Residents must conserve water

 IT IS truly a shocking fact that 95 million litres of precious water – more than half the quantity supplied to the city of Port Moresby – is unaccounted for.  

In other words, that water, which has cost money to treat and reticulate, has ended up earning nil return for the state-owned utility company, Eda Ranu.

Meanwhile, Eda Ranu goes on supplying the city and makes an income from only half the water it supplies.

Eda Ranu provides the city with 170 million litres of water per day but 95 million litres or 56 per cent of that is going to waste. 

And there is as yet no quick and easy means to stop that soon enough. 

The source of the wastage is, according to Eda Ranu officials, illegal connections or deliberate tampering and breaking of water pipes.

We believe that much of the illegal connections and stealing is happening in settlement areas and some other residential premises.

Such wastage could be tolerated or excused if the source of supply is supposedly unending – when the level of water at the Sirinumu dam is constantly at its peak level of 340,000 cubic metres.  

However, as reported yet again in The National yesterday, the water level has dropped by about half already and this is certainly a critical situation for the city.

Realising that the water supply to the city cannot be sustained given the ongoing level of wastage at the same time, Eda Ranu has called for the public to take the necessary, simple and commonsense water saving measures. 

Apart from wastage arising from illegal connections and broken pipes, even ratepayers are at times negligent and contribute overall to water going to waste. 

A dripping tap in a home or office may seem negligible but overnight this can be a bucketful so all leaking taps ought to be fixed.  

Eda Ranu urges home owners to use buckets and not hoses to wash and clean around their homes. 

Better still, those who have an alternative source of water such as a borehole should use it for home cleaning or to wash their cars and save the city supply for needs like cooking and drinking.

Vehicles can go without a wash down for days unlike humans and so people should use water sparingly on their vehicles.

Port Moresby’s water and electricity are from the same source and both are affected by any drastic drop in the level of water such as in the current situation.

Power generation would most likely be affected if the level of water goes down so low as to cause that.

There is no knowing when the current dry spell will end and if, due to some favourable situation, it does not extend to what the city of Port Moresby and most areas of the country had experienced in the 1997 El Nino.

The city water supplier’s efforts to keep a reasonable supply of water at constant levels under the current dry spell and the fast declining water level at the Sirinumu dam would be made a lot easier if consumers cooperated and changed their water use habits significantly this time.  

The situation demands such cooperation and change of consumption habits and the city’s population and villagers in the periphery who are connected must take it upon themselves to conserve water and discourage others from wasting it as well.

People do not have any control over the El Nino weather pattern, yet all is within their power to conserve and use wisely the remaining water sitting in the Sirinumu dam to ensure that they are supplied well into any extended dry period or throughout it if possible.

They city residents have been warned and urged to help conserve water. 

If people abide by those water saving instructions, they can leave the rest to the powers of nature or pray for rain.

Yet who would want to hear the prayers of a people who wilfully waste what is already running out but are blind to the fact? 

All must take heed of the warning by Eda Ranu. 

Failing that, there is a near certainty that the water at Sirinumu dam would have run out well before the expected time. 

And it will not only be water that the city would be crying out for but PNG Power’s ability to generate electricity using water would be greatly curtailed.

Every individual resident of the city or water consumer would do him or herself a lot of good by applying commonsense today when it is called for.