Wednesday, February 19, 2025

Picture Of Newlands Swimming Pool Shows Just How Much Trouble Cape Town Is In

For many Southern Suburb folk a splash in the Newlands Pool is a staple, but in case you haven't popped past lately you should check this out.

That picture above shows Newlands Swimming Pool in its prime.

Who could forget that blue water, the beautiful mountain backdrop, the hazy memories of drinking in the stands during school swimming events that one was forced to attend.

Whatever your reason for popping past, the pool is a regular part of many people’s lives.

How about the current state though? This picture started doing the rounds since being featured in a Bloomberg article titled “Will Cape Town run out of water?” last week.

Click on the image below for the full-size picture.

Not lekker at all.

I’m sure yesterday was a rough Monday for all, but someone else feels your pain:

Cape Town Mayor Patricia de Lille says she has a new reason to hate Mondays.

That’s when she gets weekly reports on levels in the dams that supply South Africa’s second-biggest city, and on how much water its 4 million residents are using. The numbers regularly show that “Day Zero”—when most taps could stop running—will probably arrive in May, a month or two before the onset of the winter rains.

I’ll skip ahead to the end of that Bloomberg piece:

De Lille says she’s is confident the city can avoid Day Zero, which will occur if dam levels hit 13.5 percent (they are currently at about 35 percent, down from 53 percent a year ago and 92 percent in 2014). But contingency plans are being put in place for that eventuality. They include distributing drinking water at 200 collection points, guarded by the police and army, and rationing residents to 25 liters [sic] each.

“I don’t want to underestimate how catastrophic Day Zero could be,” said Clem Sunter, an independent scenario planner who has also been advising the city. “It would require thousands of tankers to provide a minimal level of water to each person. You would have to think of temporarily evacuating people.”

Oh great, just an evacuation.

When do we start saying that letting the yellow mellow isn’t quite good enough, and enact the ‘don’t flush the brown down’ emergency plan?

[source:bloomberg]