Cape Town: Water and Sanitation Directorate of City of Cape Town called on public to express their views and opinions over the city exploring external options for its permanent desalination plant.
Reportedly, as a part of its feasibility study, the public was proposed to implement and operate the first permanent desalination plant of the City of Cape Town in Paarden Eiland through an external mechanism. There’s a particular time period that has been shard with the residents to comment i.e. from Friday, Jan 31, 2025 to Monday, Mar 03, 2025.
The City of Cape Town has encouraged the local public to comment on the practicality of utilising a suitable external service delivery mechanism in order to implement and operate the planned Paarden Eiland Desalination Plant.
Member of the Mayoral Committee for Water and Sanitation – Councillor Zahid Badroodien said that it is important for the city to give the public a fair chance to provide their considered, informed inputs on these matters.
Badroodien cleared that they encourage the residents and stakeholders to submit their comments by March 03, 2025. As per the completed feasibility study report, all feedback will be incorporated in the finals that will be made available to the community for comments before it is submitted to Council for their consideration.
Permanent Desalination Plant in the City of Cape Town will be built on significant features. Desalination is a scientific process, in which salts are removed from sea water, then sent for processing it further to make it suitable and safe for drinking and human consumption.
The proposed plant is designed in the face of climate change, unpredictable rainfall and a growing population. It forms part of the various water augmentation projects of the City of Cape Town such as the New Water Programme and Water Strategy.
Furthermore, the Desalination Plant aims to diversify drinking water supply resources and build a resilient future supply. The planned permanent desalination plant project is anticipated to produce between 50 and 70 million litres of water per-day.
Overall, the main objective of the Water Strategy is to increase the water supply of the City of Cape Town by an additional 300 million litres from diversified sources.