Description

Theewaterskloof Dam is located near Villiersdorp and is the largest dam supplying Cape Town. It is the seventh-largest dam in South Africa. It is larger in capacity than the other 13 dams combined. Theewaterskloof is connected to an extensive system of pipelines and tunnels that, in turn, connects it to the broader Western Cape Water Supply System. Particularly impressive is the 30 km of tunnels that pass through the Franschhoek, Groot Drakenstein, and Stellenbosch mountains. To put this in perspective, this tunnel system is nearly eight times longer than the Huguenot Tunnel that one travels through on the N1 highway near Paarl. The tunnels link the Theewaterskloof Dam with the Cape Town water system near Somerset West via the Kleinplaas Balancing Dam (not to be confused with the Kleinplaats Dam near Simon’s Town) in the Jonkershoek Valley near Stellenbosch. The tunnels also connect to pipelines in the Franschhoek Valley linking it to the Wemmershoek and Berg River dams.

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