Water crisis: ‘South Africa on the brink of systemic failure’

South Africa is facing a water crisis that is worse than its energy crisis, according to water expert Prof. Anthony Turton.

Speaking to The Citizen, Turton said this is because the country’s 1 000 bulk water treatment plants were never designed to convert sewage contaminated water into safe drinking water.

Sewage crisis

He said while all provinces are affected, areas at the greatest risk include the financial hubs of Gauteng (60% of the national economy), Richards Bay, Durban, East London and Cape Town.

“All coastal cities are fundamentally water constrained because inland users have taken the water that should sustain the coastal cities,” said Turton.

“We are deep into a crisis and we’re definitely not approaching one,” he said.

Turton said technically, the country ran out of water in 2002 when the First National Water Resource Strategy indicated that we had allocated 98% of all the water we had. Some of the rivers were over-allocated by 120%.

“The sewage crisis has compounded the problem because about 90% of wastewater treatment works are non-compliant and this means our drinking water resource is highly polluted.

Load shedding compounding water problems

“On top of that the load shedding means that water cannot be pumped to every user and major cities have less than 48 hours of buffer capacity. Load shedding means they can’t fill the reservoirs and towers,” Turton added.

Load shedding has been a headache for many South Africans, with stages ranging between stage 3 and 6 for almost a month now.

ALSO READ: Load shedding stage 3 to continue until Thursday – Eskom says

Another water expert, Dr. Lester Goldman, is of the view that the country has not yet reached crisis point but stressed that this does not mean we should rest on our laurels.

Goldman said there is still time to address the numerous problems – ranging from asset management at various levels, revenue collection as well as municipal governance.

“There will always be water availability issues but at the moment those are not widespread,” he said.

Goldman also raised concern about the electricity crisis and the impact rolling blackouts are having on the ability to pump enough water, adding that he hopes a solution will soon be found.

ALSO READ: ‘Load shedding is here to stay’ – Ramaphosa

Stage 3 load shedding is set to continue until Thursday. Eskom is yet to announce what will happen beyond Thursday, but President Cyril Ramaphosa announced last week that load shedding is here to stay.

Water restrictions

Water and Sanitation Minister Senzo Mchunu early this year said government had made progress with its drought relief measures to tackle the water crisis in the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality.

The department’s spokesperson, Sputnik Ratau, was not immediately available for comment at the time of publishing this article.

Meanwhile, the Emfuleni local municipality, in the south of Johannesburg, on Tuesday announced that it was implementing stage 2 restrictions with immediate effect.

According to an announcement on the municipality’s Facebook page, this is due to increased water consumption over the past two weeks, resulting in the immediate implementation of the restrictions.

ALSO READ: Interventions to prevent Day Zero in Nelson Mandela Bay are starting to yield positive results, says Mchunu

The water restrictions, according to the municipality, will also ensure that reservoir storage capacity recovers to 60%.

“The municipality further encourages residents to reduce their water consumption by using water for basic needs to prevent the implementation of further restriction stages.”

Level 2 restrictions means sprinklers are prohibited, handheld hosepipes can only be used between 5pm and 7pm and that vehicles should be cleaned using hoses that have a trigger nozzle between 5pm and 7pm.

Still in Gauteng, Johannesburg Water says its network in some parts are severely strained due to high demand and usage, with the direct impact being extremely low levels within certain reservoirs and towers.

Level 1 water restricts have already been implemented since the beginning of September and are expected to last until the end of March next year.

The affected systems at Johannesburg Water:

Commando system: All three systems at Crosby, Brixton and Hursthill are critically low to empty.

Soweto systems: Reservoirs at Eagle Nest, Glenvista and Naturena are critically low.

Central systems: Crown Gardens and Alan Manor reservoirs are at critically low levels. Pumps supplying Crown Gardens tower have been isolated due to low reservoir levels.