One of the main objectives of the Blue Deal projects launched in South Africa is to improve water quality.
Parys and the Vredefort Dome area will now also benefit from this partnership between the Dutch Water Authorities and national stakeholders.
The Vredefort Dome/Parys area’s Blue Deal project is one of four in SA.
The Blue Deal team for the Vredefort Dome/Parys area, comprising of representatives of the Dutch Water Authorities, department of Water and Sanitation and Water Affairs, the Ngwathe Local Municipality, the Vredefort Dome Tourism Association, the Mooiriver Forum, Salga, the Vaal Action Group, S.A.V.E, Conservancy, and Parys Info & Tourism attended a stakeholders’ meeting at Stonehenge, Parys, last week.
The national project was initially launched on 5 March 2020, and the Vredefort Dome project, on 1 October 2021. However, due to Covid-19, the activities were somewhat delayed. The project ends in 2030.
The Blue Deal project for the Vredefort Dome/Parys area will include optimising the Parys Waste Water Treatment Plant. The three main activities will focus on data management, stakeholder engagement and waste water management.
The Dutch Water Authorities will mainly focus on a knowledge and experience exchange and not so much capital investment.
In order to facilitate and manage the different workflows a number of task- teams will be established.
Salga will then take the lead in coordinating the community participation, together with stakeholders present.
The attendees were adamant that the community needed to be actively engaged and included in the project.
Sharing information with the commu- nity and communicating with them is central to the project’s success.
It is essential to couple the community engagement with education to empower communities to make a lasting contribu-tion to the well-being of our rivers and streams.
It would seem that the political will is there to effect the change in the Parys/ Dome area as set out in the Parys Declaration.
This involves a commitment to “walk the talk”.
