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Vaal Dam now full‚ say provincial water authorities

FILE PICTURE: The Vaal Dam wall. Pic: Marianne Schwankhart. Circa January 2010. © The Times
FILE PICTURE: The Vaal Dam wall. Pic: Marianne Schwankhart. Circa January 2010. © The Times

The Vaal Dam reached its full storage capacity on Monday with an inflow of 669.75 cubic metres a second‚ the provincial department of water and sanitation said.

This was posted on the department’s twitter account‚ in which it emphasised that people should save and use water sparingly.

“At midday today the department will release 104m³/s of water from the Vaal Dam‚” said department spokesperson Sputnik Ratau. The main town affected would be Douglas in the Northern Cape‚ at the confluence of the Vaal and Orange rivers‚ he said.

According to the department the Vaal Dam is now at its the highest level in six years. This comes after heavy showers in the past few months.

Water restrictions in Gauteng would be lifted after the proclamation was gazetted and affected municipalities were consulted.

“What we want to caution is that we’d rather the practise of water saving becomes second nature.” Ratau said.

The South African Weather Service predicts less rain in the Gauteng region over the next week. “Johannesburg can expect a chance of rainfall while Pretoria could potentially experience less rain compared to Johannesburg‚” said forecaster Wayne Venter.

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