Although Western Cape Premier Helen Zille gave the assurance that schools will remain open and that pupils will have access to water, not all schools have boreholes or other alternative water supplies. There are plans for water to be delivered in trucks to schools that do not have access to alternative water.
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Gavin Kode, deputy director-general for Transport and Public Works, briefed the Western Cape’s Legislature’s rules committee on the water crisis. Asked if schools could close and pupils be sent home, Kode said: “There is a very strong possibility of that happening. When the situation gets really bad, we will reach a point where we can only secure life sustaining facilities and other key facilities like hospitals,” he said.
A total of 407 schools in the province (27%) have existing boreholes. Of these, 308 (76%) were functioning. Fifty-eight are producing potable water and 349 are producing non-potable water. Service providers are standing ready to drill a further 10 boreholes at strategic points to supply groups of schools that have no or insufficient local sources of water. They are also working to rehabilitate as many of the non-functioning boreholes and those that are in a poor condition.
Kode said schools next to hospitals will have water in the taps. The City is unable to cut the water off at hospitals and not in a residential area around the hospital.
“The City’s reticulation system is not like the electricity grid where specific areas can be cut-off from electricity. The reticulation system is big. Even after Day Zero, some the taps might still have water as there is still water in the system. It can take the City up to two weeks to cut off the water completely and this will be area by area,” he said.
Zille said officials have established that 478 schools within the metro and Winelands and West Coast districts at least have water storage tanks. Most of these schools do not have a borehole. They include 275 schools in metropolitan districts and 203 in the West Coast and Winelands districts.
The education department has tasked the Department of Transport and Public Works to install reticulation systems to connect all tanks as well as ground water supplies to the school facilities, and this work is well under way.
A key priority is to ensure that all schools dependent on the Western Cape Water Supply System have at least water storage facilities which are plumbed to the reticulation system of the school.
The committee agreed that a further meeting will be held to discuss the Day Zero plan.
Cape Argus