The Table Mountain Group Aquifers (TMGA) have the potential to develop a large scale scheme to augment the City of Cape Town’s water supply on a more permanent basis, mayor Patricia de Lille said on Sunday.

De Lille on Sunday visited the site of a pilot project for the abstraction of water from the TMGA at the Steenbras catchment area near Somerset West. The Table Mountain Group (TMG) is a deep-lying group of rock formations or layers that extends from Van Rynsdorp to Cape Town and from Cape Town to Port Elizabeth.

“The TMG aquifers have the potential to develop a large scale scheme to augment the city’s water supply on a more permanent basis,” De Lille said.

The city was currently drilling test abstraction boreholes in the Steenbras catchment area, which would inform the design of a full-scale well-field and support a water use licence application for full-scale production.

The city had also identified other areas with access to the TMG aquifers that could be developed as part of the broader water resilience project that aimed to ensure water security in the years beyond 2018. The yield from the other areas of the TMG aquifers, such as the Helderberg, South Peninsula, and Wemmershoek, would be about 50 to 60 million litres a day, De Lille said.

The yield from the first phase of the TMGA project would be about ten-million litres a day, which would be pumped into the Steenbras Dam. This project was part of the city’s commitment to do everything it could to bring additional water online as the region faced the worst drought in recorded history.

“Capetonians have done well to save water, as illustrated by the fact that day zero has been moved out to 13 May next year, but we still need to do more if we are to avoid day zero altogether. If every person does not reduce his or her water use to 87 litres per person per day there is still a risk that residents will have to queue for water daily at collection sites across the city,” she said.

“We can only beat this drought if we work together – each person saves water while the city brings its side of the bargain to bring additional supply online.

“This is our commitment in action and I will continue to lead a team of dedicated staff who are looking at every possible solution to avoid acute water shortages. Climate change means that we cannot rely only on rain water to supply our needs and we all have to fundamentally change our relationship with water,” De Lille said.