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KOUGA Municipality has launched a door-to-door campaign in the Gamtoos Valley area to complement its drought-mitigation efforts.
Twenty temporary staffers have been visiting households at Hankey and Patensie this week, with the focus on identifying leaks for repair and raising awareness of water-saving methods.
The campaign follows on the introduction of water rationing to the towns earlier this month after the level of the area’s only supply dam, the Kouga Dam, dropped to below 7%. The level stood at 6,76% on Monday, August 27.
Hankey, in particular, has been identified as an area of concern as the water usage has remained above the allotted quota despite restrictions and water-saving campaigns.
Speaking during the training of the group in Humansdorp on Friday, Kouga Speaker Hattingh Bornman said although the municipality was implementing watershedding, more needed to be done to mitigate the situation.
“We would like to get to the bottom of the high water usage and ask homeowners to work with us by allowing our teams access to their properties. They will be wearing Kouga-branded T-shirts and name tag and will be carrying their IDs as well,” he said.
Bornman said the team had been recruited from the same communities where they will be working and that most will be known in those areas.
Each member will be carrying a questionnaire which will be used to note water leaks at each household. They will also be armed with educational material about leak identification, water-saving tips and rainwater harvesting ideas.
The collected data will be collated by the municipality and will form the basis of the next course of action.
The teams already hit the ground running on Monday.
“The water shortages in Hankey and Patensie remain a matter of grave concern as no good rains have been predicted for the catchment area in the near future,” said Executive Mayor Horatio Hendricks.
The municipality has also been collecting bottled water to help augment the water supply to the communities of Hankey and Patensie.
