South Africa: "Running On Empty"

SOUTH AFRICA

Running on Empty

Day Zero – the moment when water supplies in Cape Town, South Africa, are scheduled to run dry – has been postponed until 2019.

Previously, city officials thought the city’s reservoir would tap out around April 21.

City residents have been living on 13 gallons of water a day, queuing up for rations or at natural springs, using buckets to catch excess water in the shower and taking other drastic measures to cut consumption as much as possible.

Even so, the city’s poorest residents have complained that they have been living with such privations for years, said Crux.

Still, as CNN reported, the postponement doesn’t mean Cape Town is out of the woods. The Theewaterskloof dam, which supplies half the city’s water, is at 15-percent capacity amid a terrible drought. It was full five years ago.

The 13-gallon rule is still in effect.

There’s another reason Capetonians need to stick with the program. The decision to move Day Zero into next year might not have been directly related to water supplies. Money might have been the major factor. Crises, after all, are bad for business.

“It appears that the decision was political, designed to limit the negative impact on tourism and investment in the city,” wrote South African media outlet news24 in an analysis.

That’s one reason why the world has been watching Cape Town closely.

Researchers at the University of Arizona studied whether Phoenix might someday hit Day Zero. They concluded that Cape Town’s reliance on surface water was its vulnerability. No rain, no water. But Arizona has a more diversified water portfolio, they argued.

Some disagreed. Calling Phoenix the “least sustainable” city in the world, the Guardian wondered whether the American city’s days were numbered, given how the Colorado River is drying up.

“The Phoenix metro area is on the cusp of being dangerously overextended,” climate researcher Jonathan Overpeck told the British newspaper. “It’s the urban bull’s-eye for global warming in North America.”

But money might ride to the rescue.

Bloomberg estimated that world will need around $1 trillion in water infrastructure in the coming years. That’s an opportunity, but regulators will need to uncouple water consumption from revenue, the business news service noted. Companies that promote conservation need to be rewarded, after all.

The answer to the water question has yet to be found. But for a look at the results of running dry, check out the situation in Calvinia in the northern Cape and Beaufort West, where conservation is extreme, water theft keeps cops busy and people stand on the highway begging – for water.