The City of Cape Town has slammed another fake news statement claiming that Cape Town's water supply will be cut for two days on the 29th and 30th of March.
The statement says that the entire water system for Cape Town and the surrounding areas will shut down in order to facilitate "the new upgrades to the reservoir".
The City of Cape Town has confirmed to Traveller24 that the alert is a fake, condemning con-artists for constantly confusing Mother City residence with fake water cutting alerts.
"We warn residents against falling victim to the many water-related hoaxes that are out there and which are causing unnecessary panic," the City of Cape Town says. "Those driving these hoaxes clearly have nothing better to do with their time. Residents must not fall for this type of panic-mongering."
The latest fake statement, which is making the rounds on social media, is printed on an official City of Cape Town letterhead, and 'signed' by the Western Cape premier Helen Zille.
This is what the FAKE alert looks like -
Water remains safe despite change in flavour, treatment
The City of Cape Town says that although blanket cut-offs of water supply will not occur, Capetonians "should note that water pressure may be reduced to limit water leaks and that slight changes in water taste and clarity may occur due to low dam levels".
This, however, does not mean that the quality of the water is in any way affected.
"We are currently experiencing high levels of geosmin in the water drawn from the Theewaterskloof Dam. Geosmin is a naturally occurring organic compound which has an earthy flavour and aroma and which is sometimes present in water.
"The City is currently increasing powdered activated carbon dosing during the water treatment process in an attempt to deal with geosmin. It may take some time for the taste and smell of the water to normalise over a large area of the central and southern suburbs of Cape Town.
"It must be emphasised that geosmin poses no threat to human health. Even minute concentrations can be detected by the incredibly sensitive human palate," the City says.
Water quality is closely monitored via a large number of water samples analysed according to the stringent South African National Standards requirements.
Water crisis continues
On Monday, 27 March, dam levels were sitting at a critically low 27,3%, which is 1,3% down from a week ago.
With the last 10% of a dam’s water mostly not being useable, dam levels are effectively at about 17,3 %, with approximately 103 days of usable water left at current consumption levels.
Consumption over the past week has encouragingly reached 725 million litres per day, which is 25 million litres above the collective usage target of 700 million litres per day.
