The Water Crisis – Looking Back With RPM Drilling

Thinking about getting a water borehole💦, but don’t really know how it works or where to start?

RPM Drilling can help!!!

Whether it’s on your residential🏠, commercial🏢, industrial🏭 or farming property🚜.

Or Call Us At 023 342 5184 (WORCESTER) 082 568 1163 (PAARL)

Where RPM Drilling finds itself and where we fit in…..

RPM Drilling is over 35 years in the trade and with over 50 collective years of experience.
We have grown and shaped with the times and are heavily invested in the Western Cape and its surrounds.

Building relationship and bridges to farms and towns that require our services are of key importance to us. Water has and is a scare resource and we understand that our services play an important role in resolving the shortage of this commodity.

Looking back at the water crisis….(RPM Drilling’s Teams view)

Spring has sprung and our Western Cape clouds have finally given a leak, blessing the Cape with some much needed rain!

With the water crisis finish line finally in sight and new growth coming to our greenery, it’s time too for growth at RPM Drilling!

Launching our new website, and the planning and development processes we undertook in doing so has got our team nostalgic/excited, so we’re looking back at how we all, businesses and local residents alike, came together during this time of crisis to combat the water shortage together.

From helping large corporations to families making the switch to water boreholes, we’re proud to have helped our community get water-wise and minimize municipal consumption in some small way.

Although the Cape Town water shortage reached peak crisis levels in 2018, the drought has actually been a long time coming!

If we take an in-depth look at the drought timeline, our water shortage can be traced back all the way to 2015! It is not hard to recognize that one of the largest contributing factors to water scarcity in the Cape is the fact that the population has grown by 50% in only ten years.

Add to that the below average rainfalls during 2015, ‘16, and ‘17, and increased agricultural usage as a result, and it’s no wonder Capetonians were faced with the threat of taps running dry.

See the Cape Town Dam Levels

Scientists are pointing at global warming and climate change as the likely culprit for the extreme lack of rainfall during the winters of ‘15-’17.

With severe (level 6B) water restrictions(Just got changed to level 5) in place, and hefty municipal fines associated with using more than your allotted 50 litres of water per person per day, many property owners, whether private or business entities, turned to water borehole drilling as a potential solution.

Groundwater sources in the Cape are plentiful, and RPM Drilling was able to assist countless clients with both initial water borehole drilling, and borehole maintenance during this time.

Not only was identifying alternative water sources a priority, but so too was improving water efficiency both in the home and in businesses.

While the rains are falling now, and the Cape can count its lucky stars, that doesn’t mean that we’re out of the fire and back into the frying pan just yet.

For one thing, level 6B water restrictions, and the associated fines for excessive water consumption, are still technically in place.

Although there has recently been talk of relaxing both the restrictions and the tariff, as it stands, nothing is official and residents would be wise to go on minimising their use of municipal water, not only to cut back on costs but to help ensure that the Cape doesn’t face another Day Zero event in the years to come.

Thankfully, now that the dam levels have risen significantly, some of the risks of the severe water shortage have been mitigated.

Fire risks are lowered, the agricultural sector can begin to recover itself, and industries reliant on a steady supply of water can stop holding their breath.

With the winter rains showing no sign of letting up anytime soon, 2018 dam levels may actually even exceed dam levels as recorded at the high point of 2014!

With this information and understanding, RPM Drilling have 6 Drill Units available and ready to serve, we are happy to assist where we can, we are only a phone call away.