South Africa P.I.G.: WATER AND WATER POLLUTION

Showing posts with label WATER AND WATER POLLUTION. Show all posts

Acid Mine Drainage – is this the end of life in Gauteng?

It's taken the government 14 years to take the issue of AMD (acid mine drainage) seriously and focus on finding practical solutions – and even to acknowledge the importance of enforcing compliance and regular inspection! What is lacking is the political will and commitment to implement plans and apportion liability. AMD on the Witwatersrand has now reached a crisis point. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpbqzNUvHYoGOKwiHY6peO0dv6ED5AnuxwpKXBvi_77PUYLDt9O2fC16UOmyJ73RqmnC2hXB5xgjoToAzdeSUyZsyZsYRg8NxoZxV2edkWFdcV6hcClq5XOMl5PiUpnphyluHaMdVutgTk/s1600/dead-carp-in-lake-300x224.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5562581434539776162" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpbqzNUvHYoGOKwiHY6peO0dv6ED5AnuxwpKXBvi_77PUYLDt9O2fC16UOmyJ73RqmnC2hXB5xgjoToAzdeSUyZsyZsYRg8NxoZxV2edkWFdcV6hcClq5XOMl5PiUpnphyluHaMdVutgTk/s400/dead-carp-in-lake-300x224.jpg" style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 300px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 224px; CURSOR: hand" /></a>While South Africans are witnessing the “catastrophe”, the government committees are debating the water crisis in boardrooms, and nothing has been done to prevent the decanting of acid mine water. The first AMD (acid mine drainage) decant that occurred on the West Rand in 2002, was predicted in 1996. When will the department of water affairs recognise the situation for what it is – a pending disaster! Decisive action has become imperative as acidic mine water has now reached the Cradle of Humankind from the West Rand. In July 2010 the department stated that potential decant within the Johannesburg area could take place within 18 months, or by early 2012. Those 18 months had now shrunk to 12 months. It is all very well that the inter-ministerial committee appointed by the department of water affairs to investigate, completed its work, but besides the announcement of a report of which the findings were never made public, we have heard nothing further. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVwnPKDBXKXTTZJIJzzNlE70sj89sHaYVK-MO-eyvjAENmTjjS-Ty0euA0899UzJqOW1pVe6nhwDfSs6bYp0XgQM1B65dPf21RkpMVThsDT_hkMKOKcdZmUBk7wCU3wg9Zmgzz5Gmopsrx/s1600/fish-dead-acid-mine-water-pollution.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5562581638293968370" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVwnPKDBXKXTTZJIJzzNlE70sj89sHaYVK-MO-eyvjAENmTjjS-Ty0euA0899UzJqOW1pVe6nhwDfSs6bYp0XgQM1B65dPf21RkpMVThsDT_hkMKOKcdZmUBk7wCU3wg9Zmgzz5Gmopsrx/s400/fish-dead-acid-mine-water-pollution.jpg" style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 300px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 350px; CURSOR: hand" /></a>Due to governments delays in dealing with AMD and given the huge volumes of AMD currently decanting, inadequate treatment methods (i.e. neutralisation) may have to be implemented in the short term – at the expense of our environment, health and economy! The threats are massive: Not only our water, but our health and food security is compromised. It is worrying that instead of scientific research and engineering, Ministers are calling for simplistic and quick solutions. Acid mine drainage is the most significant environmental threat facing South Africa and is going to take billions of Rands and will involve all sectors of society for many decades, if not centuries, to come.. We wait with bated breath to hear what Cabinet determines is the way forward!Footnote: For the record: A serious case of insufficient funds again! Government lacks the R1.5-billion needed for a 10-year rehabilitation plan. Just one pump to remove the water costs R218-million, but the current budget for this is R14-million. Which begs the question - Was the multibillion-rand Arms Deal, the R40-billion World Cup Soccer, the R21-billion Gauteng Freeway system or Cuba's R1.1-billion freebie a life and death situation? And what of our Disney World that is expected to cost R25-billion? Or is this #101 failure of government where self-help is the order of the day - 'Water is Life' - do you think this may have dawned on anyone in government? Radioactive Pollution Acid Mine Water reaches Cradle of Mankind <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdFZY-mK0jyDFgL9bkmB8-THNZNwch7p6YSSxqtEcQzbjk3_iGdHdS-pCAM3e958umh1LLsz9J_tGZey9eyAz_Mnt3UAK-OuVz7uoM9MebEpQkaToAQ1C0mRidKzIQ7Tqm-wRkMtaH8McC/s1600/AMD-west-rand-gold-fields-300x225.png"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5562579888284327842" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdFZY-mK0jyDFgL9bkmB8-THNZNwch7p6YSSxqtEcQzbjk3_iGdHdS-pCAM3e958umh1LLsz9J_tGZey9eyAz_Mnt3UAK-OuVz7uoM9MebEpQkaToAQ1C0mRidKzIQ7Tqm-wRkMtaH8McC/s400/AMD-west-rand-gold-fields-300x225.png" style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 300px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 225px; CURSOR: hand" /></a>Acidic mine water that has been bubbling out of an old ventilation shaft on the West Rand for the past year has now reached the Cradle of Mankind and caused the deaths of over 60 carp in a dam. Radioactive dam left after failure to rehabilitate mine This stream runs from the Tweelopiespruit, which springs from the radioactive Robinson lake outside Randfontein. From here it runs through the Krugersdorp game reserve, "over" the Sterkfontein Caves, right through the Cradle of Mankind up to the Crocodile River, which runs into the Hartbeespoort Dam. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1nknsvTYnOf8y2AmCIlW2h3_73I6xF3fo0JBnhvJFOsok9aEPEcc209kluwOIKeqbiyXxGdK5GDH-NGVK08gwm5MpQjLCcg5UN82Rs0oF3btt2En4mfcBYhS3Jyo9SsLdwNM-LWUCSs2t/s1600/AMD-Tweelopies-downstream-from-Hippo-Dam-201x300.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5562580534379801698" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1nknsvTYnOf8y2AmCIlW2h3_73I6xF3fo0JBnhvJFOsok9aEPEcc209kluwOIKeqbiyXxGdK5GDH-NGVK08gwm5MpQjLCcg5UN82Rs0oF3btt2En4mfcBYhS3Jyo9SsLdwNM-LWUCSs2t/s400/AMD-Tweelopies-downstream-from-Hippo-Dam-201x300.jpg" style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 201px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 300px; CURSOR: hand" /></a>Neil Norquoy from Wild Cave Adventures found the dead fish on the farm Koelenhof on Thursday. The farm is about 10km northeast of the place where millions of litres of acidic mine water has been leaking on the West Rand since last year. The dam is situated about 3km northeast of the Sterkfontein Caves. The pollution had spread from the old Rand Uranium goldmine on the West Rand and has now spread north to within the Cradle of Mankind. At this stage, it has already passed the Sterkfontein Caves as the Blaaubankspruit runs "over" the Sterkfontein Caves. Water specialist Garfield Krige said he believed the acidic mine water of the West Rand had reached the Hartbeespoort Dam "long ago". <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8slf-lyuuoZSXnoBP_ZbP_YVix5HguFzN8FmzZ6HeNWwfs5fSHcsfNfCCAMEEtpHJgP79NLd3tHG2GtoHWg66MYS_6SjZXds_Ik4XzNtROxJ7wR1QvpCtuFsu0S08CZPfeSukr867DGrZ/s1600/AMD-Tweelopiespruit.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5562581027229956370" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8slf-lyuuoZSXnoBP_ZbP_YVix5HguFzN8FmzZ6HeNWwfs5fSHcsfNfCCAMEEtpHJgP79NLd3tHG2GtoHWg66MYS_6SjZXds_Ik4XzNtROxJ7wR1QvpCtuFsu0S08CZPfeSukr867DGrZ/s400/AMD-Tweelopiespruit.jpg" style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 200px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 300px; CURSOR: hand" /></a>The heavy rains over the past two weeks have filled the underground mined-out pockets on the West Rand to such an extent that there are now about 40 million litres of sour mine water in the Tweelopiespruit each day. Krige, who lives in the Cradle of Mankind, said stones in the area where the Blaaubankspruit flowed, are also coloured bright orange. The whole shore area of the Tweelopiespruit is coloured dark orange.What is AMD - Acid Mine Drainage? AMD is a deadly cocktail of chemicals which includes various sulphates, and metals such as lead, magnesium, cadmium, bismuth, and radioactive uranium, strontium (one of uranium’s progeny) and radium which decays into radon, radon gas, polonium, and thorium. Ministers 'simple and quick’ solution - neutralisation! What is neutralisation?<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYJ08luw5l7QJYaVqpafNoRPd2uEhiLJPCRw2BJPX7ODoSX87V9FYbkuhSrDrwTGBeBFgGtT2CjoqlzgylYe36tBGBtHmnSlKdWKI2_FZkBnQzaqi1bKaptYgoU7rXQ88D5EDUa68vgpSo/s1600/AMD-Crust-that-formed-in-the-Tweelopies-300x201.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5562579253686398178" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYJ08luw5l7QJYaVqpafNoRPd2uEhiLJPCRw2BJPX7ODoSX87V9FYbkuhSrDrwTGBeBFgGtT2CjoqlzgylYe36tBGBtHmnSlKdWKI2_FZkBnQzaqi1bKaptYgoU7rXQ88D5EDUa68vgpSo/s400/AMD-Crust-that-formed-in-the-Tweelopies-300x201.jpg" style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 300px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 201px; CURSOR: hand" /></a>Neutralisation is simply a pH adjustment, for example by adding lime to acid mine water. Neutralisation with lime removes some of the sulphate salts from the water, but not enough. It makes metals fall out of the water to the bottom of the water course. In the West Rand, neutralisation of AMD has resulted in the discharge of water with high sulphate salt content and a stream lined with metal deposits. (See photo right and click here: <a href="http://www.earthlife.org.za/?p=989">‘Inadequate treatment of acid water flowing into Tweelopiespruit’</a>.) Neutralisation also does not deal with radioactive particles from uranium in AMD. For neutralisation to be an effective water treatment method, the water needs to settle in holding tanks and the deposited toxic sludge removed and disposed of safely. (SEE IMAGES AND VIDEO LINKS BELOW) <li id="video"><a href="javascript:play_video(" style="COLOR: #3e7095">VIDEO - Part 1 Western Basin flooded with acid mine water</a> </li><li id="video"><a href="javascript:play_video(" style="COLOR: #3e7095">VIDEO - Part 2 Robinson Lake declared radioactive</a> </li><li id="video"><a href="javascript:play_video(" style="COLOR: #3e7095">VIDEO - Part 3 acid mine water spillages</a> </li>

Acid Mine Drainage – is this the end of life in Gauteng?

It's taken the government 14 years to take the issue of AMD (acid mine drainage) seriously and focus on finding practical solutions – an...

2:37 PM

'Why I left South Africa'

There are views for and against SA as it stands now. Here is my 50 cents on the state of affairs. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjlnPT7vu_DScC03C57c09ae9za99JdWJkQGpWueYtE8jpnPrsTbGipl5I7UQR54nPs6Qlp20mX0eBC4YLuBO9Bcz8kXJ0bfHwUPryWTVpOrY7WsUc30hNhW8AEUZ4NiCQqGry1JKfgOZ9/s1600/EXPATS.gif"></a>Pros: <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1xh144ieKf8YksdhWUrRjzj0L-eFMXhODscwHjus5wVvLzQrYOyQmprGSCQH5T-TbNNXa3XrRWuediyvU0ZRKZY5qTzHVKTnlgjHICKpOheA5kCXTq_7HTXarul9QMpK9BnuedLnEU2dJ/s1600/EXPATS.gif"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5550750283061566210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1xh144ieKf8YksdhWUrRjzj0L-eFMXhODscwHjus5wVvLzQrYOyQmprGSCQH5T-TbNNXa3XrRWuediyvU0ZRKZY5qTzHVKTnlgjHICKpOheA5kCXTq_7HTXarul9QMpK9BnuedLnEU2dJ/s400/EXPATS.gif" style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 250px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 170px; CURSOR: hand" /></a>1. Weather is generally great all over SA. 2. Freedom of Movement. 3. Great outdoors. 4. Big 5. 5. Huge opportunities. 6. Infectious SA humour and camaraderie. There are many more, and to each person they hold a different weighing of importance. Just so that you all know, I left SA, for these reasons... Cons: 1. Crime. Why is there a massive disparity between the police stats and the SAMA stats? Even so, the level of violence that goes with a house breaking etc. is off the scale, and don’t let them bull dust you, it is getting worse. (I have friends who own security companies, and their stats are all going up rapidly; why are the cops going down?) 2. Water. Why was the report by Dr Anthony Turton blocked by the CSIR? We have acid mine drainage and Government just set up a task team to “look into the matter” time has gone for this, action is required. 3. Sewerage. Government refused to release a report on the state of sewage, saying that it would cause panic amongst people, who didn’t understand. Yeah right. You have to love this minister, who says you only have a crisis when there is a country-wide outbreak of cholera. Just look to Haiti to see how well that idea worked! Read the <a href="http://www.dwaf.gov.za/Documents/GreenDropReport.pdf%20">report here</a>. 4. Corruption. There is almost zero appetite for tackling corruption. People get “redeployed” rather than fired and jailed. 5. Education. The highest per capita allocation in the world, and the results are dismal. I say no more. 6. Economy and social grants. People in SA need grants, that’s a fact, but you cannot have 4.5 million tax payers feeding 14 million (and counting) people. At some point, you have to give less to be able to give more. The tax base in SA is too small for all these election promises, SA has to become more prudent. 7. BEE. The idea was noble, the execution a disaster. For a white guy to get a shot at goals in SA he has to start a company. Once successful, he has to take on a BEE partner to get business, and the inevitable “SA handshake” Note, not all do business like this, but I have been around enough businesses to know this is de rigueur. 8. SARS at roadblocks. I have queried this with about 40-odd people who live in other countries, and they don’t know of any in those countries that have dedicated people from SARS/IRS etc at a roadblock. This tells me the fiscus is desperate for money. 9. Land reform. Why not use a partnership model? Who does Government expect someone to walk onto a farm and suddenly know how to run it profitably? The distribution plan is noble, and again, terribly executed. 10. Infrastructure. Not enough money to fix the roads. And oh yes, we pay taxes on our licenses, and then again on petrol, why then do we pay AGAIN for toll roads? Where is the money going to? 11. Plastic bags tax. Where is all that money people? 12. Quasi-militant unions. Utterances like, “we will make the country ungovernable” and “they will be war”, “we cannot guarantee we can control our members” wake up! This is a low-grade war. Since when do soldiers storm the Union Buildings? That is high treason people. We cannot afford to pay more for civil servants but they hold a gun to our head. Why do these people loot and trash the streets, cars and shops? Basal thuggery, endorsed by their handlers. There are many more points I can raise, but stand back a little and look at all the pieces of this jigsaw puzzle and SEE what your eyes and ears are telling your brain. It has been declining slowly for years. Forget the NP or the ANC. Who is running it matters not, how they are running it matters. Unless the so-called great unwashed realise they are getting a raw deal every 5 years, it will keep getting worse. I am grateful to my Father in heaven for the chance to leave. I will not throw stones when asked by people about my former country, but I will be candid about the facts. It is indeed, Cry The Beloved Country. I sleep now with open windows; don’t worry about the guy selling a paper at the traffic light (robot) or the lights behind me on the way home. SA citizens, you are going to have to stand up and demand accountability. Call me what you wish, but I am happier now than I have been in 20 years. My children have a genuine shot at goals. To those who choose to remain and those who cannot leave, I salute you.

'Why I left South Africa'

There are views for and against SA as it stands now. Here is my 50 cents on the state of affairs. Pros: 1. Weather is generally great all ov...

7:23 PM

SA's white farmers Trek to Eastern Europe

The number of commercial farmers in South Africa have plummeted from a high of 85,000 in 1994 to 11,600 today. The numbers become even more of a shock given the number was approximately 13,500 a few months back. <img alt="" border="0" height="451" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5533613846018341698" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE662eLubXbGeiYj4BQLdhgJZmb3w83CBoG1-xqS45BjgtmV8PsLgVnRTRLAW5wi1H9diBaukqsYjpQqayhSvP3rQfgI0UcObiKuDAH6avx-qmYIUIi5btmBfZBz9ZxILWiM3GgFrpQv1t/s640/KillingFields_2_400.png" style="display: block; height: 282px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" width="640" />The mostly White, Afrikaaner-Boer farmers find themselves increasingly marginalized in a society that views them as “land barons”, a government that looks to expropriate their land, and “war like conditions” which include a corrupt police force. “The increase in armed attacks, robbery and theft of farm products and implements holds serious financial implications for agriculture in our country. This high crime rate is experienced by the industry as economic sabotage,” said Agri-SA. In addition to the loss of commercial farmers, more than 1 million black African farm workers have become unemployed and have had to move their families to squatter camps. In total, approximately 5 million people have been displaced. Now the last of SA's white farmers are about to depart for greener pastures in Georgia, Eastern Europe. Watch Georgia go from strength to strength as South Africa sinks into poverty and starvation. <div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"> <a href="http://cofcc.org/2010/10/exodus-of-thousands-of-white-south-african-farmers-could-be-near/">Plans for the resettlement of white farmers of South Africa to Georgia</a> </div> "Most would like to stay but they were being chased by crime, corruption, water pollution and an unfriendly government," deputy secretary Bennie Van Zyl said, adding that "no government department at this stage was not a threat to the farmer." "This is a great opportunity for farmers, because the government in Georgia knows that, without commercial farmers, the country can't go forward... commercial farmers are (a country's) biggest asset. It's a pity our government doesn't have this approach." Georgia needs expertise as it wants to uplift its agricultural sector which was destroyed by socialism and communism about 70 years ago.

SA's white farmers Trek to Eastern Europe

The number of commercial farmers in South Africa have plummeted from a high of 85,000 in 1994 to 11,600 today. The numbers become even more ...

5:07 PM

SA up to its eyeballs in sewage

A full 97% of the country's sewage system infrastructure is 'dilapidated' and the overall neglect of the country's water and sanitation systems will cost R56 billion to repair. At the bottom of the cesspit in the findings was Mpumalanga's waste water treatment works scoring a vile 39 (more than 5 times acceptable risk levels), while the North West ranked second – at 33. Barkly East (Eastern Cape) scored 14 on the cumulative risk rating (twice the acceptable risk levels)Hidden Mortality <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-F79421FBg5eX73AoSQiVC_bCF1bQW0TJwtztr0KmQdPMo6UGfgH-7_4RJd_Ymw8y7wSRjfQB1uNpY2FJZz4fCr8nVs4ZyAwqutV2ikTk9YsD2NfglkK5At9bdvADR0uDaa2QbOTvFHc8/s1600-h/water-neglect.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5440692811512202562" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-F79421FBg5eX73AoSQiVC_bCF1bQW0TJwtztr0KmQdPMo6UGfgH-7_4RJd_Ymw8y7wSRjfQB1uNpY2FJZz4fCr8nVs4ZyAwqutV2ikTk9YsD2NfglkK5At9bdvADR0uDaa2QbOTvFHc8/s400/water-neglect.jpg" style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 295px; CURSOR: hand" /></a> From January to April 2008, more than 80 Barkly East children died of diarrhoeal diseases amid initial official denial, avoidance and obfuscation about a malfunctioning and decaying water reticulation and purification system. An epidemiological report confirmed that the purification process broke down in October 2007, with water tests revealing elevated levels of bacteria and Escherichia coli from then right through until March 2008. The first 15 Barkly East deaths led to a January report recommending the situation be declared an emergency with a wider probe needed. This led to the grim discovery that the baby and child death toll at nearby Sterkspruit was 4 times worse (62 child or baby deaths). Chief among the reasons identified for the current crisis were <ul><li>a lack of planning and budgeting by councillors, </li><li>the awarding of contracts to inexperienced contractors, </li><li>lack of skilled officials to operate facilities, </li><li>inability of officials to budget for and operate infrastructure, </li><li>vacant managerial and operational posts, </li><li>lack of technical ability to plan+manage capital-intensive water services projects, </li><li>mostly unqualified controllers, </li><li>lack of financial skills, </li><li>poor money management.</li></ul>Source: - SAMJ: South African Medical Journal vol.99 no.8 Cape Town Aug. 2009 Only 3% of SA’s sewage works are operational The best and the worst never happens in South Africa, Jan Smuts once remarked. And how right the old man was, when you consider the mind-numbing banality that passes as news of national importance these days. Amazingly, for a country facing the impossible task of bridging the biggest wealth gap in the world, the ongoing personal foibles of its president (which, to be honest, I truly couldn’t care about, as long as he gets the job done), continually hog the headlines, while the shortfall is made up of the rude outbursts of a township tsotsi who has twigged on to the bright idea that nationalising the mines would, after all, be the quickest way of getting really rich. Meanwhile, the startling revelation that only 3% of the country’s sewage works are operational, makes it only onto page 10 of an Afrikaans daily newspaper, while the English press never get around to actually covering it. In the North West, as exasperated farmers in Swartruggens and Sannieshof can attest to, there are apparently no fully functional sewage works. Not a single one. In the Free State, 99% don’t work. In a country as critically water stressed as South Africa, this should amount to nothing less than a national crisis. There should be a flurry of ministerial activity, as departmental heads roll, and anxious engineers are shuttled to and fro across the country, as they frantically try to stem the rising tide of preventable pollution. Instead, the department of water affairs’ official response is that they have, indeed, commissioned a report on the state of sewage works, but are still putting the finishing touches to it. Meanwhile, livestock carcasses, infected with tapeworm, are turned away at abattoirs after animals drink water with faecal counts way off the charts, polluted water kills hundreds of babies in small-town municipalities, and irrigation farmers wait nervously for their export markets to slam unceremoniously shut. The bottom line is that no one of consequence seems to be particularly interested in the art of moving turds from point A to point B in such a way that they don’t end up where they don’t belong, like in a river. An essential engineering pursuit first perfected by the Romans thousands of years ago, but not deemed important here in South Africa, as we pursue some very dubious other priorities. Like replacing the some 7 374 police firearms that have gone missing over the past three years. Arms that almost certainly all end up in the hands of criminals, who definitely don’t take them out to the shooting range. Instead, they end up being thrust into your face as your house gets ransacked. After all, have you ever heard of burglars using hunting rifles? So amazingly, a fair whack of violent crime could simply be avoided if police would just hang on to their weapons. The official response? The minister of police, without the slightest hint of irony, announces that he would like, eventually, to see no-one in the country armed, except the police! Nothing is ever said about how this haemorrhaging of police weapons will be stopped, or what action will be taken against police officers who lose their weapons. Instead, private citizens, punch-drunk by the criminal onslaught, are threatened with lengthy jail sentences if the new firearm legislation isn’t followed to the letter. One can only still hope that Smut’s prediction will hold. Source: - <a href="http://www.farmersweekly.co.za/">http://www.farmersweekly.co.za/</a> See also:- <a href="http://censorbugbear-reports.blogspot.com/">http://censorbugbear-reports.blogspot.com/</a>

SA up to its eyeballs in sewage

A full 97% of the country's sewage system infrastructure is 'dilapidated' and the overall neglect of the country's water and...

4:20 AM

SA 'sitting on a time bomb'

<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVH48Twgsnaezk-l5rX88B9N3uAsskxOKiKD7wHI8KC5v5r2awfmYUF5nbxE-zBz_eNyXu8vTbDdxk13YpHPZkYhNrUF3w0q76Rgy-iRtE0CEOzsn4703dgF8XfdJJrcYtO7jvKR-MIlw/s1600-h/durban_pollution_in_the_park"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5399996996207874562" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVH48Twgsnaezk-l5rX88B9N3uAsskxOKiKD7wHI8KC5v5r2awfmYUF5nbxE-zBz_eNyXu8vTbDdxk13YpHPZkYhNrUF3w0q76Rgy-iRtE0CEOzsn4703dgF8XfdJJrcYtO7jvKR-MIlw/s400/durban_pollution_in_the_park" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 300px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px" /></a>With Durban running the risk of water restrictions, Water Affairs Minister Buyelwa Sonjica says it is "totally unacceptable" that between 35 and 40 percent of piped water in big cities is being lost to theft or leaky pipes. She told a provincial water indaba in Durban yesterday that, living in the 30th driest country in the world, South Africans could not afford to treat water as an afterthought in economic expansion projects. Sonjica also expressed concern that the country was sitting on a "time bomb" because of the growing level of sewage contamination in rivers and poor waste-water treatment by many municipalities. Provincial Premier Zweli Mkhize said outbreaks of waterborne diseases such as cholera could develop quickly if water supply was not managed properly. Opening the two-day indaba, Sonjica said a study of use in the Durban-Pietermaritzburg area suggested water could be in short supply for the next two or three years until a new dam was built on the Mooi River. Rapid economic development had led to stress on the Umgeni River dam network and this had been exacerbated by below-average rainfall in the past few years. "Should a drought be experienced in the Umgeni River catchment over the next two years, shortages may occur," Sonjica said. "Since unacceptably high levels of water losses and unaccounted for water are prevalent in the eThekweni Metropolitan area, new water conservation and demand measures, as well as the reuse of treated effluent, must be implemented by the metro and other municipalities as a matter of urgency." Although the new Spring Grove Dam near Rosetta on the Mooi River was expected to be completed in 2012, it would be necessary to augment water supplies from elsewhere. One possibility was to build a dam on the Umkhomazi River on the South Coast, another was to consider desalinating sea water. Durban water and sanitation chief Neil Macleod said losses of piped water to theft, leaks or unmetered water were around 37 percent. The city hoped to reduce this to around 33 percent by June. Sonjica said ageing water infrastructure, which led to leaks, and illegal connections would have to be "tackled with courage". Everyone wasted water. Some industries and farmers took it illegally. The problem of poor wastewater treatment was countrywide. "One thing is whether municipalities are prepared to expend their municipal infrastructure grants on operations and maintenance. If we are not alive to this, we are sitting on a time bomb."

SA 'sitting on a time bomb'

With Durban running the risk of water restrictions, Water Affairs Minister Buyelwa Sonjica says it is "totally unacceptable" that ...

1:07 PM

Author has leg amputated following freak river infection from human sewerage contaminated water

<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPJpfWX8gtmCqMRu3kZnuDd5ENzQcXVmMeVWmB9SdN1RUKkufTL7zcaWoLkKwFijKR5i9YxTCkivEat-IMi15ndGbUSdX-N-E7HgQcx3IWyhCqCTpe2PfoAAb-SwyBrDzG97Uk09-5ixQ/s1600-h/BOOK_SA_Brave_New_World_Beloved_country_since_end_of_apartheid_RW_Johnson_book%5B5%5D.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5364996486368157842" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPJpfWX8gtmCqMRu3kZnuDd5ENzQcXVmMeVWmB9SdN1RUKkufTL7zcaWoLkKwFijKR5i9YxTCkivEat-IMi15ndGbUSdX-N-E7HgQcx3IWyhCqCTpe2PfoAAb-SwyBrDzG97Uk09-5ixQ/s400/BOOK_SA_Brave_New_World_Beloved_country_since_end_of_apartheid_RW_Johnson_book%5B5%5D.jpg" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 261px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px" /></a>Recently RW ("Bill") Johnson, 65, the Sunday Times correspondent in South Africa, author and frequent reviewer of books in the London Review of Books, was in hospital in Durban after becoming infected with a life-threatening bacterium, which required the emergency amputation of his left leg at the knee and partial amputation of fingers. He was infected with 14 strains of narcotising fasciitis when he cut his foot on a rock while swimming in a lagoon in a region of the South Coast of KwaZulu-Natal, described by his wife, the Russian-born historian, Professor Irina Filatova, as "paradise". With grim irony, Johnson was struck down on the eve of publication of his new book, South Africa's Brave New World: The Beloved Country since the End of Apartheid (Penguin), an unsparing look at the decline of South Africa from the hubris of the Mandela years. The source of contamination in the water is reliably believed to be untreated sewage which seeped into the river feeding into the lagoon at Trafalgar, close to Johnson's and Filatova's holiday home, from an impoverished squatter camp upstream. The lagoon, in which he had swum very frequently in the past, forms part of the Mpenjati Nature Reserve. Swimming in the lagoon has since been banned. Emergency email consultation with Professor Gus McGrouther, professor of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at the University of Manchester, enabled amputation of an infected hand to be avoided. The sanitary quality of many rivers in KwaZulu-Natal is reliably known to have declined drastically over the past few years. Human sewage is reported to be pouring directly into the river feeding the lagoon at Trafalgar, in which Johnson was infected, with no treatment whatsoever. Diary - Bill Johnson <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDYKPEOllT7DxwXOyqX-BLVHsKWRNU-sQ1axTHaqYfdv6edAQm3D-jXhwUsP8XDLAQ3rpvzCEtSJDCf52Mi9_jXHswFn49aE2FiUBkRFa_7dRqNhoQy9cMbQQZ-rhgUr6CBmAPRpZM3rc/s1600-h/lagoon+Mpenjathi+Nature+Reserve.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5365005726579546546" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDYKPEOllT7DxwXOyqX-BLVHsKWRNU-sQ1axTHaqYfdv6edAQm3D-jXhwUsP8XDLAQ3rpvzCEtSJDCf52Mi9_jXHswFn49aE2FiUBkRFa_7dRqNhoQy9cMbQQZ-rhgUr6CBmAPRpZM3rc/s400/lagoon+Mpenjathi+Nature+Reserve.jpg" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 300px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 200px" /></a>In early March, while staying at our holiday cottage in Trafalgar on the KwaZulu-Natal south coast, I went swimming, as has been my habit for many years, in the idyllic Mpenjathi lagoon. The lagoon looks pretty much the way it did when Vasco da Gama first saw it; the lower south coast and Trafalgar in particular are unspoiled – we frequently get duikers as well as monkeys in our garden.Writer RW Johnson lost his left leg to necrotising fasciitis — caused by a flesh-eating bacterium that invades and poisons the body — after cutting his foot on a rock in the lagoon at the Mpenjathi Nature Reserve As I neared the shore I hit my foot painfully on a submerged rock; a quick inspection showed that several toes were bleeding. I waded ashore, got home quickly and showered. The bleeding soon stopped but the next day my whole foot was sore. I tried to ignore it but matters rapidly got worse and soon I was running a fever and felt so ill I was giddy and unsteady on my feet. Eventually I decided I had to see a doctor, but things were so bad that I fell repeatedly while trying to get to the car and had to half-crawl across the garage to get in. How I managed to drive the 12 kilometres to Port Edward remains a mystery – I was lurching all over the road. Arriving at the offices of Dr Chetty, whose board advertises him as a dokotela (Zulu for ‘doctor’) trained in Mysore, I found several other patients ahead of me but stumbled over to the receptionist’s desk and explained that I was seriously ill. Dr Chetty was wonderful. He immediately laid me on a table, gave me a drip, and in no time at all an ambulance had been arranged to take me to Margate Hospital. It turned out later – a great stroke of luck – that Dr Chetty had once before seen a patient suffering from what I had: necrotising fasciitis, caused by flesh-eating bacteria which rapidly invade and poison the body (the other man had died, as is normal with this disease). Almost certainly the reason the lagoon was polluted with such a deadly organism was to do with the dumping of raw sewage by communities living upriver. Only months later was I able to Google necrotising fasciitis and find a long list of famous people who died from the disease, usually within 24 or 48 hours of contracting it. The medics at Margate muttered something about amputation but I was too far gone to say more than ‘whatever it takes.’ My conscious memory stops there – I was too ill and too sedated to participate in the drama that followed. My wife, Irina, was teaching at Moscow’s new School of Economics when she heard the news and straight away flew back to Durban. She rang Margate from the airport and asked whether I was still alive. ‘He is critical,’ they said. She explained that it would take her 90 minutes to drive to the hospital: would I still be alive then? ‘He may – or may not be. He’s very, very critical.’ They had amputated the toes on my left foot and then, when the leg continued to swell, amputated my leg at the knee. But the poison had already invaded other parts of my body and all my systems – kidneys, lungs, heart etc – began to switch off. Multiple organ failure: that is, I began to die – that’s what dying is. I came close to fulfilling one of Woody Allen’s ambitions: ‘I don’t mind dying,’ he once said, ‘I just don’t want to be there when it happens.’ My blood pressure kept shrinking to levels where it was thought I must die at any moment. To counter the septicaemia I was shot full of antibiotics and to prevent my blood pressure falling too far I was given adrenalin. When Irina arrived my chances of survival were less than 30 per cent. I rallied twice, only for crises to follow each time. My brother and children flew in and there were anguished discussions about where I should be buried. My surgeon, Dr Otto, and his colleagues at Margate undoubtedly saved my life. Yet I needed not only a ventilator and a dialysis machine, but also a hyperbaric chamber, which Margate didn’t have, so Irina decided to move me to St Augustine’s Hospital in Durban. I deteriorated further, and my left leg was amputated above the knee. To make things worse, the overdose of adrenalin, though it had saved my heart, had badly damaged the fingers of both hands – on my left hand three fingertips are blackened with dry gangrene and have lost all feeling – and the toes of my right foot. I also had bedsores on my head and bottom. Doctor friends warned Irina not to get her hopes up – the odds against my survival were still daunting. I drifted in and out of consciousness a number of times but my first memory is of waking up in St Augustine’s intensive care unit in the first week of April with tubes controlling all my functions, unable to talk, and learning for the first time that I was missing a leg. Irina tells me that when it was explained to me that my leg had gone, I cried, but I have no memory of that. The regular morphine injections gave me the most terrifying and sophisticated nightmares I have ever experienced. Irina, my daughter and brother were all there and I communicated by tracing a spidery scrawl on a pad – my muscles had atrophied so much that I lacked the strength to write a sentence or lift an arm over my head. Irina was at my bedside all hours of the day and night. I could never have recovered without her. Gradually things got a little better and some of the tubes came out, and then, one wonderful day, the dialysis was over. Better still, I moved out of the ICU – but then had to return because of persistent nausea and vomiting. Happily, this didn’t last long. I began to do more and more physio and exercise to rebuild my muscles; I followed the news and was able to learn about the progress of the book I had just published. Despite or possibly because of my complete inability to do any of the usual promotional work, the book was selling well and there were many nice reviews. That made a real difference. After two more months in hospital I was basically evicted by my insurance company, Discovery Health, which refused to continue to pay for me to be there, though I was far from ready to leave. It was a gloomy business realising how threadbare my care policy was, as huge medical bills poured in of which they paid only a fraction. Discovery wanted me to go to a ‘step-down facility’ (which no one at the hospital had ever heard of) in a high-crime area. We decided that if we were thrown out it would be better to go back to the beach cottage at Trafalgar and take our chances. In the meantime it was sobering to read of the ANC’s proposed new National Health Insurance scheme, which would forcibly conflate the public and private health sectors. Under ANC management the public sector has deteriorated very nearly to the point of collapse, with incompetent political placemen appointed as hospital managers, shortages of everything and, often, appallingly high mortality rates – all of it aggravated by a tidal wave of Aids victims that has pushed most other things aside. Doctors’ organisations have warned that the NHI scheme would be unworkable, that it would end access to First World healthcare for everybody and would lead to a huge new emigration of medical personnel. I am hardly an unqualified fan of the way private health works here, but I need no reminding that without access to First World hospital care I would have died. Should the NHI plan go ahead not only would most doctors emigrate but so too would many of the seven million South Africans of all races who currently depend on private health insurance as patients. What would be left of the economy if these seven million go is a subject worthy of a morphine nightmare. So now I’m back at Trafalgar, paying for a private nurse and physio, exercising like crazy and getting steadily stronger. Some people make nice remarks about my positive attitude but actually I owe everything to Irina. For the rest I feel like Theseus, sent to fight the Minotaur in the labyrinth. That is, I’m in an intolerable situation and the only way out – learning how to walk with a prosthesis, to drive and be self-sufficient again – is to keep a tight hold on Ariadne’s thread and follow where it leads. That means working meticulously at the physio and teaching myself to do things like type this article with my gangrenous fingers. I look out from my bed at the Indian Ocean, which is the purest blue and pullulates with whale spouts, dolphins and the approaching signs of the annual sardine run, when shoals 30 or 40 kilometres long, billions upon billions of fish, move up the coast, allowing every imaginable predator a feast day. Everyone celebrates the sardine run as a sort of popular carnival, but of course like so many great natural events it’s built on the deaths of millions of creatures. Sometimes, as I gaze at the sea, I think about dying and how I nearly managed it, several times over. It seems incongruous given the gorgeous sunshine, the surf and the tropical vegetation – until you realise that it was in exactly these conditions that I cut my foot in the first place. I survived by a fluke; there’s no merit to it, though doctor friends try to make me feel good by telling me how strong I am and what a fight I put up. ‘Author Loses Leg in Lagoon’: my children saved the newspaper hoarding for me, its sheer banality a warning too. But mainly as I look at the waves I feel, ‘so far, so good.’ I spend no time at all regretting my left leg. It’s just so good to be alive.<a class="l" href="http://www.politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/view/politicsweb/en/page72308?oid=124114&sn=Marketingweb%20detail" onmousedown="return clk('http://www.politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/view/politicsweb/en/page72308?oid=124114&sn=Marketingweb%20detail','','','res','11','&sig2=ICC5DeBi0y0erwtZKNkKRQ')">Politicsweb - Top stories - South Africa`s Brave New World: An ...</a>

Author has leg amputated following freak river infection from human sewerage contaminated water

Recently RW ("Bill") Johnson, 65, the Sunday Times correspondent in South Africa, author and frequent reviewer of books in the Lon...

6:15 AM

While fatcat politicians splurge on luxuries ...

<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXmcn2jITy-AhYKQpP3A8NzjHl-BFi2eOGZNvYDW0vK2nABto95SyMfHUIxNsyOTYs86k3SNC__AZuAObfJr6lkWuYwHtmGG2CXmKDK_dS2GpQzkDdLA0MFwhF3u4AW2dif1XuDjcdqmU/s1600-h/nig_image71.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5364456936497815090" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXmcn2jITy-AhYKQpP3A8NzjHl-BFi2eOGZNvYDW0vK2nABto95SyMfHUIxNsyOTYs86k3SNC__AZuAObfJr6lkWuYwHtmGG2CXmKDK_dS2GpQzkDdLA0MFwhF3u4AW2dif1XuDjcdqmU/s400/nig_image71.jpg" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 298px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" /></a> Black politicians deserve to live in luxury and to be treated like billionaires, because it sends a message that their subjects are worthwhile people. Only white people really moan about black politicians' expensive habits, because deep down they feel only white people should be entitled to such privilege. How am I doing so far? Wait, there's more. For decades of apartheid and centuries of colonialism whites took it for granted that they should live like kings. Well, white rule was overthrown by the revolution of 1994, and now it is the turn of black people to enjoy the fat of the land. To deny them that is to desire a return to the era of apartheid. It sounds obscene if you put all these excuses for the vulgar materialist excesses of the ruling fatcat politicians and public servants in one place. But I have heard these excuses and versions of them many times from the likes of ANC Youth League jokers, Luthuli House apparatchiks, ANC-aligned intellectuals, BEE beneficiaries, journalists and columnists in the pockets of ANC millionaires and even from propagandists of the Communist Party. But I've been around the block a few times. I've heard many variations of these excuses before, uttered in defence of the politician thieves of the old Zaire, Angola, Nigeria and Equatorial Guinea. I have also heard accusations that whites don't criticise the American or European politicians who also get paid vast amounts of money and live in luxury, they only criticise African leaders. Having considered all these excuses properly, I still want to make a few remarks about the way the present government and ruling party are flashing their ultra-luxurious lifestyles, homes, cars, clothes and parties in the faces of millions struggling to feed themselves and their children and put a roof over their heads. And yes, I am classified as a white person. It is my considered opinion that if the president of the ruling party and the country, Jacob Zuma, was indeed serious about his concern for the welfare of ordinary South Africans, he would not have allowed the presidential residence in Durban to be renovated at a price of R150 million; he would have scaled down the cavalcade of expensive new 4x4s and luxury sedans accompanying him wherever he goes from in the 30s to four or five; and he would have slashed his own lavish expenditure on inaugurations, official receptions and parties. Instead, Zuma asks for more patience from service delivery protesters and striking workers, saying it is unfair to criticise the new administration as it is still finding its feet. No, Mr President, it is unfair of you to ask workers and the unemployed to be patient while you and your party and your ministers and senior public servants spend tens of millions on extravagant luxuries. While your comrades in government, including those from Cosatu and the Communist Party, buy the most expensive cars and live it up like royalty, the number of citizens who have given up looking for work has risen to 1.52 million - that is on top of the 4.13 million people registered as unemployed. That means a minimum of 5.65 million South Africans who are potential breadwinners no longer have a regular income. That translates to many, many millions of people when one takes these people's families into account. How do you, Mr President, and your comrades sleep at night when you look at these figures? Just this week the Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs declared six district municipalities in the Eastern Cape disaster areas due to "ailing water and sewerage infrastructure". These areas include the birthplaces of national icons Oliver Tambo and Nelson Mandela. The municipalities are not a lot worse off than many others. Do you close your ears when people tell you these things, Mr President? Do you quickly turn the page when newspapers report on them? If you reject my criticism because I'm white, let me tell you what one of Africa's leaders of the past, President Thomas Sankara of Burkina Faso, said more than 20 years ago in Ouagadougou. Sankara said the problem with Africa was that Africans had gained formal political power but their minds were still colonised. They were Africans but really wanted to be like their former colonial masters. Too many Africans suffered from self-loathing, he said. They are in perpetual conflict: they know and honour their own culture and ancestors, but part of them agrees with the European view that perhaps these are inferior and primitive. That was Sankara's take on why so many African leaders were "bathing themselves in gold". By the way, President Sankara's official presidential car was an ancient Peugeot 404 with a cracked windscreen.

While fatcat politicians splurge on luxuries ...

Black politicians deserve to live in luxury and to be treated like billionaires, because it sends a message that their subjects are worthwhi...

3:37 PM

SA 'Water scarcity' warnings again, still, whatever

<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzFtUhs4UuCztonXzRQ1_WidiToeHF6AV1nCY-tiOLChMjEqq1BbvCK7EEL8Xh_6SbL_PVbmNe0eHLaARE49aw9Ss9a_MMTucLbr_jvOfvx0csyDPN-vs7K0TFywSsduT9VQaX299of1QX/s1600-h/water-crisis.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5338800559480945410" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzFtUhs4UuCztonXzRQ1_WidiToeHF6AV1nCY-tiOLChMjEqq1BbvCK7EEL8Xh_6SbL_PVbmNe0eHLaARE49aw9Ss9a_MMTucLbr_jvOfvx0csyDPN-vs7K0TFywSsduT9VQaX299of1QX/s400/water-crisis.jpg" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px" /></a>The clock is ticking for South Africa's stretched water supply, and in another five years demand will have caught up with supply, according to a top official. Jones Mnisi, acting chief operating officer at Johannesburg Water, the public utility overseeing supply in the country's economic hub, told a recent conference on water security that the tipping point where demand outstripped supply may not be far away. South Africa is chronically water-stressed. Although growth has slowed, an expanding economy, a growing population, and increased evaporation caused by climate change are conspiring to put additional pressures on water resources. Yet leading experts at the conference said the situation could be addressed if the country curbed demand and improved water quality to facilitate reuse. A paper by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) said South Africa's water surplus had been dangerously low since at least 2000 – four years after the country began buying bulk water from the multi-dam Lesotho Highlands Water Project, built on the Senqunyane River in neighbouring Lesotho. Although the next phase of the project, expected to be in place in 2019, could relieve some of the pressure on South Africa's water supply, it was likely to be too late, said Chris Herold, chairman of the water division of the South African Institute of Civil Engineering (SAICE). Quantity and quality Experts said the quality and quantity of the water supply should be better managed, and called for more investment in infrastructure. "The national water resource strategy has assumed that water demand management will happen," said Herold, "On the implementation side, some of the local authorities have not come to the party." Anthony Turton, a former researcher at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, who now works as a water management consultant, predicted that South Africa would soon have to start reusing effluent, which would entail revamping infrastructure, with waste treatment plants a priority. Water treatment plants would have to produce effluent clean enough for reuse in the industrial sector, for example switching to buying cheaper, recycled water for cooling plants, he said. This may be harder than it sounds. Turton pointed out that 12 waste-water treatment plants, none of which function properly, were dumping effluent into the Hartbeespoort Dam on the Crocodile River, 20km southwest of Johannesburg. Water and sanitation remain contentious issues, and government has assured South Africans that it will commit more funds to improve water infrastructure, deploy personnel to local government to oversee operations, build capacity, and ensure proper financial management. A recent progress report card on the UN Millennium Development Goals said the country was on track for achieving access to safe drinking water and sanitation by 2015.

SA 'Water scarcity' warnings again, still, whatever

The clock is ticking for South Africa's stretched water supply, and in another five years demand will have caught up with supply, accord...

5:23 AM

Leaving SA high and dry?

<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUlus0fDTjsSwyJ5gR71Ni627IFfb6OFgWxYRu4AjgdXAZJvTXxxy6oyQToQESzk2PSrEdNNt8RFshEuYJsAWJWObc5FNCVA2Rj04IVt4lv0tzx0byy05n4hyphenhyphenqk2RyPTIb_05FKPW2DikL/s1600-h/Water_Getty_400.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332500241990380162" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUlus0fDTjsSwyJ5gR71Ni627IFfb6OFgWxYRu4AjgdXAZJvTXxxy6oyQToQESzk2PSrEdNNt8RFshEuYJsAWJWObc5FNCVA2Rj04IVt4lv0tzx0byy05n4hyphenhyphenqk2RyPTIb_05FKPW2DikL/s400/Water_Getty_400.jpg" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 250px" /></a>Water is life — so what happens if we run out of it? When it comes to water, South Africa has a big problem; some have even compared it to the power crisis, except that this one is being kept under wraps. By 2013 Gauteng may not have enough water to meet the demands of its citizens and according to the World Wide Fund for Nature, the Western Cape could run out of fresh water by 2015. Last year, researcher Anthony Turton from the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) was suspended for his damning report on the quality of our drinking water. He was prevented from presenting a paper in which he concludes that "we are heading for a significant crisis in the water sector". On his <a href="http://www.anthonyturton.com/" target="new">website</a>, Turton says that the water scarcity is a fundamental developmental constraint not only to South Africa, but to the entire Sadc region. South Africa has run out of surplus water, with 98 percent of it already allocated and because most rivers and dams are highly polluted, they've lost the ability to dilute effluents. According to Turton, given our high HIV/Aids rate South Africa has a growing antiretroviral (ARV) load, which passes, like any other medication, through the body in partly metabolised forms. This means we will start seeing higher levels of ARV in our rivers, which by implication means that these complex chemical compounds will eventually enter the human population over time, either through drinking water or via produce that has been irrigated with contaminated water. A part of SA's legacy Turton makes it clear that the problem started before the birth of our democracy. When the current government took over they inherited a robust infrastructure, but a declining level of technical ingenuity. "It is not their fault. This is part of their legacy, but it is they who have to deal with it now." He is not the only one to warn against a possible water crisis. Chris Herald and Mike Muller, water resource management experts raised similar concerns but the minister of Water Affairs and Forestry Lindiwe Hendricks denied this. While only 54 percent of dams comply with modern safety standards, the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry insists that South Africa's drinking water has been rated among the best in the world. No water crisis Linda Page a spokesperson for the Department of Water Affairs said, "There is no water crisis at the moment. South Africans should not be alarmed. The department's planning is strong. On the availability of water, there is sufficient water in our rivers, dams and our underground water to provide for socio-economic growth and developments. There are programmes in place to ensure the timely development of infrastructure to ensure future water supply to the growing economy." <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKOZuwbwjqJM2bknUH8wKfTKJAsMHd4ZZ8FCHSVbaiCsBZe6oBPloIv18PaZOqSybn-b2LYeA17OqoYFp4JHL1K3fiUqazRQPDNgMpb_dFDqVSlEIPAh1xVdrxDvuK64hmf4mxnE72Zg0d/s1600-h/water.jpg"></a>Her department acknowledges that the water might, at times, not meet the required technical standards. Still, this does not mean the water in the country is not safe for human consumption. Drinking water quality management is the responsibility of municipalities and the Department of Water Affairs has an oversight and regulatory role on the quality of the tap water. Poor management of informal settlements — with inadequate sewage systems and little provision for the removal of waste has led to large quantities of waste being washed into rivers, from where it travels to overburdened water purification plants. As the quality of water from our water sources deteriorates, it becomes more complex and expensive to purify the water to make it safe for drinking. The City of Cape Town spends R400 000 a month more than it should on treating water from the Voelvlei dam alone because of high levels of pollutants in the water. Pollution in the Vaal River Elsewhere, pollution in the Vaal River is a result of sewage spills that have been ongoing for over a decade. Residents have tried to bring this to the attention of the government but their attempts have failed. "As far as the Vaal is concerned, action has been taken by the department against the municipalities that pollute the Vaal River, municipalities are however not the only polluters in the Vaal River, communities that live along the river bank and the farming community are responsible for the pollution," said Page. The department has issued directives to the Mfuleni Municipality, forcing it to rectify problems with its waste water treatment works which is causing pollution of the Vaal River. "In Gauteng waste water facilities which were posing the highest risk on resources were identified through this process and regulatory intervention commenced with the objection of ensuring that local government mobilise resources for the sustainable turn around of the situation," said Page. Challenges One of the challenges facing South African water is poor maintenance. The water treatment plants and the pipes that deliver clean water to our cities and towns are old and dilapidated. Most municipal sewage systems in South Africa are 30 to 50 years old. Another challenge is that councils have been pressured to expand water and sewage infrastructure to service previously under-serviced areas. This has burdened the existing infrastructure. The water department lacks skilled workers. Experienced workers have retired and the department has been left with unfilled posts. South Africa is failing to produce enough engineers to fill the skills gap. According to Turton, many white males between the ages of 35 and 49 with these particular skill sets have been affected by affirmative action and have opted to leave the country. Solutions According to Page, her department's implementation of the "River Health Programme" is one of the ways in which they are dealing with polluters and remediation in specific dams (already undertaken in Hartesbeespoort Dam). More resources are, however, also being put into the launch of the 'Green Drop' certificate to recognise cities and towns that comply with the required standards on the discharge of waste water. Turton believes that the government needs to accept that the developmental targets of the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative (Asgisa) are simply unattainable or radically rethink how to mobilise the country's science, engineering and technological capacity. Page claims that work has already begun on water resources infrastructure and by 2012, major water resources infrastructure projects to the value of R10.1-billion would have been completed, including new dams. Unfortunately, for the uninformed public, only time will tell how real the threats outlined by Dr Anthony Turton are. In the meantime, it probably wouldn't hurt to implement water-saving strategies in your home and set up some sort of secondary purification system for your drinking water. Or, you could just put your trust in the Department of Water Affiars. Link:- <a class="title_lk_cs" href="http://iafrica.com/news/features/1647680.htm">Leaving SA high and dry?</a>

Leaving SA high and dry?

Water is life — so what happens if we run out of it? When it comes to water, South Africa has a big problem; some have even compared it to t...

4:56 PM

Mystery white foam pollutes river

<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEij1lQSxL62Hvh4nlU_o5LzXBunVuSVtoxvgc7FdAtNawmPkMT-2GJlyuiGRWJ-EN1uxxobhftTuloq5roAdYmObzLLwkaiaiMu4LJtuRLcF_KwY_JCVlX_7lxLnDCujtuLSfBBLFtH0GuI/s1600-h/Pollution-Sandspruit.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5320555366582426162" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEij1lQSxL62Hvh4nlU_o5LzXBunVuSVtoxvgc7FdAtNawmPkMT-2GJlyuiGRWJ-EN1uxxobhftTuloq5roAdYmObzLLwkaiaiMu4LJtuRLcF_KwY_JCVlX_7lxLnDCujtuLSfBBLFtH0GuI/s400/Pollution-Sandspruit.jpg" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px" /></a>Banks of snow white foam accumulated in and around a section of the Sandspruit in Katherine Street, Sandton, on Wednesday. The foam appeared to be soap suds from some kind of detergent, and had built up into towering walls - about 1.5m in height - particularly around fast-flowing water. The foam appeared to be coming from a stormwater drain that feeds into the river, but there was too much of it to be certain. According to The Star photographer Antoine de Ras, who had been at the same site a few weeks ago, there was a notable absence of wildlife. On the last occasion he had seen ducks and kingfishers, but the only birds there on Wednesday were two hadedas. Joburg Water spokesperson Baldwin Matsimela said there had been complaints about nearby factories in Wynberg dumping contaminants into the Sandspruit. Wetlands and riparian expert Paul Fairall said the culprit was a washing powder factory in Wynberg. He said the factory was regularly washing out its solphonic acid tanks into stormwater drains that filter into the Sandspruit. Solphonic agent is the foaming agent of washing powders. "It will kill any kind of living organism - in that concentration it has a horrible effect. "What worries me is that it happens on a regular basis and it's never addressed," said Fairall. CSIR research group leader in ecosystems and human health, Dr Paul Oberholster, said that if the contaminant was from a detergent it would change the chemical structure of the water by either raising or lowering the pH. This would affect the entire food chain - birds, fish, microvertebrates, and phytoplankton (algae) - because some species have a certain ph tolerance. Detergents also contain a lot of phosphate. This encourages the growth of blue-green algae, which can be toxic, and is responsible for problems currently being experienced at Hartbeespoort Dam.

Mystery white foam pollutes river

Banks of snow white foam accumulated in and around a section of the Sandspruit in Katherine Street, Sandton, on Wednesday. The foam appeared...

9:39 AM

Cholera found in Jo'burg River

<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwgpNSbPPCPQskB7j2QT7dqFVTHCT1ZGQuR9oj5d5WR9ee8cvGzGF52v4K0whB5Z35CsT4HfgKse_Pa62iODLPhzN9I8aMqvIrYXvL6xfoRqcEfkKNuthyphenhyphencZdwi81OsrG9c8k3TewTJnA/s1600-h/Braamfonteinmapsc007.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5316708800858409602" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwgpNSbPPCPQskB7j2QT7dqFVTHCT1ZGQuR9oj5d5WR9ee8cvGzGF52v4K0whB5Z35CsT4HfgKse_Pa62iODLPhzN9I8aMqvIrYXvL6xfoRqcEfkKNuthyphenhyphencZdwi81OsrG9c8k3TewTJnA/s400/Braamfonteinmapsc007.jpg" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 290px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" /></a> An independent water sample taken from the Jukskei River has revealed the presence of cholera but the Department of Water Affairs has yet to confirm the presence of the waterborne disease. Paul Fairall, an environmental consultant and the chairman of the Jukskei River catchment area management forum, received the results last week of two samples he had drawn from the river. One of the samples, taken from the Dewetshof area, below Bezuidenhout Valley, showed signs of a strain of cholera. The second sample, taken from the Jukskei in Marlboro, was clear. Fairall said it was "the result of a tragic situation where you have thousands of refugees living in the centre of Johannesburg". On Monday the department said it had not found cholera in the Jukskei but it would begin testing for the disease. "With all the faecal pollution found in the Jukskei it is likely that cholera could be detected," said Leonardo Manus, manager of drinking water quality regulation at the department. He said regional staff would need to highlight to communities most at risk to cholera the dangers of drinking untreated water.

Cholera found in Jo'burg River

An independent water sample taken from the Jukskei River has revealed the presence of cholera but the Department of Water Affairs has yet to...

3:38 AM

SA spends millions to combat cholera

<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4dA9iRfqW9IpA_l0uZJfDzPfkd2nXekIDdghrtTZKIn1uC3Mdak0DA4FynNtiGtgCPKc63k6I3mJi3eGKNnG8-o-XcS3IHfZzhtCkSjxMq9vrjtsafni-5XzwM6vqn3842KIf89dK-Ls/s1600-h/cholera-article.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5308763298635006722" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4dA9iRfqW9IpA_l0uZJfDzPfkd2nXekIDdghrtTZKIn1uC3Mdak0DA4FynNtiGtgCPKc63k6I3mJi3eGKNnG8-o-XcS3IHfZzhtCkSjxMq9vrjtsafni-5XzwM6vqn3842KIf89dK-Ls/s400/cholera-article.jpg" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 120px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px" /></a>About R21 million has been spent on controlling the cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe and a further R80 million will be allocated to affected areas, Water Affairs and Forestry Minister Lindiwe Hendricks said Monday. Speaking at the launch of the Water For Growth and Development Framework in Johannesburg, Hendricks said water tankers, engineers and technicians were sent to Zimbabwe to repair infrastructure and ensure access to clean drinking water in response to the cholera outbreak. The framework was approved by Cabinet in January. She added that if remedial action was not taken Gauteng could experience water shortages from 2013 to 2025. "Fortunately this will not happen given the recent decision by Cabinet to proceed with the second phase of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project. "We have made much progress and we are confident that the universal access to water and sanitation services will be completed by 2014," she said. According to the department of water affairs and forestry, a programme was launched last year to deal with the illegal abstraction of water and water pollution. Hendricks said all tap water in South Africa is safe to drink, even though at times it does not meet technical standards. "Of the 3000 samples taken nationwide, about 94 to 98 percent complied with the SA National Standards of drinking water. "The failing six percent of the samples do not persistently occur in the same location but varies across the country. In some areas, this may be due to a stolen or broken water pump. "To address this, a further amount of about R4 billion has been allocated to deal with the upgrading and augmenting of municipal infrastructure," she said. .....The Dept of Water Affairs and Forestry calmly assures us that <a href="http://www.thetimes.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=698448" target="_new">there is no water crisis</a>. But should we believe them based on a government track record of denial or blithe reassurance? <img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5308763065411954802" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcpEVb7GWb8z9AUj7dXtxMmhu-ngz2hfu9OWHmDqlAIS4j5PxW2GuWylmqknQxwaRskaLJWhpiM399E_tfQk50Zk2lyWrQ-_ndqndJ5yHRE3RENMMZPH5zEbHVtyXI1vCtZO_JCiZv9CY/s400/carp.jpg" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 274px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" /> Dead carp in Wonderfontein spruit: pic courtesy Paul Neal (Dream Africa)Dept of Safety and Security: Crime? No problem there, just lots of whingeing. Dept of Health: HIV / Aids? Beetroot, garlic and the african potato to the rescue. Dept of Minerals and Energy: Electricity? It should all be okay as long as our economic growth stays at 2%? Reports of 43 percent of DWAF managed dams having safety issues sounds pretty critical to me. Or what do they propose a safe tolerance level is for a water-stressed country? 60%? 80%? 43% sounds bad enough and I'd like to know what is being done to fix the problems especially in light of Peter van Niekerk, chief director of water resources planning at DWAF, commenting, "we have constructed some dams but nothing to the same extent because of much greater use is the opportunity to manage demand." Sounds suspiciously like <strike>load shedding</strike> rationing to me.More concerning is the contamination of ground water by radioactive mining waste in the Wonderfonteinspruit area. This is particularly worrying as the issue of uranium contamination... See Video - <a class="l" href="http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6085154693477011286" onmousedown="return clk(this.href,'','','res','9','&sig2=7Wkgz44CNFMX88EHEmybwg')">Wonderfontein Spruit Gold Mining Pollution Contamination</a> A documentary covering the contamination of the Wonderfontein Spruit South African government denies health hazard from contaminated water in the Wonderfonteinspruit catchment area - despite scientific evidence presented at international conference.<div align="left">According to press reports, the Department of Water Affairs claimed on Sep. 17, 2008, that "radioactive waste outside mining areas in the catchment of the Wonderfonteinspruit poses no risk to the public, according to experts." The experts had been brought in by the department and the National Nuclear Regulator (NNR). (IOL, Sep. 17, 2008)</div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"> Regulator denies water and foodstuffs in the Wonderfonteinspruit catchment area are radioactive - despite scientific reports.</div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"> Regulator withholds report on serious contamination of water and food from mining activities in Gauteng.</div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"> Mining companies under encouragement by the South African Government now want to mine Uranium on a vast scale all around South Africa.</div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"> See Business Times <a href="http://www.thetimes.co.za/PrintEdition/BusinessTimes/Article.aspx?id=697126" target="_new">story</a> </div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"></div><center> </center><div align="left"></div>

SA spends millions to combat cholera

About R21 million has been spent on controlling the cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe and a further R80 million will be allocated to affected are...

8:50 AM

Water probed after hundreds of Kruger crocs die

<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiafywp_xgXXaccOFucJgd0d1QDRalv8iOZPEC2Tw_PTZ5heJpVti1wKd_LMOz-YDa6bho208TPPSs1aeSDyLUd2TnksPaLfnL99QR4h0mwVNIOyWdmcOccAYyAYVJ6dgNhFuFEEsAHWQ0/s1600-h/kruger-crocs-water.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5271601044629314850" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiafywp_xgXXaccOFucJgd0d1QDRalv8iOZPEC2Tw_PTZ5heJpVti1wKd_LMOz-YDa6bho208TPPSs1aeSDyLUd2TnksPaLfnL99QR4h0mwVNIOyWdmcOccAYyAYVJ6dgNhFuFEEsAHWQ0/s400/kruger-crocs-water.jpg" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 282px" /></a>The perplexing deaths of hundreds of crocodiles in the Kruger National Park may have stumped South Africa's leading scientists, but Danie Pienaar believes it has also created awareness about this predator's vital role in ecosystems. "It's mostly children who get really excited about these big crocodiles because they're magnificent and old like dinosaurs," said Pienaar, the head of scientific services at Kruger Park. "And we should get really excited about them. They're not these horrible beasts lurking around trying to eat you. They play an important role in the system, and if you're happy to lose things like big crocodiles, what else are you willing to sacrifice?" One of the goals of the newly launched Consortium for the Restoration of the Olifants Catchment (Croc), a gathering of about 40 of SA's top researchers, scientists, conservationists and wildlife pathologists, is to raise the profile of crocodiles, said Pienaar. Croc will focus on unravelling the mystery behind the deaths of more than 160 crocodiles - the real figure is believed to be double this - in the Olifants Gorge since May this year as well as saving the Olifants river system, one of SA's hardest-working - and most polluted - systems. "We've now got to put together specialist groups [within Croc] that will be looking at different issues in more detail around water quality, crocodiles and the fish. People who work on the Olifants have been saying for a long time that there's a big problem coming with the Olifants. By the time the crocodiles are dying, things have gone way too far. We want to look at the bigger environmental problem, which we believe is growing in all our rivers, around water quality." Led by SANParks, Croc includes experts from the Water Research Commission, the universities of North West and Pretoria, as well as the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry. It also hopes to draw in expertise from the neighbouring Limpopo National Park in Mozambique. Post-mortem results show the crocodiles died of pansteatitis, or body fat hardening, which leads to starvation. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-Q3gE82M17YfSRnu7lj8BXkH-H6iAVoKfVGe0VHV6y_BeHeIiSxhZygRGgrAMS6JaKUuWyNrb0fbWOYeUj2ArGBvolEU4OGgSmF3oGpAhQ0rCmSgTpaQj_evM8WcIgmsT3kLm-1TkK9A/s1600-h/cholera-zim.gif"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5271686987488273682" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-Q3gE82M17YfSRnu7lj8BXkH-H6iAVoKfVGe0VHV6y_BeHeIiSxhZygRGgrAMS6JaKUuWyNrb0fbWOYeUj2ArGBvolEU4OGgSmF3oGpAhQ0rCmSgTpaQj_evM8WcIgmsT3kLm-1TkK9A/s320/cholera-zim.gif" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 307px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px" /></a>There is also concern over rural communities in SA and Mozambique who source untreated water from the river. "Around Mozambique's Massinger Dam [where the wall was recently raised] people eat the fish and drink water from the dam, but if the [Olifants] river keeps deteriorating, we could start seeing problems in humans as well. We've seen cholera outbreaks in Zimbabwe and now South Africa." Dr Peter Ashton, an aquatic ecologist at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, and a member of Croc, said the Olifants had been "used and abused" for the past 50 years. He believes acidic mine pollution from abandoned and closed coal mines on the escarpment, raw and treated sewage pumped into the river system from surrounding municipalities, as well as contamination from agricultural chemicals and domestic effluent could all be placing the Olifants system under extreme stress. "All these could be adding up. You start to see sensitive organisms disappearing and the character of the river changing. We're putting all our heads together now to see how this catchment is being worked, where the problems are and how these are impacting the river. The river is functioning as a kidney in the landscape." Croc represents the largest grouping of aquatic specialists. "We can't just leave it up to the authorities," he said, because staff are lacking. Ashton hopes to see the same action on other hard-working rivers in SA. "They are all heavily utilised. We need to look carefully at how they supply water, and transport and dispose of treated effluents."

Water probed after hundreds of Kruger crocs die

The perplexing deaths of hundreds of crocodiles in the Kruger National Park may have stumped South Africa's leading scientists, but Dani...

1:25 PM

South Africa facing Water Crisis

<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjugNrUg0O7N9zGFc84uixSK4nXGHILjrHDLu3NV6v0HAzpn2wFhA5xiLWDQ9A-M1_4iA9WDVZAKI5plY1CTAR3WxCw5q7hTnwehwEDHh0CzE9sF4U4Q1SYC-hKXfbmPkKCH9lGz6LnX0/s1600-h/water%2520crisis.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5271244983158050450" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjugNrUg0O7N9zGFc84uixSK4nXGHILjrHDLu3NV6v0HAzpn2wFhA5xiLWDQ9A-M1_4iA9WDVZAKI5plY1CTAR3WxCw5q7hTnwehwEDHh0CzE9sF4U4Q1SYC-hKXfbmPkKCH9lGz6LnX0/s400/water%2520crisis.jpg" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 266px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px" /></a>A serious water quality issue that was about to "burst into the boardrooms of large corporations and the corridors of government" was acid mine drainage from coal and gold mining, according to CSIR scientist Anthony Turton. Another issue was the high levels of eutrophication in the country's water - an increase in chemical nutrients, often from fertilisers, that leads to plant bloom and decay, polluting the water and removing the oxygen. South Africa, a water-stressed country, had levels of eutrophication "almost unpre-cedented globally", Turton said. These were some points Turton raised in the keynote address, A Clean South Africa, that the CSIR executive prevented him from giving on Tuesday at a CSIR conference entitled Science Real and Relevant. Turton said South African dams also had one of the highest loads of microcystins in the world. These are toxins produced by blue-green algae, which cause liver damage and can be fatal. No serious study has been done on this problem since the mid-1980s. Other problems were the build-up of endocrine disrupting chemicals and partially metabolised medication in our water. Because of the high rate of HIV and Aids, there would be an increasing use of anti-retro-virals. These passed through the body in a partly meta-bolised form, eventually into our rivers. These chemicals would begin to enter the South African population either through drinking water or through produce irrigated with contaminated water. "We need to develop the science to understand this better, because nowhere else in the world is there a coincidence of loss of dilution (of chemicals in water because of water scarsity) and high levels of ARV use as in this country," he said. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYilRbs0qjsYDjKmltgnSnUXZIcNOp-PBK5dyHRFUe0XnhNJSmaTK4eLWnvWNEAF2fCUheHouuaW4_BEnLDIc4MABuGf6klFaQNtcOZIm5ukZYaukHC2ssF-a1X8W3IJflJnzc4qrPwGA/s1600-h/Water-aa.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5271677602781128930" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYilRbs0qjsYDjKmltgnSnUXZIcNOp-PBK5dyHRFUe0XnhNJSmaTK4eLWnvWNEAF2fCUheHouuaW4_BEnLDIc4MABuGf6klFaQNtcOZIm5ukZYaukHC2ssF-a1X8W3IJflJnzc4qrPwGA/s320/Water-aa.jpg" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 233px" /></a>As a result of more than a century of largely unregulated gold mining, South Africa had a legacy of heavy metal and radionuclide contamination of rivers, but no study had been done to determine the impact on people exposed to them. Large parts of Soweto and the East and West Rand were built on contaminated land. A theme in Turton's paper was that it would take an enormous amount of technical and scientific ingenuity to solve South Africa's water quality problems, but that there was a shortage of scientific, engineering and technical capacity in the country. The CSIR needed a sustained source of public funding to produce the scientific capacity to address these problems. Without it, the CSIR ran the risk of being "hijacked by private interests, which have no wish to open up this complex legacy issue", Turton wrote. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHBth1QhsVhRpS3jfuFJ2DkutJv_i7RZZZGy4qlSvkHObupgN6LlQM14LahIzwT8dW-LPwyqClttpKsObGCytiAPh_h8EITp1Op8hcOAKlWdUU6mlyoGlRopX8xm1L48eySh-JvZjsCqY/s1600-h/water-refugeecamp1.jpg"></a> "Do we wish to avert the water crisis... or deal with it after it has been thrust upon us like the electricity crisis?" he wrote. Related Articles<a href="http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2430979,00.html" title="Controversy over water report">Controversy over water report</a>A CSIR researcher has been suspended over "offensive" statements in a presentation which reportedly suggested South Africa is fast running out of surplus water.<a class="feedlink" href="http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=13&art_id=vn20081120054622185C205517">CSIR mutes water quality talk</a> <a class="feedlink" href="http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=13&art_id=vn20081116091223122C562568">Don't be surprised by water-shedding</a>

South Africa facing Water Crisis

A serious water quality issue that was about to "burst into the boardrooms of large corporations and the corridors of government" ...

12:00 PM

South Africa P.I.G.