The heatwave has reopened the old wounds of the water supply. Kochani is on the brink of water restrictions after consumption more than doubled - from the usual 23 to as much as 53 litres a second. The municipality is warning: if it doesn't drop, restrictions start tomorrow.

The reason is no mystery. A large share of the drinking water ends up watering lawns, gardens and farmland, washing yards and concrete surfaces. The neighbourhoods of Orizari, Grdovci, Upper and Lower Podlog, Trkanje and Mojanec are affected. The higher zones are already facing a serious shortage, and if this keeps up, the other neighbourhoods are next in line.

Here lies an older problem that the restrictions only mask. Drinking water running through a hose onto a lawn is a symptom of both habit and infrastructure - of a system that has neither enough capacity nor enough control when the heat hits. It's easier to impose a restriction on the public than to solve why the same story repeats every summer.

Is the problem careless citizens or the management of the water utility? Probably both. But when the answer to every crisis is "save water" rather than "fix the system", then the citizens pay for failures that aren't theirs. The heat will pass; the question of who actually takes care of the water remains.