Get ready to change your habits to save water

The use of treated effluent in households may become more common in South Africa as water resources grow ever leaner.

Already in use in Cape Town for businesses and industry, sports fields, golf courses, large new developments, schools and construction sites, albeit not for consumption, for the urban South African outside of Cape Town, the reality of drought is far removed from everyday life.

Open a tap, water comes out, when it doesn’t, climb on social media and scream until a water tanker is delivered to a nearby corner, and shower at your local gym.

However, the water has to come from somewhere and with South Africa’s dams collectively at 57.6%, down from 58.4%, compared to 67.4% last year, plus a water affairs department which started the 2018-19 financial year with an overdraft of R119 million and unauthorised expenditure of R526 million, a lot of work still needs to be done.

In 2017, the deficit was R89 million and in 2018 there was a surplus of R514 million. Unauthorised expenditure amounted to R933 million.

Mix in the current drought, which will impact the fiscus through agriculture, and water has become an issue government can no longer ignore.

Human Settlements, Water and Sanitation Minister Lindiwe Sisulu said this week: “All of us … need to evaluate our performance and adjust our own behaviour and mentality towards water.

“Some of the tools we need to look at include: revitalising the blue, green and no-drop monitoring programmes; ensuring regular reporting on the performance of individual municipalities in their delivery of safe water and sanitation services, as well as on their reduction of losses in their water supply systems; encouraging municipalities that have set targets to restrict their water use and to publicise their results.

“This will help to make water users more conscious of the supply challenges that we face, how they can contribute and whether we are being successful.”

Helen Suzman researcher Nhlanhla Mnisi said national water infrastructure delivery inequalities subject vulnerable individuals and communities to contaminated drinking water.

“It is therefore necessary that national water infrastructure investments and policies be directed towards prioritising rural provinces and areas to avoid geospatial disparities in infrastructure delivery,” Mnisi wrote in a paper, released yesterday.

“The 2018 General Household Survey indicated that in 2018 thousands of South African households still depend on unimproved and unprotected sources of drinking water.

“These include dams and pools, rivers and streams and springs,” said Mnisi. “Drinking contaminated water exposes the consumer to waterborne disease-causing organisms and an array of other contaminants.”

Diarrhoea-related mortality accounted for approximately 20% of deaths among South African children under five.

Mnisi noted the core of Agenda 2030 on Sustainable Development, adopted by United Nations member states in September 2015, was the “Leave No One Behind” principle.

“The principle entails that those who are worst off should be reached first.

“For South Africa to conform to this principle, it is imperative that water infrastructure investment should prioritise provinces with high water backlogs, low access to water infrastructure delivery and rural areas in particular,” Mnisi said.

INFO

Some of Sisulu’s plans for drought relief include:

• Implement drought-operating rules;
• Institute borehole drilling and/or rehabilitation;
• Water tankering from available sources;
• Rainwater and fog harvesting;
• Protection and use of springs;
• Cloud seeding;
• Evaporation suppression;
• Desalination of brackish groundwater or sea water; and
• Effluent treatment and re-use.
• Pucker up, water is about to get nasty.

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