidavit under the provisions of the Protected Disclosures Act no 26 of 2000. Politicsweb, 21 November 2017. Available at: https://www.politicsweb.co.za/documents/cape-­ town-­craig-­kessons-­whistleblower-­affidavit. Accessed Jan 2021 Phakathi B (2018) Why Cape Town’s levy looks dead in the water. Business Day, 17 January 2018. Available at: https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/national/2018-­01-­17-­why-­cape-­towns-­levy-­ looks-­dead-­in-­the-­water/. Accessed Jan 2021 Republic of South Africa (2000) Protected Disclosures Act, No 26 of 2000. Government Printer, Pretoria Republic of South Africa National Treasury (2009) Local Government: Municipal Finance Management Act (56/2003): Municipal budget and reporting regulations. Government Printer, Pretoria Saunderson-Meyer W (2018) In drought-hit South Africa, the politics of water. Reuters, 5 February 2018. Available at: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-­saundersonmeyer-­drought-­ commentary-­idUSKBN1FP226. Accessed Jan 2021 Van der Merwe M (2017) Hell or high water: face to face with Patricia de Lille and the battle to stave off Day Zero. Daily Maverick, 16 November 2017. Available at: https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2017-­11-­16-­hell-­or-­high-­water-­face-­to-­face-­with-­patricia-­de-­lille-­and-­the-­ battle-­to-­stave-­off-­day-­zero/. Accessed Jan 2021 Van der Merwe M (2018a) De Lille announces new emergency water rations: ‘We have reached a point of no return’. Daily Maverick, 18 January 2018. Available at: https://www.dailymaverick. co.za/article/2017-­11-­16-­hell-­or-­high-­water-­face-­to-­face-­with-­patricia-­de-­lille-­and-­the-­battle-­ to-­stave-­off-­day-­zero/. Accessed Jan 2021 Van der Merwe M (2018b) Analysis: De Lille survives, but not out of the woods. Daily Maverick, 18 January 2018. Available at: https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2018-­02-­15-­analysis-­ de-­lille-­survives-­but-­not-­out-­of-­the-­woods/. Accessed Jan 2021

Chapter 9

Science Prevails

In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is freedom, in water there is bacteria. –Benjamin Franklin

Abstract  Bulk water planning requires that demand and supply are in balance. By early 2018, influenced by all that had transpired, the City’s response to the drought had evolved into three distinct streams, capturing the importance of both demand and supply: firstly, managing the system dam storage and abstraction; secondly, managing urban demand, and finally, accelerating augmentation. Demand was managed through a variety of interventions implemented in parallel. During the drought, the City introduced urban restrictions no less than eight times, of which four had increasingly punitive tariff implications. The balance of restrictions guided change in behaviour with cascading fines for delinquent water use. The accelerated augmentation program was built on the original reconciliation strategy interventions and influenced by the knowledge gained during procurement of temporary schemes devised in the water resilience program. With decreased confidence in rainfall modelling, additional and diversified water resources are required to provide the same level of assurance of supply. Surface water is wholly reliant on rainfall, and by implication, so is the water recycled for reuse. Groundwater storage is affected by a decrease in rainfall and, and to a lesser degree, an increase in temperature. It typically lags by a number of years. Desalinated seawater in coastal areas provides a truly drought resistant water source, although other constraints exist, such as costs and environmental impacts. Grappling with the volume of water required to protect the City from such harsh restrictions in future, balanced with the timing and cost to be paid for the new schemes was a critical consideration in developing the augmentation programme.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 G. Kaiser, Parched - The Cape Town Drought Story, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78889-6_9

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By early 2018, influenced by all that had transpired, the City’s drought response had been renamed the New Water Programme (NWP) and evolved into three distinct areas of focus, aimed at matching water demand and supply, namely: 1 . Managing the system dam levels; 2. Managing urban demand, and 3. Accelerating urban augmentation. In our planning on balancing supply and demand, we were buoyed by global climate models agreeing that it was not reasonable to plan for a scenario in which it would not rain in the future or in which it would only ever again rain at 2017 levels. Rainfall relief would surely come at some point and so the key task was to hold out and continue to provide water supplies until that happened. The main focus would thus remain on managing the system to further drive down water consumption. Augmentation would continue to receive attention but better aligned within practical time frames. The water team also prioritised managing the financial impact of the drought, because with demand so severely cut back, water and sanitation revenue had been devastated. Furthermore, the City engaged with a broad variety of stakeholders (including its detractors) in an effort to build fresh trust and to undo the lingering negative effects of the recent panic-based communication strategies. By May 2018, our plan had significantly evolved, calm had returned and, although the situation was still dire, the stage was firmly set for the City to ‘follow the science’ and doggedly ensure that some water supplies would be maintained, however the coming rainy season may turn out.

9.1  Managing Water Storage The national DWS jointly manages bulk water supply system operations together with and for the City of Cape Town, as explained in Sect. 4.2. However, as the nationally controlled dams contained 85% of the total South-western Cape water storage volume, DWS thus arguably played a larger role than the City did itself in managing the City’s bulk water supply system. In the early drought years, national government, through DWS (which is also exclusively responsible for releasing water for irrigation purposes) was slower to implement restrictions than Cape Town and, even after restrictions were gazetted, the limits were seldom enforced by DWS. Cape Town thus acted aggressively to try to ensure that no more water was released than provided for by the gazetted restrictions. As the City did not have any direct control or influence over DWS, we instead mobilised increased public pressure by first weekly, and later daily publication of information relevant to the crisis, including tracking of excessive actual agricultural consumption against the expected gazetted restricted demand. It would be obvious that national government was jeopardising urban water security by continuing irresponsible unauthorised releases to agriculture.

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Unrestricted, agriculture accounted for nearly 30% of annual water demand, and this peaked in the dry summer months. While the bulk of agricultural water consumption came from controlled releases by DWS, farmers’ water use was not well regulated at the time, with, for example, 600 farmers in the Paarl area not metered at all. Furthermore, the extent of illegal abstraction and undocumented dams was not accurately known, largely due to the vast geographic area and lack of enforcement capacity. (Drone usage was in its infancy but showed great potential for future use in this regard). Lastly, the over-allocations in the system were also not fully resolved at this time, paving the way for further conflict and uncertainty. In light of unlawful excessive agricultural releases made by DWS in the last quarter of 2017, and the over-use by agriculture in the previous hydrological year, it was critical to find a way to better influence management of the system to retain water in the dams as far as possible. It was clear that the system’s operating rules had to be strictly followed in order to maximise the volume of water to be saved and kept available. To improve relations with national government, the City’s water and sanitation department was well represented at all regional DWS meetings on the drought and reconciliation strategy, and built relationships with all other stakeholders, working towards reaching a common understanding at these meetings. We aimed to make it clear that we wanted equitable solutions, even if the detail would have to be determined later as the crisis often required quick decisions. Clearly in times of conflict everyone wants to maximise their advantage, and DWS defended their turf by focusing on less life-threatening matters such as environmental releases. It proved unnecessarily difficult to establish a cooperative relationship with the regional office of DWS during this stressful period, but the City’s representatives made every effort to do so. The data available to manage and plan water supply was extensive, but not necessarily in a format that could be widely understood. The water team spent much energy translating detailed engineering information into simplified graphs and text explanations for official and public information. The long-term inflow into the system is shown in Fig.  9.1. This chart clearly shows the severity of the drought, with runoff in 2015, 2016, and 2017 reflected as only 54.4%, 66.4% and 39.8% respectively, of the long-term average. Logically, dam levels in the WCWSS fall from releases to agricultural users, Cape Town, other municipalities, and through evaporation and other losses. Out-­ flows from the system are shown in Fig. 9.2 based on maximum calculated evaporation and historical patterns of use of Urban and Agricultural allocations. Unrestricted, the system demand used to peak in summer at over 2500 MLD. Under the restrictions at the end of 2017, the seasonal peak modelled at approximately 1500 MLD. Average daily demand varies seasonally, specifically for agriculture who irrigate during the dry summer months. Urban demand fluctuates far less, typically increasing slightly during summer, when system demand becomes 40% to Cape Town, 15% to evaporation and 45% to agriculture and other municipalities. Evaporation increases in summer then reduces back down to a virtually negligible amount in mid-winter. The modelled evaporation versus actual evaporation over a four-year period is shown in Fig.  9.3. Evaporation reduced slightly during the

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Fig. 9.1  Annual inflow into the WCWSS from 1928 to 2018

Fig. 9.2  System outflow—unrestricted and restricted (MLD)

drought when dam levels were low as the exposed surface area was smaller, but actual evaporation tracked very closely to that modelled. Day Zero made headline news worldwide when the mayor announced it in January 2018. The Day Zero calculation was based on conservative assumptions of factors beyond the City’s control, including releases to agriculture, urban demand, evaporation, and rainfall. The water team calculated that to protect the local economy, the City would require to keep providing 250 MLD for commerce and

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Fig. 9.3  Comparison of Actual vs Estimated evaporation

industry, and assuming personal water consumption of 25 litres per capita per day, we would require 100 MLD for domestic use, thus a practical minimum daily use of 350 MLD for Cape Town. Assuming recovery from some fresh rainfall, we figured that running at 350 MLD for a maximum of three months (equalling a total of 3.5% of storage capacity) was reasonable. If one then took a conservative view that dams effectively would be empty at 10%, it meant that Day Zero had to be triggered when the combined water stored dropped to 13.5% of full capacity. The projected Day Zero occurrence date was recalculated and publicised weekly, based on the previous weeks’ average volume abstracted from the system, extrapolated into the future to the intersection point at 13.5% of combined storage. This was done without adjusting for potential rainfall or reduction in demand. In the new programme, the City could not simply drop a concept which had received such global coverage. So, the NWP had to incorporate a way to continue with the Day Zero storyline, but more positively presented. The news spotlight at the time was on DWS releasing water to agriculture, which they had not curtailed in the prior year. We decided that a combined graphic tracking dam levels and showing the projected Day Zero would be included on the dashboard. To complete the picture, projected demand was premised on that of previous weeks, and it was assumed that agricultural releases would continue at the current rates. No inflow due to possible rainfall was considered. On 22 January 2018, Day Zero was modelled to occur on 12 April, (Fig. 9.4) with weekly dam level drawdown running at 1.4%, and agriculture exceeding urban daily demand. Fortunately, DWS finally enforced the gazetted restrictions and by 22 March 2018 the weekly drawdown had reduced to just 0.4% of total storage with agriculture using only 4% of the total water abstracted from the system. This resulted in the critical 13.5% dam level dramatically shifting out into August. Other

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Fig. 9.4  Projected Day Zero graph as on 22 January 2018

factors that resulted in the distinct positive inflection of the curve were the significant consumer response to reduce consumption further as a result of the Day Zero hype and the transfer of about 7 MCM of water into the WCWSS via the Palmiet River and the Eskom Pumped Storage Scheme into Steenbras Upper Dam from an adjacent catchment area of the Groenland Water User Association, which had not been impacted by the drought and had excess irrigation water available to contribute. As it happened, with the rainfall that arrived late in April and May, dam levels started rising and by mid-May, a Day Zero date was no longer projected. The anxiety of running out of water finally subsided (Fig. 9.5). Our daily media reporting highlighting both urban and agricultural demand meant that there was nowhere for DWS to hide should they permit restrictions to be breached (see Fig. 9.6). For a while, as the summer 2017/2018 growing season commenced, agricultural abstraction tracked even above the previously unrestricted allowance, a pattern which caused great concern in the City. It seemed possible that releases could once more continue far beyond what gazetted restrictions allowed but DWS eventually curtailed agricultural releases by 55% during January and February 2018. Whether this was due to the precariously low dam levels, pressure from the City or a combination, is not clear. It is noteworthy that at the height of the Day Zero panic, to compound matters, the provincial office of DWS incongruously threatened that, should the City reach its restricted total allocation of 174.7 MCM, its bulk water supply could be similarly cut off. Fortunately this did not come to pass as 2018 rainfall relieved the situation for everyone, including DWS. Water system operations still did not always run smoothly, even in 2018, despite renewed efforts at cooperation. For example, an accidental unplanned release was

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Fig. 9.5  Day Zero graph as on 18 May 2018

Fig. 9.6  Cumulative weekly usage of City and Agriculture from WCWSS versus planned (restricted) usage

made by DWS on 7 April 2018 of 6.6 kl/s from the Berg river dam, for just over 24 hours, reducing the total stored volume by approximately 0.6 MCM. The calculated volume of water that would remain inaccessible in the various dams is shown in Table 9.1. As for the volume of water actually available in the system, at the end of 2017 DWS implemented construction interventions to maximise the remaining yield in Theewaterskloof Dam by making accessible another 3 percentage points of the 9.8% estimated ‘dead storage’ in the dam. While three

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Table 9.1  Usable water in WCWSS dams Dam Theewaterskloof Berg River Voëlvlei Wemmershoek, Steenbras Upper and Lower Total

Capacity (million litres) 480,188 130,010 164,095 123,928

Dead storage (million litres) 47,000 3000 7000 6200

Percentage dead storage 9.8 2.3 4.3 5

898,221

63,200

7

percentage points may seem like a small number, the difference in volume between 10% and 7% unusable water at the huge Theewaterskloof Dam is considerable: more than 26,000 million litres. This intervention could provide unplanned ‘extra’ water at 500 MLD for more than 50 days. The WCWSS design provided for flexibility so that most users could be served from more than one source, with a couple of exceptions. These include the West Coast and small parts of Cape Town that get water only from Voëlvlei Dam, and the Overberg, Riviersonderend and Vyeboom irrigation boards who are solely reliant on Theewaterskloof Dam. An emergency scheme was provided for at Theewaterskloof through construction of a canal several kilometres in length, to pump water back up from the lower Vygeboom intake works to the RSE tunnel intake and onward transfer through the Berg River system on to Cape Town (Fig. 9.7). A similar emergency scheme would also have been required at Voëlvlei if that dam’s level had dropped below 12.5%. Despite not having direct control over the bulk of system storage capacity, we optimised our influence, and combined drawdown of system dams was reduced to record lows during the first half of 2018. In fact, combined water storage fell by only 11% from January until being boosted by rainfall late in April (see Fig. 8.4).

9.2  Managing Demand In the City’s Resilience strategy, the definition of chronic stresses is those that “weaken the fabric of a city on a day-to-day or cyclical basis”, for example poverty, substance-abuse, and endemic violence. On the other hand, acute shocks are defined as sudden events which create a threat, including fires, floods, drought, and pandemics. The Cape Town drought was a somewhat slow-moving shock, which landed as a disaster after three years of desperately low rainfall. The timing of recognising the shock was influenced by the region’s winter rainfall: at the start of any rainy season, there was no certainty of how much dams would rise. Similarly, during summers, the dam-level drop could be fairly accurately predicted but fluctuated depending on actual demand of millions of customers. Managing demand should always be the first intervention to balance consumption and supply to ensure that available water is better valued and used more slowly. Most demand management programmes will be cheaper to implement than

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Fig. 9.7  Construction of berm at Theewaterskloof Dam emergency pump scheme, March 2018

augmentation of additional water until losses are eliminated and all users have optimised for minimising use. Managing demand down as significantly as the City did was widely hailed as our biggest success. Every resident, household and business who reduced their consumption must get credit for Cape Town navigating through the worst of the drought. Many components of the management strategy contributed to the success and, while numerous calculations have been done, no single intervention can claim victory. It must be recognised as a remarkable collaborative effort on the part of all of Cape Town. Once efficiencies are realised, the law of diminishing returns comes into play. Should a city be super-efficient in its use of water, very little savings will remain to be made if there should be another drought or other pressures on supply sources. In our instance, although Cape Town had already made significant inroads in generally decreasing both water loss and non-revenue water, the City still managed to reduce demand much further. That rainfall contributed most to the region emerging from the drought is common cause. But the impact of demand reduction over the medium and long term was also material in the recovery of dam levels. If for example Cape Town’s urban demand is reduced to three-quarters of previous annual use, over a year it results in

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the system dam levels potentially being 10 percentage points higher at year end. During the drought the impact of a nearly 50% reduction in urban demand meant that dam levels gained (or conversely, did not reduce by) 20 percentage points over the year when it was most critical. While runoff from rainfall re-charged the dams, the recovery in dam level storage capacity in 2018 and 2019 was much improved thanks to a lasting reduction in demand effectively adding between 10% and 20% to volumes ultimately stored. Historic water use in Cape Town by sector is presented graphically in Fig. 9.8. The mix percentages have in fact changed only marginally over time, with greater change reflected in times of drought. Our demand management initiatives were designed with these use patterns in mind—addressing where the biggest gains could be made first. The residential component in Cape Town is by far the largest and demand initiatives thus focused primarily on the more than 1.1 million residential households. Demand was managed through a variety of interventions implemented in parallel. When less water is available in storage, consumption needs to be reduced for the system balance to be retained. All users contribute to the overall consumption, even if individual contributions are tiny. It is thus necessary for users to know the true situation of water supply, and how they need to individually contribute, reducing

Fig. 9.8  Cape Town water use 2015/16

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their consumption. On the assumption that no user would want to see the system run out of water, it follows that reducing individual consumption is a reasonable proposition. On the one extreme, the reduction required could merely be communicated, relying on individual responsibility to reduce consumption sufficiently. On the other extreme, supply could be cut to shock users into using less water. Imposing water restrictions provides the middle ground, offering the appropriate vehicle to effect this, by encouraging and motivating users to reduce consumption. Restrictions confirm who has formal authority over water supply and provides the necessary authority to enforce restrictions should users fail to adhere to them. Restrictions are also guidelines on how users can individually participate in ensuring consumption is reduced to the required level. Restrictions are not designed to be punitive; they are a necessary communication and control mechanism in times of water scarcity. Further to users not wanting the system to run out of water, users should also agree that the cost of providing water must continue to be covered. Thus under progressive restriction tariffs, the user’s budget to pay for water theoretically stays approximately the same. If less water is used, the tariff increase is such that the user’s total cost neither increases nor decreases. Both restriction levels and changes in tariffs requires communication to all affected users. In a city as diverse as Cape Town, a variety of communication mechanisms are necessary, ranging from something as simple and inexpensive as highlighting consumption on municipal bills to detailed stakeholder engagement. Over and above communication of restrictions and tariff levels, water utilities can apply technical instruments to reduce demand. Two such technical interventions implemented in Cape Town were reducing pressures across the metropolitan area to reduce the overall demand and restricting flow to individual households who used too much water. As a final demand management intervention, the City further developed measures aimed at effecting permanent change to a new heightened recognition of the value of water.

9.2.1  Tightening Belts—Water Restrictions As custodian of the system, DWS historically imposed water restrictions on users, based on a model which considered variables such as dam storage levels, historic runoff, and demand. In response, water users, such as Cape Town, followed by imposing restrictions on their own customers, to ensure that the restricted volume of water allocated was not exceeded. However, this pattern was not followed properly in the recent drought as DWS initially chose not to implement appropriate restrictions after the first year of poor rainfall in 2015. The timing of implementation of restrictions from 2015 to 2018 both by the City and DWS, plotted against the City’s water production, are shown in Fig. 9.9. The municipal financial year runs from July to June, while the system hydrological year

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Fig. 9.9  Introduction of restriction levels against Cape Town water production, July 2015– June 2018

runs from November to October. The complete list of restriction levels, tariffs, targeted demand and reduction measures are listed in Table 9.2. In Cape Town, since shortly after the turn of the century, restriction levels had always been accompanied by restriction tariffs, which had to be council approved, in advance of each financial year. The introduction of Level 3B on 1 February 2017 was uncharted territory, where additional restrictions were applied without an accompanying change in tariff. Level 3B introduced new terminology, and the water team felt appropriate to add a “B” as a different number would signify a different tariff, and at the time, we only had three approved tariff levels. The pattern was repeated with the introduction of Level 4B and 6B. In both cases, the restrictions came into effect a month before the restriction tariffs could be imposed: Level 4B on 1 July 2017, and Level 6B on 1 February 2018. Level 5 was an anomaly to this. It was introduced by the City without much warning from 3 September 2017, with dam levels then measuring just higher than 36%. There was no approved tariff for Level 5. Theoretically, this should rather have been called Level 4C in alignment with previous practice. But it had been decided between the mayor and Craig Kesson without consultation with the water team, so it stuck. The City progressively introduced fines for a variety of offenses relating to water use. Restrictions only came into practice after being published in the provincial government gazette and any proposed fines had to be approved by the Magistrate’s

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Table 9.2  Summary of all restrictions imposed 2016–2018 CITY/ DWS Date restriction 1 Jan CITY 2016 Level 2

Tariff Demand Target Combined level (MLD) demand dam level 2 1000 700 55.4%

DWS 20% – 16 Sep 2016 CITY 3 1 Nov Level 3 2016

–

61.5%

Limit pp Requirements – Watering restricted to specific days and hours No specific daily limit No automatic pool top-up – 20% curtailment of all water use

900

650

60.3%

–

1 Feb CITY 2017 Level 3B

3

800

650

38.7%

–

1 Jun CITY 2017 Level 4

3

660

600

19.4%

100

4

625

600

25%

87

4

600

500

36.1%

87

1 Jul 2017 3 Sep 2017

CITY Level 4B CITY Level 5

Watering restricted to using a bucket for potable water No specific daily limit No pool top up without pool cover Watering restricted to using a bucket for potable water during certain hours only No specific daily limit No watering allowed with potable water Daily limit of 100 litres per capita per day encouraged Daily limit of 87 litres per capita per day encouraged Daily limit of 87 litres per capita per day encouraged Households limited to 20 kl/month Non-residential restricted to 20% saving compared to previous year Agricultural users to restrict to 30% saving compared to previous year (continued)

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Table 9.2 (continued)

Date 28 Sep 2017

CITY/ DWS restriction DWS 40/50%

Tariff Demand Target Combined level (MLD) demand dam level – – 37.6%

DWS 12 Dec 45/60% 2017

–

–

34%

1 Jan CITY 2018 Level 6

4

600

450

31%

1 Feb CITY 2018 Level 6B

6

560

450

25.9%

Limit pp Requirements – 40% curtailment of all domestic and industrial water use 50% curtailment of all agricultural water use The WC Provincial Head is delegated power to lift the water restrictions should the WCWSS recover to above 85% before the next decision date on 1 November 2018 – 45% curtailment of all domestic and industrial water use 60% curtailment of all agricultural water use 87 Daily limit of 87 litres per capita per day encouraged Households limited to 10.5 kl/month Non-residential restricted to 45% saving compared to previous year Agricultural users to restrict to 60% saving compared to previous year 50 Daily limit of 50 litres per capita per day encouraged Households limited to 10.5 kl/month, but 6 kl/ month encouraged Non-residential restricted to 45% saving compared to previous year Agricultural users to restrict to 60% saving compared to previous year

Court prior to implementation. This meant that exorbitant fines for transgressions could not be imposed as magistrates exercised their power to moderate the fines. For example under Level 3B, admission of guilt fines varied between R1000 (for individuals watering with potable water within 48 hours of rainfall) and R5000 (for City departments watering with potable water). Enforcement of restrictions required significant manpower from the Law Enforcement branch. Fortunately Capetonians

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appear to quite enjoy tattling on their neighbours and our water inspectors were overwhelmed with investigating anonymous complaints. 9.2.1.1  Domestic Customers As more than 70% of water demand was from residential customers, and that in Cape Town, garden watering during summer contributed significantly to demand, garden irrigation was a focus in initial restrictions. Under Level 1, irrigation was limited to 16h00 through to 10h00 the following morning, with no washing down of hard surfaces or construction damping down with potable water. In Level 2, watering was restricted to three days a week, for an hour at a time and only before 9 am and after 4  pm. Pool covers were recommended. Under Level 3, hosepipes were banned, and pool filling was allowed only for covered pools. There were some commercial winners, with pool covers consequently in high demand. Fixed pool covers had lengthy waiting lists, and many people settled for durable floating pool covers similar to bubble wrap, sold per meter at most hardware stores. As the City stepped to higher levels of restrictions, it became more difficult to introduce measures which would further constrain demand significantly. While Level 3 restrictions limited garden watering to using potable water by bucket only, under Level 3B restrictions, the time was limited to before 9 h00 and after 18 h00 then only on Tuesdays and Saturdays. Washing of vehicles had already been restricted to using a bucket (no hoses) under Level 3, while Level 3B restrictions further required that only grey water be used for vehicle cleaning. Moving to Level 4 restrictions at least had an accompanying tariff increase to encourage reduced use. Level 4 restricted any watering with potable water. Previously watering was prohibited for 48  hours after rainfall, which was now extended to seven days under Level 4. Pool owners were less impressed that filling of pools with potable water was no longer allowed at all. Overnight, an industry delivering borehole water sprang up and small pick-up trucks carrying thousand-­ litre containers could be seen all over town, topping up pools. Personal use under Level 4 was encouraged to remain below 100 litres per capita per day which reduced further to 87 litres per capita per day under Level 4B in an effort to drive demand down to 500 MLD for the City as a whole. At Level 5, installation of flow restrictors was introduced for households consuming more than 20 kl/month. Under Level 6, the allowable household volume was reduced to 10.5 kl/month, matching that provided to indigent users, corresponding to average households of four people with individual use set at 87 litres per capita per day. In Level 6B, the personal use target was reduced further to 50 litres per capita per day corresponding to an average household monthly consumption of just 6  kl/month, with punitive tariffs coming into effect on 1 February 2018 for usage in excess of this limit.

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9.2.1.2  Non-residential Customers The City’s focus was on residential consumers to reduce demand, but the increase in water and sanitation tariffs led many industrial and commercial customers to overhaul their processes to reduce demand and concomitant cost from the municipal supply. Industrial, commercial, and institutional consumers were charged via a flat rate, cost reflective tariff. An increase in tariff directly reflected in business profits, providing incentive to institute water saving measures even if tariffs were cost-­reflective rather than punitive. Although the focus was not specifically on this category of use given that they made up less than 30% of urban demand, restrictions based on previous use was directed under Level 5 restrictions, when a 20% usage reduction compared to the same period in the previous year was required. Peaking at Level 6, a usage reduction of 45% relative to pre-2015 was required by all non-residential customers. Given the large number of customers, enforcement was impractical, and the City had to rely on non-residential customers to self-correct, and deal only with the exceptions by accounting reports, or those reported by others. Between Level 4 to 6 the ICI water tariff nearly doubled from R23.55 to R45.75/kl (ex VAT). The main avenues for reducing municipal demand by ICI customers was by them reducing water loss, amending process flow, creating water-saving infrastructure and implementing alternative water sources. Notable examples of remarkable reductions in potable water usage are outlined below. • Victoria & Alfred Waterfront (V&A) The V&A waterfront had been one of the City’s largest single customers of water, managing its own distribution within a property over 120 hectares in extent. The development has a broad mix of land-uses and had always sought to promote environmental stewardship through water-wise landscaping, greywater use and flow-reduction fittings, adapting to municipal water restrictions with selective irrigation of specific groundcovers, plants, and trees. When Level 2 restrictions came into force in 2016, water demand was reduced by 30% though changes in irrigation protocols. Significant further water savings were affected through aggressively targeted leak reduction during 2017. Potable water was replaced with seawater for use in cooling towers, with pressure reducing valves installed on metered connections to further reduce water loss through leakage. The V&A has a large number of commercial tenants, each billed individually for water consumption. Such close management is key in having accurate information at hand to reduce consumption in a crisis. As part of a long-term plan to potentially develop a 5 MLD desalination plant to ensure self-sufficiency for the development and provide for future growth, the V&A entered into an agreement with the City for the development of a 2 MLD temporary desalination plant (see Sect. 9.3.3). The initial production was limited to 2 MLD, which could be accommodated within in existing infrastructure.

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• Old Mutual Old Mutual’s head office is located in Cape Town in a complex known as Mutualpark. The development accommodates more than 9000 staff in a commercial building of 166,000 m2. The Building was recently awarded a 6-star green rating for building performance. Onsite water consumption was reduced throughout the drought, with interventions such as retrofitting aerators on all taps, providing waterless hand sanitizer, and reuse of cooling water for toilet flushing. A water filtration plant piloted since 2018 with a capacity of up to 800 kilolitres per day has been commissioned and now provides 90% of water requirements. Old Mutual has been a keen participant in Cape Town’s sustainability efforts, often co-sponsoring seminars on energy and water saving, and waste reduction. • Coca-Cola Peninsula Beverages (Penbev) Penbev is an independent bottling company which holds the manufacturing and distribution rights for The Coca-Cola company products in the Western and Northern Cape. The company is committed to contributing to a sustainable environment, not only when it comes to water but also in terms of energy use and waste management. Prior to the drought, Penbev had halved their water consumption by implementing process efficiencies, such as recovering process water and alternative washing technologies (Pretorius 2016). With the threat of Day Zero and the perceived uncertainty of reticulated potable water, a key ingredient of their product line, Penbev procured a water treatment plant with a 2.4 MLD capacity to produce high-quality treated water from borehole water, for use in production. • South African Breweries (SAB) SAB was awarded 5-star water grading in 2018 for its water use reduction during the drought. Water use in production was reduced from 3.73 to 2.8 units of water per unit of beer, i.e. a reduction of 25%. SABMiller has long been focussed on environmental protection, for example pioneering a water footprint with the WWF in 2009. They have taken a holistic view which follows the cycle of beer production from agriculture through to recycling and disposal of waste. One of the collection points where people traditionally collected spring water was on the Newlands Breweries property. While demand was relatively low, access to the spring could be managed at what was the corner of a busy intersection. But as demand escalated, the risks involved could not reasonably be managed by SAB, and the City worked with SAB to relocate collection points to a more accessible area adjacent to Newland’s swimming pool across the road.

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9.2.2  Water Wasters Must Cough Up—Punitive Tariffs The City’s water tariffs across restriction levels were designed to be revenue neutral. When less water was sold, the price had to be increased to achieve the same total revenue (see Sect. 3.2.2). Unlike electricity, the cost of bulk raw water is relatively low compared to the treatment and distribution cost. Thus if consumption reduces, revenue reduces while costs remain pretty much the same. Under normal circumstances, water tariffs are stepped up for higher volumes consumed. Restriction levels attract an applicable set of stepped tariffs for each restriction level. Progressively more punitive tariff steps were introduced at successive restriction levels, so that higher water use volumes at upper restriction levels invited even higher charges to motivate demand reduction. The Level 6 tariff was introduced on 1 February 2018 where a punitive tariff was applied to all use deemed to be over 50 litres per capita per day, but water was still relatively cheap at basic use levels. The water team also repeatedly made the point that water is delivered in large volume, directly to every formal household, not requiring any effort from the household. The increase in tariff was however significant, and for households which didn’t qualify as indigent but had little disposable income, it was not an easy ask. Step 1 and 2 (up to 10.5 kl per month) continued to be provided free to indigent households at Level 6, even though we now required non-indigent households to use less than 6 kl. It transpired that the process to facilitate the free 10.5 kl was so deeply entrenched in the City’s systems that it proved impossible to eliminate this anomaly by reducing free water supply also to 6 kl per month during the drought. The approved tariffs for the 2017/18 financial year are listed in Table 9.3. Tariffs remained cost-reflective rather than punitive up to Level 6. The difference in tariff between the steps at Levels 1, 2 and 3 is small. By Level 4, for high use (>35 kl/ month), there was a visible increase with the tariff approaching R 90/kl (see Fig. 9.10). At level 6, the cost per kilolitre increased to a punishing R 1000/kl for use over 35 kl/month. The increase in monthly water billing was potentially significant (see Table 9.4) should customers not adhere to promulgated volume targets, especially as the City moved from restriction Level 4 to Level 6. For example, at consumption of 6 kl/ month, the increase in cost was just over double. At consumption of 50 kl/month, this increased more than sevenfold.

Table 9.3  Approved tariff 2017/18 (Rands, ex VAT) Consumption (kl/month) 6 (domestic) 10.5 (domestic) 35 (domestic) >35 (domestic) Industrial, commercial and institutional

Level 1 12.85 17.13 22.78 39.39 22.78

Level 2 13.26 18.22 24.76 45.69 23.74

Level 3 13.68 19.46 27.63 60.66 25.06

Level 4 Level 5 Level 6 14.13 21.19 28.90 22.52 34.43 46.00 34.05 52.39 120.27 84.69 300.00 1000.00 28.82 37.5 45.75

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Fig. 9.10  2017/18 Domestic tariff—restriction levels and consumption steps Table 9.4  2017/18 Rand value water bill (including VAT at 15%) Consumption (kl/month) 6 (domestic) 10.5 (domestic) 35 (domestic) 50 (domestic) Industrial, commercial and institutional

Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 88.67 91.49 94.39 177.31 185.78 195.10 819.14 883.40 973.57 1498.62 1671.55 2019.96 1309.85 1365.05 1440.95

Level 4 97.50 214.04 1173.40 2634.30 1657.15

Level 5 Level 6 146.21 199.41 324.39 437.46 1800.47 3826.07 6975.47 21,076.07 2156.25 2630.63

The increased tariff was particularly useful in identifying undetected leaks on private property. Whereas people may for years have paid inflated water bills due to underground leaks, even wealthy households couldn’t ignore the dramatic increase in their utility bills. When one considers that a leaking toilet cistern could result in water loss of over 40 kl/month, many households were shocked into acting by sharply increased water bills. The City had also developed brochures and online information on meter reading and leak detection, encouraging households to take ownership of their consumption by checking their meters regularly. The 2017/18 tariff for supplying water at restriction Level 6 to premises predominantly of a commercial or industrial nature was R 50.00 per kl for water (ex VAT) as shown in Fig. 9.11. This was set at the City’s cost of water so as to generate sufficient revenue to balance expenditure, but we were aware that for water intensive industries, the impact was still potentially crippling. Together with the business development office, the water team endeavoured to provide relief. City processes are such that discretion is not commonly allowed in any financial matters, but we tried to assist where possible without creating an unaffordable precedent.

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Fig. 9.11  Non-domestic volumetric tariff per restriction level

For the sake of completeness, the City introduced Level 7 tariffs to be applied should the next phase of the Disaster Management Plan come into effect. This would allow only 25 litres per capita per day for domestic use, while ICI total supply would remain unchanged at 150 MLD. Non-domestic Level 7 tariffs were thus increased to balance the volume of sales anticipated as people were likely to increase their consumption at work once supply to households had been curtailed. Non-­ domestic customers would need to ensure that the volumes consumed did not jeopardise the disaster plan which was premised on an overall volume of supply of 350 MLD for an extended period. Domestic users who at Level 7 would no longer be directly supplied with household water would still have had to pay a flat, nominal monthly charge in an effort to provide some financial sustainability to the water service. This would most likely have caused an eruption of outrage had it been put into practice, but fortunately this ultimate imposition was avoided. Whilst the City focused communications on the increase in water supply tariff, the linked sanitation tariff increased proportionally to that of water. I found it impossible to explain the complexity in simple terms and dealing with the two tariffs individually seemed to be the better choice. Domestic sanitation consumption is calculated on 70% of volumetric water consumption for domestic free-standing properties, as much of domestic water ends up in the drains and thus creates a cost to the City. The sanitation volume was capped at 35 kilolitres on the assumption that no domestic user would discharge more than 35 kilolitres into the sewer system in a month. The sanitation tariff was typically a little lower than the water tariff at lower usage steps, but also had to be cost-reflective and balance sanitation revenue with related expenditure. Importantly, the water team was aware that many households had gone off-grid, using borehole water, and thus reflected 0 kl in billing data for water and therefor also linked sanitation, but much of that borehole water still ended up in the sewer. This meant that the City had to treat wastewater from other sources without any counter-balancing income. During the drought the City had no mechanism to measure or charge for waste borehole water to be treated and identified this as something that required attention. One solution could be to introduce a fixed charge for

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sanitation for those registering boreholes (although this was not implemented at the time). The costs of borehole and rainwater harvesting infrastructure are significant and thus typically not undertaken by poorer households. This meant that if wealthier customers, who could afford boreholes, went off-grid and did not pay for sanitation, then poorer households would have in effect subsidised their wastewater production. As the tariffs increased and restriction measures became more detailed and changes more nuanced, communications played an increasingly critical role in effecting lasting change.

9.2.3  Spreading the News—Communications Communication played a very significant part throughout the City’s response to the drought. Water savings campaigns started in earnest in 2016 and evolved in response to requirements throughout development of the WRP, and later, the NWP.  Even when dam levels recovered from fair winter rainfall in 2018, communication campaigns were critical in explaining why restriction levels and tariffs could not be ceased immediately. Coming from a low base, where the public was not sure of the true risk of running out of water, we had to be transparent, and provide enough information to empower the public to understand the situation and change behaviour. To get cooperation, we wanted to share relevant information with all of society about the dire state of water supply, so that the whole population would be prompted into changing behaviour. Then we had to assist in providing practical information on how to change behaviour. Water volumes can be difficult to grasp for those without technical background. One personally consumes water at the scale of millilitres and litres, and at household level in kilolitres (kl) per month. At metropolitan scale, daily demand is expressed in millions of litres per day (MLD), while referring to supply in millions of cubic metres (MCM). Messages around behaviour change was aimed at personal consumption and consistently expressed in litres, while the metric of millions of litres per day at overall city and system demand was used. Cape Town has a heterogeneous citizenry, across a very wide range of inequality, and a diversity of cultures. Campaign messages were crafted to inform, and strategically change behaviour, successfully cutting across society and finding broad appeal. Campaign designs were regularly updated, using bright colours and catchy graphics to facilitate easy understanding. Volumes of communications material was produced spanning the drought and these have been catalogued in the annexures of a case study on the City’s drought communications (City of Cape Town 2020). A sample of the numerous campaigns matching restriction levels as we progressed through the drought is shown in Fig. 9.12. We implemented a number of innovative communication projects that appealed to different demographic groups. One such innovation was the Cape Town water map, which went live on the City’s website in January 2018. The water map’s online spatial viewer indicated whether households had adhered to restricted demand in the previous billing cycle (Sinclair-Smith et al. 2018). For use below 6 kl per month,

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Fig. 9.12  Restriction level communication campaigns. (Courtesy: City of Cape Town)

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a dark green dot appeared in the centre of the property. Using between 6 and 10.5 kl earned a light green dot. Where meter readings had been estimated in the billing cycle, a grey dot was shown. The water map was somewhat controversial because ranges of individual household consumption was made public, potentially infringing the right to privacy. On assessing the risk, we believed that the benefit derived outweighed the risk of legal challenge. Furthermore, we focussed on positive behaviour by only publishing dots on properties adhering to restrictions. The ultimate move would have been to show red dots on properties using more than 10.5 kl. Water use decreased sharply in February 2018, and dam levels increased over winter, minimising the need to push the water map further. The communications department used a data-led strategy to inform communications campaigns and feedback from public-facing communication staff. Public opinion was tracked through monitoring social media sites, providing a platform to identify rumours and address them as early as possible, using media releases, social media posts and graphic content. Tracking negative sentiment on City services and frequently asked questions served as immediate indicator of the success of campaigns and was used to develop additional content and approaches. The City published daily targets for both the City in its entirety as well as individual use, aligned with then applicable restriction levels. The targets were hotly debated and though aligned with the restriction level, those made public were for the purpose of clear communication inspiring lower water use. The published daily City target was used on our estimation of our City demand, what other urban users and agriculture would be using, rounded to the nearest 50 MLD. Daily usage fluctuated quite widely so the water team reported on a weekly moving average. Fluctuations initially were difficult to explain given that reservoir balancing was considered in the calculation, but we soon realised that household usage fluctuated widely according to temperature, day of the week, school terms, public holidays etc. The daily demand target was then correlated to the restriction tariff and the anticipated volume of water that the City could sell to generate the revenue required to operate, was calculated. Analysis of public perception via social media alerted the City to growing discontent on Cape Town still marketing itself as a tourist destination, seen by some as a water consumption extravagance. The reality is that demand usually dropped during peak summer holidays as many industries close down for approximately three weeks over Christmas. The impact of tourism did not increase the demand to the same degree that the lack of commercial activity decreased it. A communication campaign was launched to alert tourists to the drought crisis, encouraging people to “save like a local”. The hospitality industry was extremely cooperative throughout the drought. Small initiatives such as placing red buckets in showers to capture greywater confused some tourists but made a lasting impression. Even early in the drought, hotel chains removed bath plugs from all bathrooms. Guests were not restricted from bathing, but the simple act of having to ask at reception for a bathplug created awareness of water scarcity. Notable especially on international flights were announcements prior to landing, with details of the water crisis and urging

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visitors to act responsibly. This messaging continued with displays in the airport arrivals hall and on billboards along all major roads. Further innovation resulted in the development of a number of mobile phone apps, sharing information on the water situation, and guiding both household and individual consumption. The apps were colourful, gamifying in a way that encouraged staying within the allowable demand. Nudges were intended to provide affirmation and recognise good behaviour. During the drought, Capetonians had little excuse not to be aware of how to contribute to water savings. Communication channels included City newsletters, speeches and media statements, traditional advertising, website updates, radio interviews, social media, mailers and bill inserts, electronic signboards, and an intensive programme of direct stakeholder engagements. Communication campaigns typically had a longer lifespan than other channels such as radio advertisements as they involved targeted billboards, print advertising, distributed pamphlets, useful guide documents and so forth. The audience for water savings campaigns was different to that of the normal printed press who consumed news daily, and our campaign designs had to be appealing and long lasting. Previously curtailed advertising budgets were replenished and repurposed from other campaigns as the water crisis by then had centre stage. Communications efforts also reached grassroots when 800 expanded public works programme workers were employed to spread the message from door to door in various suburbs around Cape Town. Especially high usage suburbs were targeted for distribution of pamphlets and face-to-face engagement. Major retail stores welcomed City workers into their shopping centres to engage directly with shoppers. Numerous retail stores, commercial businesses and industries also worked with the City and embraced our campaigns, using City materials in distributing to their own local marketing channels. Cape Town business was well aware that everyone would lose should Cape Town run out of water and played a meaningful part in reducing consumption. We realised early on that many households were very poorly informed on the roles and responsibilities between the City and the homeowner. In response, we developed detailed communications explaining, for example, comprehensive water saving tips, finding and fixing leaks, safe use of greywater, guidelines for installation of alternative water systems and use of home scale alternative water. It soon became apparent that such information was not readily available in South Africa, in accordance with our legislative environment. With social media playing an unprecedented role in shaping society, it was sometimes emotionally taxing to navigate both the volume and the depth of vitriol of public opinion on the drought. Politically, the City was compelled to respond to all media queries and counter attacks in the media. This responsive approach was directed by the DA, in their drive to be a responsive government. With the democratisation of the media through social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, anyone can express their opinions, and if they have accumulated masses of followers, contrary opinion can become deeply problematic. It is estimated that fake news spreads six times faster than true news. Whereas truth is constrained by facts, where grammar and tone need to be aligned with accurate

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information, fake news is unconstrained: it does not matter whether it is credible, real, or true. Fake news can appeal to public appetite, while moving and evolving faster, with no accountability for the chaos created in its wake. While the City did not respond to quite every comment on Facebook and Twitter, conversations in groups with significant followings inevitably resulted in official media queries. The Facebook group ‘Watershedding Western Cape’ was one of the fastest growing large groups that were spawned in the drought, accumulating more than 140,000 members. This was certainly more than the readership of local print publications, and while much fake news was shared, it was also a useful platform for sharing factual information and innovative water saving tips. As the drought intensified, a small army of City staff were involved in trying to distribute correct information into the public domain in a manner that was transparent while not detrimental to the City. Even within the City administration it was difficult to always keep everyone informed. Our diaries were filled with back-to-­ back meeting most days, and e-mailboxes frequently ran out of storage space. Nonetheless, we worked hard to improve coordination and leadership within and between spheres of government, information flows and consistency of messaging. The WhatsApp mobile phone app had grown to be a critical tool for managing municipal projects, and in the drought extended to hundreds of our external stakeholders too. WhatsApp provided a reliable platform for sharing up to date information so that all of us were using the same data to communicate. The City worked at actively engaging citizens and stakeholders to encourage active citizenry and stakeholder partnerships to jointly solve problems. All of the senior technical leadership became regular public speakers at any event requested locally or abroad. Over a period of 18 months, communications professionals in the water department engaged with thousands of people at residents’ associations, neighbourhood watch groups, major corporates, making sure that they were well informed to assist in further driving down demand. The Water Outlook available on the City’s website became a very useful communication tool, especially in addressing media queries as its content was to a degree informed by the questions we fielded. I updated it whenever there was a major change and refined the content as required. The Water Outlook published in May 2018 was specifically very detailed in light of the upcoming budget approval process and it highlighted what had been achieved and what was planned to survive through a continuing drought (City of Cape Town 2018a). As it happened, a mere four months later, by September 2018, dam levels had risen to 74%, the fear of running out of water had calmed and the Water Outlook thereafter focussed more on the long-term strategy of managing supply and demand. 9.2.3.1  Stakeholder Engagements The frequency of stakeholder engagements varied widely during the drought but escalated significantly compared with any other event-driven engagement the City had previously experienced. The scope and scale and level of detail of engagement

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was aligned to the targeted audience, varying from schools to professional bodies to provincial parliament. Over weekends the City often displayed elaborate stands of water-related material manned by knowledgeable staff in shopping centres, and hosted media events which we didn’t have time for during the week. The displays provided a platform for credible vendors of water saving products and services to reach potential customers while we engaged with the public to further share information. The City had developed a substantial network of formal, structured citywide engagement over time, including monthly meetings of Sub councils and Ward committees which provided updated information to councillors to convey to their constituents. It was challenging to attend all events, but the City tried to engage with detractors in person rather than in the media. This was not always possible, and hardly ever painless but still recommended as the best way to engage in a crisis. We endeavoured to engage with a wide range of community organisations to resolve misconceptions and conflict. An example was the Water Crisis Coalition, established in response to some of our demand management initiatives. The coalition was a community group active on social media, who arranged marches and meetings to object to tariff increases, installation of WMDs, water restrictions and the commoditisation of water. They were in favour of City sponsored rainwater tanks, opening of all springs for public access and scrapping desalination plans. We met in the first quarter of 2018 to share the status and progress made. The meeting was perhaps somewhat effective as no truce was struck, and the Coalition proceeded with significant public protests thereafter. By the end of 2017, images of masses of people queuing at springs with various containers to collect water were common in the media. Collection of spring water had long been popular in Cape Town, for the quality of natural water, historical practices and cultural beliefs, and escalated exponentially during the drought. There was an outcry when the City announced its intention to close the original Newlands spring and relocate the collection point to the Newlands swimming pool which was closed at the time, and the new site not yet open. The public vehemently objected against this move, but from a health and safety lens it was in the community’s best interest. Accessibility at the original Newlands spring was limited: a cul-de-sac adjacent an old-age home provided the only access point. Congestion and noise resulted in a heavy law enforcement presence being required which could not be sustained, while the new collection point provided far better and safer access. There are 70 springs spread across Cape Town, mostly close to mountainous areas. The open springs do not form part of the City’s water supply networks and are not controlled by either quality or volume. Collection of water had always been at the collector’s own risk, although the City increased monthly testing as far as possible during the drought. Signage was erected at each spring as a matter of course, but with vandalism and theft, these were frequently removed, resulting in some risk to the public, as not all springs offered water suitable for drinking. Further formal stakeholder engagement had been entrenched in the formation of the Section 80 Water resilience committee during 2017. The committee met monthly through to the end of 2018 and provided a valuable sounding board to the City to

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evaluate projects and strategies of managing the drought and the future of water in the City. The suggested frequency was slightly reduced thereafter, meeting every second month. The committee membership included experts in the water industry, academics, national DWS, provincial government, GreenCape, WWF, Chamber of Commerce, hospitality industry as well as political representatives. The Water Resilience Advisory Committee was further entrenched in its status as a project in the mayor’s portfolio of urban sustainability (City of Cape Town 2018b). The formalised engagement with academics was especially useful in light of a number of often fractious media articles. The City had a formal agreement of cooperation with the higher learning institutions in the region which provided guidance for engagement, but projects were not always implementable as practical and academic priorities were often mis-aligned. In my experience, the timing and commitment required more often proved to be a barrier than the political will to participate. Particularly, more so than the other departments I was responsible for, the water and sanitation department of the City took pride in its relationship with academia and regularly engaged with local universities. Research relationships were best located where they added value, and officials could incorporate this into their work schedules. Through development of the City Resilience Strategy, the City explored possibilities on innovation in better engaging with the public using the drought crisis as a natural platform of engagement. A number of the suggestions emanating from resilience workshops related so crisply to how we envisaged the City’s water strategy would play out that the water team included them as an annexure to the strategy document. As part of broad community outreach and supporting the empowerment of vulnerable citizens in informal settlements, mobile co-design laboratories were proposed. This spoke directly to the ideal of public participation, where communities are truly part of every step in improved service delivery. Included in the process would be the identification of the most pressing problems, intimate involvement in identification of solutions, and participation towards ownership of implemented projects. Multiple benefits would accrue, including much improved relationship between the City and the public, through the provision of a safe space both to learn and innovate. Informal settlement challenges which stood to benefit most included flooding, inadequate sanitation, and lack of social cohesion. A further proposal to better engage was through data. This would be useful not only as it relates to water, but to all government services. The format of data commonly requested through PAIA applications to the City was not aligned with the form of data the City collated for its own use. There are stringent reporting regulations applicable to municipalities that match accounting and monitoring requirements, while the public is usually more interested in nuances, location specific data. This led to frustration on both sides, time-consuming date processing served neither the City nor the public. The considerable time availability in communities with high unemployment provides an opportunity to improve shared data. The intention of this type of participation is for civil society to gather information in a legitimate, practical, and sufficiently rigorous manner to allow analysis to be used as input in guiding City decisions around, for example, resource allocation.

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More directly related to water, was the concept of liveable waterways. This concept could have far-reaching effects on the care and ownership of a myriad of City-­ owned infrastructure beyond that of water. Water corridors in Cape Town are at present largely polluted and unsafe. If these could be transformed, by a coalition of municipal staff and communities in close proximity, the result could be cleaner rivers providing safe and aesthetically publicly accessible venues for recreation. Ownership of, and pride in state-owned infrastructure can result in a reduction in vandalism and theft, which currently costs government millions; millions which could be far better applied to improving services overall. Smaller businesses contributed not only to the overall savings, but also to their own profit margins, and importantly, further popularised water saving. All public restrooms I encountered introduced reduced flow taps, dual flush cisterns, communications on flushing etc. The City popularised the concept of a ‘permission cubicle. both within the City and with other government departments, business and industry. At participating shared or public toilets, a certain proportion of toilets would be marked as ‘permission cubicles’. Users of these cubicles would have permission not to flush unless it was absolutely necessary. We put up posters at all our own ablution facilities explaining the concept which was well received. It was a significant step to discuss such personal habits with strangers, and make it ‘OK’ to change deeply-­ entrenched cultural and health-related habits that are associated with personal hygiene and dignity. Many restaurants, a little misguidedly stopped serving tap water in favour of bottled water from elsewhere in the country. My yoga studio closed half the shower cubicles and discouraged water wastage through signage, and physical flow restrictors. All efforts and interactions contributed to a citizenry that was engaged, even if they were angry with the authorities. For many months conversations around the water cooler and dinner table revolved around just how little water everyone was using. It is likely that this drought left a lasting impression on most Capetonians on how water should be better valued.

9.2.4  Changing Gulps to Sips—Household Flow-Restriction Most formal households in Cape Town are supplied via either a 15- or 20-mm water connection. WMDs are installed in all areas when worn meters are replaced, or new installations are required. The number of households in 2018 in the City was estimated at 1.1 million, of which over 600,000 were individually metered free-­standing domestic properties. The balance of formal metered households is in cluster complexes and apartments with bulk meters, while the number of informal households was estimated at 250,000. Of the formal households, approximately 270,000 were indigent as of 2018. The City budgeted annually for the meter replacement programme, and while new developments add to the overall number of meters, old and broken meters are continuously replaced.

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During the drought, customers identified as excessive water users had their flow restricted and WMDs installed at their properties. The action was not welcomed even though it also safeguarded against potentially expensive private leaks. Initially, excessive use was deemed as more than 20 kilolitres/month, but at Level 6 restrictions, this was amended to anyone using more than 10.5 kl/month. Warning letters were issued to customers transgressing the limit. If a second transgression was identified through an actual meter reading, then punitive action was taken. This resulted in the customer’s standard water meter being replaced with a WMD, set to 350 l/ day. The customer was billed for the cost of the WMD and its installation in the next billing cycle as specified in the promulgation. A household of four, with each person using 50 litres per capita per day results in a monthly consumption of 6000 litres. However, the 50-litre allowance per person was intended to be per day, irrespective of whether at home, work, or school. Therefore, seeing that the average household size in Cape Town at the time was in fact just 3.2 people (reducing over time) and assuming some out-of-house water usage, allowing for households of four people using 6000 litres per month was more generous on average than it seemed. Given that at least some households transgressing had more than four occupants, the water team devised an adjustment factor (based on the number of occupants) to the standard allocation per tariff step. We suggested a simple method to divide the bill by 1.5 for households of six occupants, and by 2.0 for eight occupants, by 3.0 for 12 occupants etc. To apply for such reductions, identity documents or birth certificates of all occupants of a household had to be provided, which were rudimentarily verified and uploaded onto the system so that the billing profile could be amended. The average household consumption reduced markedly throughout 2017; the reduction over the first half of the year is evident in Fig. 9.13. As households were required to dramatically reduce consumption, the volumes in higher usage steps shrunk considerably. The number of households using more than 20 kl/month reduced from nearly 120,000 in January 2017 to less than 30,000 by September of the same year. The water team installed and set nearly 60,000 WMD flow restrictors

Fig. 9.13  Change in household consumption February to June 2017

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in the accelerated drought response from October 2017 onwards, resulting in a saving of nearly 12 MLD. Approximately a third of these obligatory installations were due to restriction level transgressions. In December 2017, just more than 25% of households were using less than 6 kl/ month which increased to close to 50% two months later, in January 2018. Similarly, use below 10.5  kl increased from ~65% to 80%. The change in high-consuming households (>20 kl/month) reduced less dramatically from 93% to 90%. Managing the WMD programme was challenging even prior to the drought. In the indigent programme, the process of installing a WMD and writing off debt had always required the homeowner to agree. If there was no agreement, then debt action would be taken, which involved restricting flow to a trickle. We came under harsh criticism for not proactively identifying large households prior to restricting them to 350 litres per day. To be fair, managing at an individual household levels is complex, especially given the number of additional dwellings on a single property in lower income communities; trying to keep track of the number of people within each household across the City was simply inconceivable. So, providing the abovementioned mechanism to increase the allowance with the concomitant administrative process to ensure accurate billing not only catered for this challenge but also ensured that the billing system was not compromised. Public protest against WMD installations grew, especially in higher density areas. Civil society organised themselves through social media and barricaded streets to prevent installations. Some contended that it infringed their rights to have the volume of water restricted and accused the City of infringing on human rights. Our teams often had to be accompanied by law enforcement officers in the more dangerous areas, but even this was sometimes insufficient to get safe access, and installation of flow restriction in some areas proved to be close to impossible. Had the WMD programme been without problems, it could have been the perfect mechanism to manage consumption. At household level, based on the number of occupants, flow could be reduced to what the system could provide at each erf. This would have obviated the need for the points of distribution in the Disaster plan: there would have been no need to shut off supply regionally and have people collect water from points of distribution. If the technology the City could procure had been sufficiently reliable and affordable, and fully electronic to be centrally controlled, as well as easily deployable to all households, the City would have been spared much pain. As it is, installation of WMDs was used as a mechanism to reduce demand as best it could, and the threat of having one installed probably influenced at least some households to reduce consumption. 9.2.4.1  Service Requests The City operates on an IT platform with service request notification system linked to a single-number call centre, SMS, email and website channel to log of service requests. The primary goal of service requests is to ensure effective service delivery throughout Cape Town. Any member of the public can submit a service request or

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report a fault by dialling the call centre or electronically logging a fault on the City website. Notifications remain open and visible on the system until the necessary work is complete, checked and paperwork done. Each department has a customised maximum number of days within which to close notifications, which are tracked and reflected on the City’s service delivery scorecard. Historically, between 75% and 80% of service requests were raised in the utility departments of water and sanitation, and electricity. The number of notifications logged for water issues during the drought reached alarming proportions with insufficient staff to manage any single part of the process. The call centre battled with fielding all incoming calls, dispatchers were challenged to identify priorities and notify teams to attend to the work, and the teams themselves had too many work orders to attend to. Back-office staff also had real challenges in workload to ensure that notifications were complete, checked and closed as the process required. We made numerous efforts to increase available capacity through employing contract workers, but processes to ensure compliance meant that even this took longer than hoped. The call centre management was incredibly responsive and did whatever they could to assist the embattled technical teams having to resolve the notifications in the field. The increase of notifications over time for drought related issues is shown in Fig. 9.14. The first spike occurred at the beginning of 2017 when the City appealed to the public to report all leaks and recurred from mid 2017 through to 2018 when the threat of Day Zero was palpable.

Fig. 9.14  Notifications reported for various faults

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The City was under constant attack in the media, resulting in detailed media queries streaming in daily. While the communications team assigned to water became exponentially more knowledgeable on all water matters, new questions arose almost daily requiring engineering input.

9.2.5  Cutting Through Waste—Pressure Reduction Pressure reduction to reduce water losses was initiated in the City in the late 2000s. At the time, the Khayelitsha pressure management system was the largest in the world (McKenzie et al. 2004). Water loss is problematic around the world, and very much in South African municipalities where it averaged approximately 37% across all municipalities in 2017. Pressure reduction is especially beneficial to reduce water loss through undetected leaks. Cape Town accelerated the existing programme significantly at the end of 2017 to automate zones across the metropolitan area both to optimise the system and reduce demand. Pressure zone control had the potential to force down consumption by throttling zones to the extent of providing a partial supply only if water usage in a zone remained too high. At the outset, the water team identified a number of critical success factors to be refined to ensure pressure management implementation. Importantly, someone motivated and capable had to be identified to manage the programme. With the informal settlement crisis in IY largely resolved, I had asked Pierre Maritz, the Manager of Reticulation to move on to the next challenge when he returned from Christmas leave: to coordinate demand management. He would then need to manage the overall coordination and bring together the various legs of demand management to ensure that we maximised water savings. A service provider had been appointed for the pressure management programme, but progress had not been significant prior to December 2017 when the contractor was tasked to produce an emergency response plan covering leakage reduction and water conservation. The contractor’s appointment had to be amended through a procurement deviation to allow for a hybrid performance-based/ turnkey contract to best integrate with the City’s operational resources. In recent years, a number of Cape Town’s experienced district engineers had retired. New staff had not been in posts long enough to have developed expert knowledge of the system. Furthermore, all available skills in the City’s entire water and sanitation department were over-extended at the height of the crisis. Age of retirement in local government is 65. In preceding years I had attended many retirement functions, and it came to mind that man of the retirees was just past 65 and still eager to make a difference. When the contractor presented the draft emergency pressure management plan after Christmas in 2017, it was apparent that the water team needed solid experience for the plan to work. We identified four retired technicians, for each to be responsible for a quarter of the metropolitan area for the project rollout. I contacted them to ask if they were interested and all four confirmed without delay, to start as soon as possible after new year. Seeing the

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necessity of this move, the mayor, who had in the past not been in favour of such contracts, signed a report to allow the human resources department to draw up post-­ retirement contracts. Given their age and experience, they became known as the four wise men, and I welcomed them with great delight in the first week of January 2018. The experience that they brought to the project was invaluable: a deep knowledge of the behaviour of the City’s water networks, of the regional network configuration as well as upstream water sources. Their knowledge and experience were beneficial beyond the pressure reduction project and they readily integrated with all other water branches to provide innovative interventions, as well as to mentor and train fresh operational staff. With Pierre at the helm, and the four wise men on board, I had full confidence that demand reduction activity would be maximised, and the risk of running out of water seemed to accordingly diminish somewhat. The targeted savings in terms of the original pressure management plan was to reduce daily demand by 38 MLD initially, a saving achieved in just three weeks through aggressive interventions! The water savings target was later increased to an ambitious 52 MLD, building on the information available from early efforts. The reduction had to be achieved without interrupting supply. Reducing demand by the initial 38 MLD was calculated on: • • • •

Reducing pressure in the 166 existing pressure managed zones; Active leak detection and repair of 6500 km of reticulation mains piping; Optimisation of reticulation storage and outlet control, and Bulk leak detention and repair.

The additional 14 MLD was planned to be achieved by engaging the top 2000 customers to identify possible savings, and active leak reduction and repair on over 40,000 indigent households. Special permission was required from Council, as under the Municipal Finance Management Act, the City could not ordinarily expend public money on private property (Republic of South Africa National Treasury 2003). Part of the WMD programme included fixing of leaks as a once-off together with the installation of a water meter. The areas where high leak rates were identified included indigent households many of which already had the benefit of leak repair, but given the importance of preserving water, this formed a valuable source of demand reduction and Council approved the proposal to allow this. The 2000 top consumers were mostly non-residential, and the City teamed with government departments, the Chamber of Commerce, industry, and hospitality associations. Where anomalies were suspected, data loggers were installed and analysed, thereby aiding in leak detection. Average daily savings specifically from the pressure management initiative peaked at 70 MLD: nearly 3000 leaks were located and repaired on the bulk and reticulation system. Around a quarter of indigent households inspected were found to have leaks, which the City repaired. The savings realised were not achieved without challenges:

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• Previously, branches worked independently of one another, without real incentive for integration. The urgency of the drought forced integration and broke down bureaucratic barriers built up over time. The department worked hard to ensure that the progress achieved in integration continued after the crisis; • In the absence of pressure management processes and protocols, these were developed where required. For example, pressures were not automatically increased after consumer complaints, without an in-the-field investigation to assess the validity of the complaint, no matter how it had been escalated; • The as-built drawings on the GIS system were not always accurate, and many nights were spent searching for infrastructure, or as last resort, cutting into reticulation lines to install new valves; • The City infrastructure grew organically over many decades, with changes in standard specifications resulting in inconsistent quality (to secure system integrity technical specifications need to be of a high standard and provide compatible fixtures and fittings), and • The quality of potable water also had to be assured with additional monitoring points, as some changes to the network resulted in stagnation due to, for example, piping dead ends. The pressure management programme was designed to keep the reticulation system pressurised at all times, and avoid all water interruptions, even if only a trickle was available. On occasion, the public perceived outages to have occurred locally, specifically in high lying areas but this was due to high consumption by other users in the pressure zone during peak times. The water pressure was set to provide sufficient water across the metropolitan area calculated at 87 litres per person at the point of the erf connection. The ideal localised water usage is to flatten the peaks within a suburb to minimise outages. The pressure was set at a minimum of 0.5 bar (5 m) when topography allowed, at critical points (see Fig. 9.15). A critical point is the point in a zone which has the lowest pressure (usually at the highest point) during peak day hour. Where complaints were lodged, we increased pressure incrementally at 1 m a time, to verify the effect on demand and pressure available. Intelligent pressure reducing valve controllers were integral to the success of pressure reduction, as it allowed us to dial-up remotely and reset if necessary. This was typically done every six hours. The break-pressure ratio should ideally not be more than 1:4, but to achieve the savings we required, we had to extend this as high as 1: 10. We thus knowingly designed the programme to damage some pressure reducing valves, as flow velocities over valves would be so high that components would be damaged. Water quality was also affected by discoloration due to reduced pressure and flow reversal. In response, we frequently bled the valves in affected areas and allowed water clarity to stabilise. Unlike electricity load-shedding where areas are switched off for a two-hour period, water pressure management, once introduced, remains active in an area all the time, providing at least a 5 m pressure head at every consumer connection. Most residential properties have no more than two storeys, thus 5 m provided sufficient head. This provided sufficient water to most households most of the time. In

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Fig. 9.15  Pressure management to critical point

instances of steep slopes or double story buildings local to an area, this reduction in pressure was likely to cause constraints. As outages due to increased use was beyond the City’s control, it was more difficult to use water pressure management than electricity load-shedding to manage respective demand. The City’s water bylaw required that rooftop tanks and booster pumps be provided by the property owner in the case of multi-story buildings to ensure water supplies to the upper stories. Together with implementation of aggressive pressure management, the water team provided comprehensive guidelines in printed material of the possible implications for households. Households were advised that: • Keep only between 5 and 10 litres of water for drinking use only for the household during rationing. Keeping more means that no water is saved. Store essential water in a cool, dark place away from light and dust; • Keep additional water for pets. Pet owners should use their own discretion as to how much was required; • When experiencing a loss of water supply, and before contacting the City’s call centre, check whether a neighbour has water on their property. Higher-lying properties in a zone or properties more than 10 m above the municipal water connection at road level are at a higher risk of a water interruption. Such properties are encouraged to check for water supply from a tap at the lowest point on their property. Trickle flow between peak periods should indicate that the system is drawing down due to higher demand. The supply should improve after a period of time; • If living in or operating from a multi-storey building, ensure that the water supply system (booster pumps and roof-top storage) is in working order in compliance with the water bylaw;

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• Ensure that all taps are closed when not in use to prevent damage/flooding when the supply is restored. The City is not liable for any impact on or damage to private infrastructure resulting from the water rationing or associated operations, in accordance with the water bylaw; • When supply is restored, the water may appear to be cloudy from the extreme pressure reduction. Please do not waste the initial water. Store it and use it for flushing; • Ensure that all fire extinguishers are in legal working condition. If possible, get fire extinguishers or add more to what you currently have. The pressure zones in the CBD had for the most part been protected from both electricity load-shedding, and water pressure management. In some of the high-­ lying areas at the periphery of the CBD, zones were pressure managed, but not in the central bowl, where commercial use dominated. Much of the water infrastructure in the heart of the CBD is older than 100  years. To provide for water to be injected from the 2 MLD temporary desalination plant developed at the V&A waterfront, we had to create the necessary pressure drop and thus undertook a zero-test in the CBD. A zero test requires that the zone be isolated and tested so that the pressure at critical points is 0 bar. Such operations were always conducted in the middle of the night, to have minimum impact on consumers, while night-flows from leaks could be readily identified. A zero-test ensures that there are no unknown supply points into the zone and allows the setting of pressure reducing valves to be appropriate to provide the necessary pressure at critical points. Prior to undertaking a zero-test in any area, we gave notice through substantial advertising in print and on radio. Nonetheless, during this operation, we had several complaints from consulates in the area, hotels, and other commercial customers, which we addressed at haste. In the process of zero-testing we identified previously undocumented infrastructure and improved as-built information while optimising the functioning of the reticulation network. In other areas across the metropolitan area, customers such as hospitals were accommodated by providing alternative supply from beyond a pressure zone, while they installed the pressure boosting infrastructure as required by the water bylaw. Cape Town also provides low-cost housing in many blocks of three-storey walk-­ ups. We made sure that in these areas, sufficient pressure was available to serve up to the top floor. The City had always had the obligation to provide water to households, and not restricting water reticulation as we were now doing in drastically reducing pressures. It was thus a transition for operational staff to ensure that customers were still served while consumption was dramatically reduced. In so doing, staff members had been placed under unusual and extreme pressure from an irate public, to attend to faults which were introduced through pressure management. The number of complaints skyrocketed, and while the call centre was under pressure to log calls, our field staff had their hands full in dealing with public anger. Due to the risk of pressure management resulting in possible trickle flow during certain times of the day, the City encouraged residents to store a small supply of

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potable water. In messaging we emphasised that it was not a good idea to stockpile a large volume of water given the limited shelf-life of water in plastic bottles. There was word occasionally of people filling bathtubs and buckets in anticipation of water outages, spiking demand in some areas. In most cases the reticulation system continued to provide water, and the stockpiled water would be used eventually to flush toilets or go to waste. By mid-2018, more than 55% of the City’s reticulation system was pressure managed, with a planned coverage of nearly 65% at contract completion. The project was truly innovative: the theory of pressure reduction was translated into accelerated design and tested through rapid implementation in the field. The revised target was exceeded by more than a third, while the project cost achieved savings of more than 30%. In merging and synchronising the reticulation feed into Mitchell’s Plain with that of Khayelitsha, Cape Town again had the biggest pressure managed zone in the world. To secure Cape Town’s future water resilience, continued maintenance of the pressure management system developed through the drought is critical. During implementation, many City staff were trained in pressure management, and supporting manuals were produced. This level of network monitoring intensity needs to be sustained, with all branches interacting to ensure that electronic information is kept up-to-date and available.

9.2.6  Preparing for Climate Change—Adaptation Adaptation requires that steps be taken to live with impacts of climate change, to increase resilience. Action was required from households, commerce, industry as well as the City in managing water and adapting to a potential future where water may be perpetually scarce. The Water Demand Management branch within the water and sanitation department had been working on several projects for many years prior to the drought. Adaptation measures included: • Offsetting potable irrigation and industrial applications with treated effluent use • During the drought this increased from about 5% to 11% of overall water supplied by the City. Initially it was used mainly for irrigation purposes, but later grew in industrial use and was applied in many construction applications. The number of effluent collection points was increased, and on occasion there was a shortfall of available treated effluent due to high demand; • Encouragement and guidance for greywater and rainwater use • By the end of 2017 the City published pamphlets for the safe use of greywater, and later rainwater harvesting, aimed at protecting both households and the City’s water network. Installation of non-return valves was critical to prevent

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household water sources from entering the City’s network to protect the required water quality. Retrofitting council buildings and retrofitting rental stock Rental buildings were notorious for high water loss. The City had in the region of 40,000 housing units rented out as subsidised housing. Repairs and maintenance were historically severely underfunded, and the occupants were generally not in the habit of self-maintaining. Rental stock was typically located in areas where gangs and drug wars were common, further complicating repairs. It was acknowledged that installing flow restrictors could reduce water loss, but it was not a simple process, as most of the rental units were in 3 storey walk-ups and not free-standing housing. Every effort was made to install water management devices where possible and replace plumbing fittings with water saving technology. The City also worked collaboratively with Provincial and National government in reducing water loss through retrofitting of government owned buildings including prisons, army barracks and the like; Small-scale additional water supplies The small-scale springs around the CBD had gained much attention through the media. The message conveyed was that there was sufficient water underground running out to sea and that the City was merely incompetent in not harvesting it. In reality the volume was seasonal and hardly enough to make even a small dent in overall water requirements. The City had completed a spring water study in 2017, identifying 69 springs, of which 8 had high potential. Of those, existing use added up to just less than 3 MLD, while potential additional use was calculated to be in the region of 1.5 MLD. The water team proceeded to install the necessary infrastructure to harvest whatever additional spring water available in the CBD, that didn’t require much treatment. Repairs to the Lourens river off-­ take were also completed so that a larger water volume could be abstracted from the river rather than it running to sea; Water sensitive urban design The water bylaw had to be reviewed together with the Stormwater department, to ensure that the path be cleared for a transition to a water sensitive city. This was an ambitious aspiration, which other cities had set targets for decades into the future. The biggest immediate success was certainly the inclusion of the stormwater branch into the water and sanitation department so that water could be recognised as a valuable resource rather than a pest to clear off road-surfaces. This had been an aspiration of the department for a number of years and was included in the water strategy as one of the commitments; Business engagement The City engaged broadly with large and small business on possible interventions such as to incentivise reduced consumption. High category consumers such as gyms, spas and hairdressers were engaged at the mayor’s request. Of course, severe water restrictions also significantly impacted on a number of business sectors such as swimming pool companies, food processing industry, garden centres, nurseries, construction, and paint manufacturers;

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• Open innovation platform • Water and sanitation had managed a new technology platform for a number of years. During 2013 the City received numerous unsolicited bids for provision of waterless sanitation and a protocol was developed to assess new technology. Under the mayor, a specific office was established to centralise innovation in the City, and the water team thus had to work with this platform. The intention remained to pilot new technologies. An RFI process had confirmed our suspicions that there were no plausible large-scale solutions, but the water team had to continue to track on this field and report back. • Information to drive behaviour change • Examples included the Star rating tool for buildings. Over and above the Green Building Council regulations which apply to new buildings, the Star rating tool was designed specifically so that buildings retrofitted with water efficient infrastructure could apply. The City also innovated in producing a residential water use map, visually displaying household consumption data to incentivise all households to stay within usage limits.

9.2.7  New Habits, New Risks, New Benefits The various demand management initiatives contributed directly to the overall reduction in Cape Town’s water demand of 55%. The contribution made by the various consumer classes is shown in Fig. 9.16. As the largest category of consumption, it is unsurprising that domestic savings contributed more than 70% of the total saving, this was followed by retail and commerce at 12%, and City owned facilities, saving 5%. The largest demand of typical domestic use across all households not under water shortage conditions is that of baths/showers at 38%. This is followed by flushing toilets at 24%, followed by outdoor use of 20%. The balance is made up of washing clothes and dishes, cleaning, cooking, etc. Permanent savings are thus likely to be composed mainly of behaviour change in outdoor use, baths, and showers, and flushing of toilets. Ironically, Cape Town’s success in demand management had an unintended consequence of causing the next new water supply resource to be delayed. As the reconciliation strategy is premised on reconciling demand and supply over the medium term, this is unsurprising. The lesson to be learnt is that one must have water to be able to save water. Once all possible efficiency measures are in place, there is no longer any elasticity in the system to reduce demand further, and the level of assurance of supply sources will need to be greatly increased for the system to continue to be reconciled over the long run.

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Fig. 9.16  Total savings in drought compared to pre-drought demand

9.3  Managing Augmentation In transforming from the WRP to the NWP, my water team aimed to extract as much value as possible from what we had learnt during the WRP phase, even if the learnings were not necessarily aligned to the long-term reconciliation strategy. Much time, energy and cost had been invested in planning, preparing documentation, tendering, and adjudicating tenders for projects that made little practical sense. Using the experience thereby gained in a positive manner would ensure that any expenditure incurred would not have been wasteful. Wasteful expenditure is one of the three deadly sins in the MFMA, fruitless and irregular being the other two (Republic of South Africa National Treasury 2003). It was deeply disappointing though unsurprising, when less than two years after the height of the water crisis, auditors frequently questioned some decisions made under the emergency dispensation, such as minor deviations from usual procurement processes. It is always easy to find fault after the fact, and memory is short once panic subsides. Since the original WCWSS reconciliation strategy was finalised in 2007, the water team continued to build on the knowledgebase of water resources which Cape Town was responsible for, as contained in the strategy. At the time of finalisation, it was acknowledged that feasibility studies were required for several proposed interventions. The programming of the interventions was scheduled such that sufficient

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time was allowed for feasibility studies through to implementation and water delivery prior to the next resource being required. Responsibility for undertaking further study was broadly assigned either to the City or to DWS. Cape Town was tasked with progressing effluent reuse, desalination and the TMG aquifer feasibility (and pilot) project. Interventions requiring additional studies were also identified and included the Cape Flats Aquifer, inter alia. The national DWS, in turn, would be responsible for assessing the long-term impact of climate change on supply, and feasibility studies on a number of potential additional surface water projects in the area. The identified projects could add up to a reasonable volume, but none at the scale of an additional large dam, such as the last one, the Berg River Dam, added to the system. The bulk of water in future was thus expected to come from less conventional water sources. The expressed intent was for the reconciliation strategy to be updated regularly and interventions re-arranged as results from further studies became available. Progress on the Reconciliation strategy projects up to 2016 is covered in Sect. 4.5. As tenders were issued by the City and bids received during 2017 for the WRP projects, the high cost of alternative water sources such as desalination really landed. Even though cost was not meant to be a technical consideration in the WRP, it was not possible for us to ignore cost. I tried to represent the volumes and costs graphically to drive home the point that replacing water from rainfall in the short term was neither practical nor affordable. Figure 9.17 represents a range of volumes of equivalent annual inflow, to compare augmented supply with that of runoff from rainfall throughout the drought and in an average year. But the volume advantage of even modest rainfall run-off over augmentation is huge. The figure shows a range of inflow volumes for the drought years of 2015–2018, to compare to years of average, and wet winters. In 2018, the anticipated additional water produced in the WRP hardly registered on the scale, at only 12 MCM. Although rainfall in 2017 was extremely low, it still produced runoff of 283 MCM, the equivalent of approximately 775 MLD. In contrast, if the City set out to produce 500 MLD

Fig. 9.17  Equivalent annual inflow (MCM)

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by whatever alternative means, and actually achieved that goal, over a year it would at best produce 100 MCM less than the very low actual 2017 runoff. Of course, rainfall cannot be controlled, whereas augmentation can theoretically be implemented to provide close to 100% level of assurance. Figure 9.18 provides estimated cost ranges for various sources of water based on the information at hand at the end of 2017. Non-surface water augmentation schemes are a much more expensive source of water compared to rain-fed dams. Cost ranges are only indicative as they could vary dependent on facility location and other factors. As such, we made it clear that costs would only truly be confirmed once projects were operational, and all factors included in the cost per kilolitre. For practical reasons Cape Town will continue to rely significantly on surface water dams supplied by rainfall (as recognised in the water strategy—see Sect. 12.5). Reliability of the system could be increased by adding ground water, treated wastewater and desalination but the costs of these schemes had to be compared to the cost of water from dams which was in the region of R 5.20/kl in 2018, to ensure financial impacts were properly considered. Furthermore, incurring excessive costs on some water projects would have a detrimental impact on the entire water department (and by implication, the entire municipality) in future, for years far more than the current political leadership was likely to be in office. In the turbulent months of late-2017 into January 2018, many decisions were made on how to protect the City from running out of water, and as a result, some projects had to proceed even though the water team was aware that they were very expensive and would not make a dent in boosting the City’s water security. While the WRP was built on providing 500 MLD within a period of less than 12 months, the water team grappled with the question of how much additional water was needed in permanent augmentation schemes in the medium term, balanced by cost and lead times. This work was only finalised in Cape Town’s water strategy, which was approved in mid-2019 but was an important consideration much debated, and part of the evolution of water volumes embedded in the NWP. The volume of additional supplies needed to achieve a secure supply depended primarily on a decision on risk appetite and on assumptions related to the future

Fig. 9.18  Estimated cost ranges for treated water by source (R/kl)

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probability of rainfall distribution. Detailed modelling had been undertaken based on the available historical rainfall records, hydrological modelling, and climate change forecasts. In 2018, the modelling and analysis of scenarios based on modelling showed that, using a stochastically generated set of rainfall patterns based on past rainfall records, and assuming a one in 200 level of assurance, an augmentation volume of between 50 and 100 MLD would be required just to meet current demand. Thereafter, 30 MLD of additional supply would be needed every year, to cater for likely demand growth. As the DWS did not have current augmentation of 50–100 MLD in place, the water team worked on the medium-term (10 year) plan, requiring augmentation of 300–350 MLD extra water by 2028. This additional supply would in theory maintain dam levels above that requiring restrictions at the end of each summer, and so provide a reasonable margin of safety. Any augmentation over and above 350 MLD would increase levels of assurance and result in ‘surplus water’ through more frequent dam spillages during winter. Further modelling, using rainfall predictions from global climate models will confirm and inform the water team’s decision making, comprehending the combination of climate change impacts with natural variability. In the interim, Cape Town’s NWP augmentation plans were based on a long-term augmentation figure of 350 MLD. Although the 350 MLD figure initially was little more than a back-of-a-­matchbox calculation, confirmed by gutfeel, it was later confirmed to be very much in the right ballpark during development of the water strategy. Based on updated hydrology and demand extrapolations, additional water required to balance the system over a ten-­ year period was calculated to be approximately 370 MLD in the approved water strategy. The 350 MLD initially targeted in the NWP would comprise of 100 MLD groundwater, 70 MLD reuse, 120 MLD of desalination and 60 MLD from the DWS Berg River Voëlvlei augmentation scheme. It was broadly accepted to be appropriate to get water from all three additional sources—ground water, wastewater reuse and sea water desalination—to thereby ensure Cape Town’s improved resilience to climate change or shocks. The time anticipated to develop a scheme to first water varied greatly depending on the source. Under emergency conditions, the water team expected being able to fast-track projects, resulting in significantly shorter development periods. Surface water projects traditionally had the longest lead times, in the region of five years, while under ideal conditions, groundwater could be produced within a year. Reuse had an estimated lead time of two years, while rapid development of a medium sized desalination plant could produce water in 3 years. These timelines were expected to vary depending on requirements for public participation, EIA’s and finalisation of new legislation. I realised quickly that while it was useful to have all role-players in the room to ensure integration of strategic intent, there wasn’t a large enough, accessible venue for integrated NWP meetings. More importantly, there was an enormous amount of work to be done and it was necessary to balance the benefits of broad participation and being on the same page with that of efficiency and productivity. NWP meetings

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were thus scheduled over two days, and split into the various streams, while trying to ensure integration by having common introductions and grouping practical themes with consultants in common together. The schedule settled into regular meetings on water strategy, Demand Management, Inter-basin relations, Augmentation (further separated into sub-themes of groundwater, desalination, and reuse) and Water Finance.

9.3.1  Considerations on Augmentation The development of water resources, no matter what the source, has some environmental impacts. Large surface water schemes involve the construction of dams (often in environmentally important or sensitive areas such as mountainous wilderness areas) and associated infrastructure, including long pipelines, pump stations etc. Desalination is energy intensive, with a large carbon footprint if reliant on coal-­ based electricity, and the discharge of brine (and related marine works) may affect sensitive coastal areas. The treatment of wastewater for reuse also uses energy (though less than desalination) and will involve infrastructure development (treatment works and pipelines), and the flow of treated wastewater to riverine environments and wetlands would be reduced. In some instances in heavily polluted urban rivers in Cape Town, the addition of treated effluent actually improves the quality of river water. Groundwater abstraction, provided it is not over-abstracted, may have the lowest environmental impact compared to the alternatives. The terrestrial impact is low, with a very low footprint, especially compared to surface water schemes. Sustainable ground water yield is regulated through a licencing system managed by national government, and together with monitoring, can be well managed through groundwater recharge from rainfall, stormwater systems and treated wastewater. We were not seeking development at all costs but were committed to following good practice to protect the environment while securing a more resilient and robust water supply system. The size of the estimated environmental impact was directly related to how much water we sought to produce. Grappling with the volume required, timing and cost to be paid was a critical consideration in the strategy for developing augmentation schemes. With the uncertainty around long-term rainfall in the WCWSS, and whether there had been a step-change reduction in rainfall and runoff, it just wasn’t clear whether large plants would be required to run as baseload or intermittently to top up rain-fed capacity. Desalination plant performance is almost certainly higher with continuous operation, as frequent interruptions in operations or mothballing reduce efficiency and lifespan. In any event, operational costs cannot be entirely avoided during shutdown periods, and typically require one shift to remain in place to operate plants daily. Standby of a desalination plant requires that the membranes are protected with a preservation solution which must be changed monthly, and that water be circulated occasionally through pre-treatment and reverse osmosis systems. Restarting a plant can take several months to a year, and at significant cost,

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thus needing a carefully calibrated trigger to recommission the desalination process before water supply reaches critical levels. A number of desalination plants worldwide are operated intermittently. Notably in Australia which also relies largely on surface water, but due to demand growth and reduced rainfall invested in diversified water sources. The 250 MLD Sydney plant operated for two years after commissioning in 2010 and was then shut down to be triggered only when dam levels fell below 60%. The Melbourne example particularly caught our attention: The massive 444 MLD plant was commissioned in 2007 during a record-breaking drought and produces the most expensive large-scale desalinated water in the world (estimated at a cost of R 8.5 billion/year). Only in 2016 was additional water required in the system, resulting in the plant being operated at approximately a third of capacity. Even when no water is required, the operator is paid an annual standby fee of approximately $665 million. Given that WCWSS dams and reservoirs had spilt frequently in the previous two decades, adding to the base load with expensive water had to be cautiously evaluated. With so many known unknowns in our knowledge base, the water team recognised that we could fall in the trap of not making any decisions, while appreciating that due to long lead-times in unfamiliar technology, it was important to make no-­ regret decisions and trust that in time, future decisions would be built on evolving information. Matters such as project finance and operating regimes for both the proposed new groundwater systems and desalination plants had not been resolved, but the projects needed to be started anyhow, without delay.

9.3.2  Programming of Schemes In the WRP communication process the City tried to graphically depict the magnitude of water requirements to provide more easily understood communication. I continued this initiative with the Water Outlook publication from January 2018, mapping the planned augmentation programme over time. The water team was well aware that the impact of additional water would be a ‘drop in the ocean’ for many years to come, but with all the effort and money expended, and the risk of drought continuing, it was an imperative to show progress. Once dam levels had increased above the ultra-low, panic-inducing levels it became apparent that augmentation would take far longer than originally envisaged. Figure 9.19 shows how the augmentation programme changed between January and May 2018, as more information came to light. In January 2018 I reflected the amended WRP projection showing a very optimistic final augmentation of more than 500 MLD by the end of 2022 with an optimistic forecast of nearly 200 MLD on-stream by the end of 2018. This was premised on groundwater, mainly from Cape Flats aquifer on the advice of professionals who opined that there was plenty of water which could merely be disinfected before being pumped directly into the reticulation system.

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Fig. 9.19  Augmentation programme—January to May 2018

By February 2018, once the NWP was back under control of my directorate, I took a more conservative view, showing augmentation only to the end of 2019 and excluding the final, permanent schemes as the water team was now reviewing the volume of extra water that could possibly be produced. It is evident in Fig. 9.19 that the water transfer from a water user association in an adjacent catchment in March 2018 (see Sect. 9.3.7) would be the only near-term impact of any new water injected into the WCWSS. Having undertaken multiple pilot and test holes, the water team realised that Cape Flats Aquifer would provide many more challenges before any significant volume of water entered the system. Similarly, at Steenbras, we encountered such stringent environmental opposition that we concluded the best strategy would be to accede to all reasonable requirements, and in so doing pave the way to future exploitation of the aquifer. This was despite the boreholes being situated on city-owned land, in the utility zone, which we thought would be straightforward. The March projection of augmentation reflected that the assured augmentation target reduced to 50 MLD, up to the end of 2019, but our confidence in even this modest goal was falling. By May, I had better information on the reasonable timeframe of projects, even though these ultimately proved to still be over-optimistic. In retrospect the entire short-term augmentation programme was completely unrealistic but at least by now we had reduced expectations to producing only approximately 60 MLD additional water by the end of 2018. The programme of first water from augmentation continued to move out as the various projects progressed and better information became available. The volumes

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and timing required to ensure long-term resilience were eventually bedded down in the water strategy early in 2019 (see Sect. 12.5). The locations of various augmentation schemes and projects are shown in Fig. 9.20.

Fig. 9.20  Augmentation schemes and projects—locality map

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9.3.3  Water from the Ocean 9.3.3.1  Status of Desalination in South Africa Desalination is part of the 2013 National Water Resource Strategy as an integral part of the future mix of South Africa’s water resources (Department of Water Affairs 2013). Small scale seawater desalination plants (with capacity of less than 20 MLD) had been implemented in various centres along the coastline (including 15 MLD Mossel Bay and Hessequa solar 0.15 MLD plant), while desalination of mine water was an important component. Large-scale desalination had been under consideration by coastal metropolitan municipalities for some time and was growing in perceived importance—for the Western Cape the Reconciliation Strategy listed an additional supply from desalination of 110 MCM (equivalent to 305 MLD) in the medium term. It was recognised that while the cost of desalination technology was decreasing, the rising cost and insecurity of the needed energy supply in South Africa needed for utility-scale desalination was of growing concern. The National Desalination Strategy was developed in response to, and is consistent with, the National Water Resources Strategy (Department of Water Affairs 2011). The strategy also recognised the need for diversified water resources in light of increasing variability in rainfall probably resulting from climate change. While local technology was not readily available in the early 2010s, it was recognised that specifically mine wastewater related desalination technology had potential to become a niche field of specialisation in the country. As for project finance, it was acknowledged that the cost of desalination was likely to be higher than conventional water resources, and in line with the National Water Pricing Strategy, would need to be recovered through cost-reflective water tariffs (Department of Water Affairs 2007). Due to significant energy requirements of desalination (for an entire seawater reverse osmosis plant it ranges from 3 to 4 kWh/m3), South Africa has particular challenges. Until the mid 2000s, low electricity cost in South Africa was seen as a competitive advantage when attracting foreign direct investment. Significant commitment to coal fired generation was made at the time in proceeding with construction of both the massive Kusile and Medupi power stations. Fraught with corruption and despite ballooning costs, neither plant had been fully commissioned by 2019, plunging the country into darkness whenever load-shedding is required to stabilise the grid. If all goes to plan the grid should reach a stable point by late-2021 using the existing electricity generation power station fleet but this does not cater for growth. In parallel, the next phase of the very successful renewable energy programme was delayed inexplicably, and the ministry of mineral resources and energy put out a request for information for nuclear power early in 2020. South Africa appears to be some distance from restoring energy security, but this cannot delay development of additional water resources such as desalination. The National Desalination Strategy also acknowledged that development would be subject to a host of legislation enforced by different government departments, likely to add significantly to the development timeframe. As for project

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implementation, however, it was believed that metropolitan municipalities with competent water departments would be fully capable for this task. Desalination is a complex and expensive process. Optimising the location and design is all the more important due to the cost of water produced over the life of the project. Small mistakes will amplify costs in the long term, where even a one cent cost increase per kl in a 100 MLD plant adds up to R 365,000 per year. Accordingly, developing desalination plants in a hurry in direct response to drought is not advised. Competent project procurement is crucial in providing good quality and reliable water at the best possible cost. This is even more important where financial, technical and energy resources are constrained, such as in South Africa. 9.3.3.2  Cape Town’s Long-Term Desalination Strategy Desalination had been under consideration in the city for many years and it was more than useful to have already undertaken a feasibility study for a large-scale plant (see Sect. 4.5.4). The findings of which also correlated well with expert opinions on desalination late in 2017, whereas the small, containerised plants already procured by Cape Town under the WRP were in fact strongly discouraged by the same experts. The advice received from international desalination experts was unequivocal: plan and execute permanent desalination at an optimum scale, at a plant size or in modules of 120–150 MLD. To learn incrementally, consider starting with a capacity no smaller than 50 MLD, which can be doubled or tripled on the site footprint. Do not build desalination plants of capacity larger than 200 MLD. Explore alternative procurement methods such as a competitively bid turnkey approach using the private sector with a water purchase agreement. This will yield the lowest cost per unit of water compared to the alternatives and be quicker to implement provided regulatory processes are fast-tracked as part of a water shortage emergency. Decisions around desalination must not be delayed. Desalination provides the only “new” source of water, and other than technical and financial constraints, has unlimited augmentation capacity. Whilst social, environmental, and financial implications need to be considered, desalination can ensure a reliable supply when other options are less available. It is thus obvious to include desalination in the mix of future water sources planned for Cape Town. Nikolay Voutchkov introduced the City to international trends in construction of large desal plants. In short, plants with production of between 100 and 150 MLD proved most economic. Beyond 200 MLD economies of scale were not useful.1 Electricity usually constituted approximately 25–35% of the price of water produced, and energy security was important for continuous operation in production of potable water. Given the technical complexity, clients virtually always chose to

1  Larger projects are becoming the norm in the Middle East, but projects in South Africa are more likely to be closer aligned to similar projects in Australia, Europe and the US.

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minimise their risk by opting for Design-Build-Operate (DBO) or Build-Own-­ Operate-Transfer (BOOT). Following an alternative self-learning process internally was likely to lead to delays and potential operational issues with production impacted. The DBO approach involves asset ownership by a public entity where a DBO contractor is procured for the final process design, detailed design, construction, start-up, and commissioning, as well as for the long-term operation of the desalination plant. Under this method of delivery the owner remains responsible for project development, permitting and financing. In the BOOT method of delivery, the public entity purchases water as a product rather than a physical asset producing water, the desalination plant. The project ownership is retained by the BOOT contractor who takes responsibility for all aspects of long-term water production, with a water purchase agreement in place with the public entity. Desalination requires sufficient information to produce useful tender documents, including at least 6 months of water quality reports, impact of rain events and everything else that could affect salinity and water quality. Late in 2017, Nikolay Voutchkov advised that the City, at best, could aim for 10 MLD in a minimum of 6 months (assuming that approvals were in place or could be waived) and then ramp up over a number of months to higher yield. We were told in no uncertain terms that developing a 50 MLD plant was simply not possible by June 2019. Both Nikolay and Manuel Marino suggested that the City return to the drawing board and put together a practical proposal for large-scale desalination instead. Desalination costs are primarily a function of scale and source-water salinity, although water temperature, marine works requirements, network integration costs and procurement methodology contribute significantly. Expensive marine works involving tunnelling increase costs substantially and should be avoided where possible. Project costs are also a function of procurement method. Well-managed procurement, attracting reputable international companies, and contracted through a build-operate-transfer contract has delivered desalinated water at less than $1 (R15) per kilolitre in many places. In contrast, projects contracted through an owner-­ engineer design-build model are exposed to cost escalation and have proved to be more expensive, with costs in the range of $2 to $3 per kilolitre. The national desalination strategy supports public and private cooperation in provision of desalination solutions: In South Africa, it is normal practice for the public sector to contract out the design and construction of a new water treatment facility to the private sector, and then to assume responsibility for the operation of the treatment works once it has been commissioned. In the case of desalination, especially large-scale desalination of water intended for potable use, there is a strong case to be made to extend the role of the private sector to the operation and maintenance of the facility. This is because the technology is new and unfamiliar in South Africa, local capacity and skills to operate major desalination facilities do not exist in South Africa and the consequences of failure are significant. This is common practice internationally, where private firms are contracted on the basis of a design-build-operate contract. In the case of small package and community plants,

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operation and maintenance requirements are much more straight forward, and the public sector can operate these facilities with some support from the private sector. An appropriate comparison for an understanding of the different cost outcomes between these two procurement models is the difference in the cost outcomes between the owner-engineer model Eskom adopted for the Kusile and Medupi power stations (both of which experienced massive cost escalations) and the Renewable Energy Independent Power Procurement Programme (REIPPP), which has delivered cost-efficient coal, wind and solar power through competitive bidding processes linked to power purchase agreements. In the case of a 150 MLD desalination plant, the difference in cost outcomes between $1 (R 15) and $2–3 (R 30–45) per thousand litres results in additional “inefficiency” costs of between R 820 million and R 1.6 billion per annum, or R 8.2 to 16 billion over ten years. Achieving cost-efficient outcomes for the development of desalination capacity is therefore very important. Specific advice for Cape Town’s first desalination plant was to position the plant on the least-risk site available. With such an extensive coastline, it was surprising how few locations were suitable as potential sites. The Table Bay coast between Koeberg and Cape Town harbour has better ocean circulation but a lower temperature than the warmer False Bay coast, which also may have somewhat lower salinity due to its proximity to the Cape Flats Aquifer. The water strategy settled on developing a desalination plant with an initial capacity of between 50 and 150 MLD within ten years. It is important to site the plant so that a final capacity of up to 200 MLD could be accommodated but sizing the initial phase at 50 MLD would provide the opportunity to learn incrementally without exposure to covering excessive operational costs while this water was not necessarily required. Unintended benefits of delaying construction of a large-scale desalination plant arises from both technological advances constantly taking place in the recent past as well as lessons to be learnt from experience gained elsewhere. An example of good practice can be found in Perth’s development where close to half of water supply is provided through desalination. The first plant of 137 MLD was triggered in 2002 during the Millennium drought and fast-tracked to commissioning in 2006. As the drought had not broken, a further 137 MLD plant was triggered at a different site and commissioned in 2011. Upon completion, with the drought still persisting, doubling of the plant commenced without pause and a mere 16 months later, the second plant was operational yielding 274 MLD of droughtproof water. In terms of planning for long-term desalination, a seawater monitoring project was extended in 2018 to cover other potential locations along the Cape coastline. As desalination is likely to expand to provide a larger proportion of Cape Town’s water over coming decades, it was deemed preferable to identify a number of suitable sites, so that land could be acquired for long-term development. The preliminary assessment would therefore consider land availability, ownership and zoning rights, routing to bulk and reticulation networks and existing infrastructure, electrical infrastructure, preliminary environmental and social screening and most importantly, assessment of sea water quality and marine life.

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Intake and concentrate outfall configuration will be a function of the location. The phasing and operational regime will need to be analysed in design to establish whether the plant will run continuously as baseload or whether it will be commissioned only when surface water runs low. Unless the operation of the desalination plant is outsourced for its entire life, the City will need to develop operational skills in this form of water source. Furthermore, a balance must be struck between operating the plant at full capacity when needed, and moth-balling it while cheaper sources of water are abundant, all the while maintaining the desalination plant in good working order. Once the preliminary assessment is complete, the most desired sites will be selected for a detailed feasibility study. Over and above more detailed analysis of the factors already studied in the preliminary assessment, conceptual designs and costing at each site will be completed. A full environmental impact assessment will have to be undertaken prior to the implementation of large-scale desalination. The City will also need to further explore the most appropriate project funding and implementation mechanism. The desalination feasibility study in 2017 for a large permanent desalination plant included establishment of a pilot plant at Koeberg which would inform the design for a potential larger desalination plant at that site in the future. While it was apparent that the project location adjacent to the nuclear power station would be too complex to yield water in time to ameliorate the water scarcity, nonetheless it was decided to continue development of the pilot plant. The 2015 feasibility study had concluded that Koeberg was the best location to provide for future city water demand growth, at the time. 9.3.3.3  Temporary Desalination Projects Three temporary desalination projects were irrevocably triggered in 2017, and the City was contractually committed to implement these. The combined yield of 16 MLD would provide just more than 3% of the city’s daily demand under extreme restrictions and thus insufficient to make a dent in the daily water requirement, while the cost was significant. On the other hand, seven million litres of water per day is a substantial volume of water for small populations and can theoretically serve 35,000 households at a suppressed demand of 6 kl/month. The three plants combined could thus serve up to 80,000 households. The tenders were issued for turnkey operations, to design, supply, establish, commission, operate and later decommission seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) plants at the sites designated, to supply SANS 241:2015 compliant potable water for a 24-month leasing period. One contractor won the bids for both Strandfontein and Monwabisi plants which provided some synergy as they are located less than 15 kilometres apart along the False Bay coastline. Signing of the contracts meant that the City had committed to payment over the entire contract period: unless there was a breach of contract by the contractor, the municipality would have to cover the costs as per the contract. No investment was

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made upfront but the decision to proceed resulted in a sunk cost that could no longer be avoided. There was no turning back. Although no formal environmental impact assessment was required in terms of the National Environmental Management Act 107 of 1998 Section 30A directives, the City committed to report monthly to the environmental department responsible (Republic of South Africa 1998). Further commitments to environmental preservation included submission of construction method statements, obtaining coastal discharge permits for concentrate and monitoring the receiving ocean body for any impacts on the marine life. Along the False Bay coast, heritage regulations required us to undertake archaeological and paleontological assessments and to survey the coastline for shipwrecks prior to construction commencement. A number of other small scale desalination tenders with a combined capacity of 14 MLD had been awarded subject to funding. These were to be located in Hout Bay, Simon’s Town and Strand but were eventually cancelled in 2018. A further 58 MLD temporary desalination from the WRP was in progress in procurement, and the political leadership was reluctant to cancel prior to winter rainfall materialising. Large-scale ship- and barge-based desalination solutions had not found significant traction as costs had been prohibitively high. The water team expended much energy on all the desalination tenders—from preparation of documentation through the procurement process. The timeframes were ridiculously tight and extraordinary pressure was piled onto the engineers responsible for the work. It was a standing joke that the amount of overtime hours recorded on time clocks often fell outside of that allowed by labour legislation and that they should clock-out at 17h00 before returning to their desks to burn the midnight oil. Keeping a healthy sense of humour helped maintain our sanity during the most stressful of months. When tenders were eventually cancelled, it was rather crushing for the water team to have expended so much time and effort in preparing, evaluating and awarding tenders which never came to pass. The stressful experience fostered our learning about unfamiliar technology, which provided some comfort. Strandfontein 7 MLD SWRO Plant Strandfontein is located on the northern shore of the False Bay coast which lies to the south of the CBD in the City of Cape Town. The temporary desalination plant was sited at the Strandfontein beach pavilion, on disturbed ground adjacent to the paved parking area to the west and the Cape Flats Dune Strandveld to the east (see Fig. 9.21). The tender was awarded for a fixed price of just under R 155 million (including VAT), to deliver 5110 million litres over a two-year period translating to a cost of R 30.27/kilolitre. The contract period allowed 18 weeks to full delivery, with commissioning in two phases. The intake was through a subsea HDPE pipeline with concrete collars, 1.3 km offshore at a depth of 5 m. Concentrate discharge was into the

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Fig. 9.21  Strandfontein temporary desalination plant under construction. Looking south. (Photo courtesy of Bruce Sutherland, City of Cape Town)

surf-zone. The plant was located close to the reticulation network, where the water could be blended with the City’s treated water. To minimise environmental impacts, the intake and concentrate discharge pipes were laid in a single trench to sea. The pipes were strung together and floated out to sea to be anchored with concrete blocks. The predicted zone of initial dilution was 640 m2 beyond which specific water quality targets had to be met, including: • Salinity between 33,000 and 36,000 parts per xx; • Temperature 85% 0% 0% >44%

85%– 75% 10% 10% 43%

75%– 65% 20% 30% 38%

65%– 60% 30% 40% 34%

60%– 50% 35% 45% 28%

50%– 40% 40% 50% 21%