Panelists on the water crisis in SA for Mzansi to work closely with technologically advanced Israel on the matter

South Africa and Israel may not be singing from the same hymn sheet when it comes to international political issues but experts believe the two countries can cooperate to solve Mzansi’s water woes.

This was the view from a panel of four water experts who gathered at the Rabbi Cyril Harris Community Centre to discuss and unravel possible solutions to water scarcity problems that are gripping South Africa, a country the water experts described as arid and needs to adopt bold decisions and measures in order to overcome the water crisis.

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The experts were invited to the water symposium by the centre in conjunction with the South African Jewish Community and the Wandile Zulu Foundation.

The panelists were Dr Anthony Turton, a professor from the Centre for Environmental Management at the University of the Free State; Dr Jeunesse Park, an environmental visionary who pioneered greening, climate change action and permaculture food security initiatives in South Africa; Simon Gear, South Africa’s favourite weatherman, broadcaster and environmental scientist and Dr Clive Lipchin, director of the Centre for Transboundary Water Management of the Arava Institute in Israel.

Turton said the country was not facing a water crisis but a water management problem and pollution of water sources. “We need to recover our water from waste such as sewerage systems, treat it, clean it and make it drinkable once again before returning it to our drinking water system.”

He said ground water was a viable option to the country problems ‘but we need to understand the animal. Ground water is like your overdraft and you will need to repay it with interest. We also need to invest in water desalination machinery and equipment to clean the salt and acidity from the sea water so we can also pump it into our drinking water system.”

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Park said one of her daughters, in the face of the Western Cape water problem, pointed out that ‘it seems everybody is now waking up to the things you [Park} have been teaching us all the time for many years’ referring to her environmental work.

She spoke of fist cuffs in water points in Cape Town and warned that this water crisis was not limited to the Western Cape Town as it has existed for a long time in Limpopo, KwaZulu- Natal and the Eastern and Northern Cape.

Lipchin, an adviser to most Middle East countries on water issues and managing the resource, said Israel was once where South Africa is herding to today on the water problem. Between 70 to 80 per cent of water available in Israel today was from the sea and South Africa can learn from this and take a leaf from the Israel water book.

“South Africa needs to find a way of working relations with Israel to solve its water problem, bearing in the mind the strides made by the latter. The two may not see eye to eye on political matters but I don’t think this should be an inhibiting factor from working together to achieve beneficial successes and accomplishments like in the current water crisis.”

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Turton concurred with Lipchin and said even the Western Cape problem was now what it is because of political wrangling and point scoring between the ANC and the DA. “What on Earth is stopping us from working together on such pertinent, serious and pressing issues such as the water crisis,” he asked.

Gear said the coastal water problems in Western and Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal was more of climatic condition than anything else.

Those areas are winter rainfall areas but it was now no longer raining inland anymore as most of the rain ended up showering in seas only, he said.

The other issues was the sucking dry of rivers inland through damming and other collection and storage measures, which meant the rivers reach the coastal areas with very little if any water at all, Gear added.

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