By Jana Burger
Effective from 1 March, the Stellenbosch Municipality has put Level 2 Water Restrictions in place. In a notice released on 1 March, they describe the implementation of these restrictions as “a responsible and measured intervention to manage demand early and avoid more severe measures later”.
A limit of 330 litres per person per day has been implemented. Stellenbosch University (SU) published a media release on 4 March, encouraging members of the university to use water wisely.
Nadeem Gafieldien, SU’s Director Environmental Sustainability, states that SU needs to reduce daily consumption by 272 kilolitres (from the current 1 300 kilolitres) per day. This would require each person to use 10 litres of water less per day.
One of the restrictions (released on 3 March) prohibits people from using irrigation on any other days than Tuesdays and Saturdays from 18:00 to 09:00. This restriction is applicable for any kind of water, but people are still encouraged to use non-potable water.
SU theoretically does not abide by this restriction, as their irrigation systems run for longer than an hour every day. This is because they follow their allocation quota from the Theewatersfloof Water Scheme, which is regulated by the Laer Eerste River Board. Die Matie spoke to SU’s Chief Director Campus Development, Infrastructure and Services (CDIS), Nicolette van den Eijkel. Van den Eijkel stated that SU’s irrigation for sports fields and landscapes uses non-potable water from the Eerste River, stored in the Ertjieskloof Dam.
She further clarifies that SU has “permission from the Department of Water and Sanitation to use this water for irrigation, and therefore, the current irrigation practices comply with the applicable regulations”.
Van den Eijkel also clarifies that sometimes irrigation happens past 09:00, because “occasionally, valves may become blocked by sand or organic material, preventing them from closing properly. This can cause sprinklers to run longer than intended. When these incidents are reported, the maintenance team must manually clean the valves and test the system, which sometimes requires running sprinklers during the day while testing is conducted.”
A big contributor to water usage on campus are residences. When asked about the popular Water Days that happened during and after Welcoming, Van den Eijkel said, “Water Days and slip and slides can only happen if an alternative safe source of water is used and recycled and reused. [Some] slip and slides did use dam water as the resource.”
Upon further enquiry regarding which residences made use of dam water for slip and slides, no response from SU has been given yet at the time of publishing. Out of the residences to whom Die Matie was able to reach out, Irene Ladies’ Residence, Metanoia Residence and Pieke Commuter Student Community (CSC) responded.
Irene’s Sustainability HC member, Phoenix Bailey, has confirmed that Irene simply used normal municipal water from the tap for their slip and slides. Thomas Muir, Metanoia’s Sustainability HC member, has confirmed the same for Metanoia’s Water Day activities.
Tarah Waries, Sustainability HC member from Pieke, told Die Matie that Pieke “has not had a Water Day as of yet”, but that they “will be having a Water Day activity this upcoming term”. She said, “We have been working on ensuring that the whole event makes use of sustainable and safe ways of using water. We will be using borehole water. The water activities will be taking place on grass so no water will be wasted as it [will] ensure to water the garden area.” She added that the event’s entry fee will aid the Move4Food movement and other social impact projects within Pieke.
In terms of the normal water usage of residences, SU monitors the daily and monthly water consumption of each residence, based on their size and facilities.
Van den Eijkel says, “If consumption exceeds the benchmark of 80 litres per person per day, or rises significantly above the building’s average monthly consumption, targeted awareness campaigns and engagements are conducted with the specific residence or academic building to encourage water conservation.”
This has, however, not been necessary yet as water consumption on campus is well below the 80 litres per person per day benchmark. The university also wants to reduce potable water consumption by 20%.
Lastly, concern has been raised about various burst pipes on campus that take very long to get fixed. Specifically, On 4 March there was a burst pipe in the main irrigation line, close to Heemstede, causing a lot of water to flood onto the grass. Van den Eijkel clarifies, “The infrastructure in this area is old, and there have been three bursts on the same pipeline in the vicinity of the Heemstede lawn. Unfortunately, after such a burst, the line must drain for approximately a day before repairs can begin, which can delay the repair process.”
She urges students to report burst pipes to the CDIS Service Desk at fmhelpdesk@sun.ac.za or 021 808 4666.
