Water is scarce, so let’s control boreholes

It’s going to cost Gautrain R1 million to repair one of its tunnels in the Killarney area… but the cost of disruptions to train services will be much higher.

The damage was caused allegedly by illegal borehole drilling, so we should expect some legal suits for damages to follow.

We would expect that, apart from civil damages claims, the illegal drillers should also be criminally charged for flouting Johannesburg bylaws.

What the incident has done, though, has focused attention on the moral and legal aspects of private residents extracting water from what is, effectively, a communal resource.

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This is a different matter entirely from the desire by Eskom and others to licence solar systems in private houses, because while the sun is accessible to everyone, its use by some does not deprive others. That is the opposite of the case with boreholes.

While we understand the need of those who can afford it to secure their water supply against the disastrous decline of municipal water reticulation, they are tapping into something which belongs to everyone.

That is why we agree that boreholes need to be regulated because, in the years ahead, we are going to need to count every drop of water in our city.

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