War on water waste

The interview

National Water Week, from 5 to 11 March, focuses onthe need for South Africans to be more savvy aboutusing the precious resource. LIESL PEYPER spoketo Jessica Wilson of NGO Environmental MonitoringGroup about how we can all play our part

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JESSICA Wilson managesthe Environmental MonitoringGroup’s water and climatechange programme.

She has written about envi­ronmental injustice and therelationship between peopleand the environment.

Jessica holds degrees inchemistry, environmentalpolicy and creative writing.

She edited the book Waterand Climate Change: AnExploration for the Con­cerned and Curious.

Working for waterWater affairs minister EdnaMolewa said we’ll start to run outofwaterin13yearsunlessweman­age our resources better. Is thisan exaggeration?We’ve started seeing cities runninglow on water, mainly in times ofdrought or poor planning. Govern-ment’s estimation is correct, espe-cially if we continue with “businessas usual”.

Government allocated R75bnover the next three years to buildnew water infrastructure. Willthis solve the problem?Money will partly solve the problembut the most fundamental issue islack of capacity in local govern-ment to implement decisions aboutallocating funds and appointingcontractors.

There are people thinking aboutwhat should be done but politiciansand decision-makers don’t act ontheir plans. There should also beinvestment in maintaining exist-ing infrastructure.

Are there alternatives to build­ing costly water infrastructure

projects such as new dams?Historically a new dam would bebuilt when it became clear waterwas going to run out. But we havepretty much dammed where wecan.

Any new water supply optionsare more expensive than if you hada large river that flowed all year andyou could simply dam it.

Desalination, waste-water recy-cling and groundwater withdrawalare costly.

We should therefore be lookingat ways to decrease demand. Takeelectricity – blackouts are a goodincentive to reduce demand.

Will scarcity result in a spike inwater tariffs as we have seenhappen with electricity?That depends on how it’s handled.During the severe drought in theSouthern Cape a few years ago theEnvironmental Monitoring Groupexaminedthestrategiesmunicipali-ties used to get people to consumeless water. One way is to increasetariffs.

But rationing is a more effectiveand socially fair way of getting peo-

environment

War on water waste

Residents of Stinkwater, north of Pretoria, queue for drinking water. The community has limited accessto fresh water .

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people44-46

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ple to use less. Rather limit waterusage.

Most municipalities did this byplacing a 15-kilolitre a month limiton each household. Those who ex-ceeded this limit were fined or hadtheir water restricted.

Molewa said 41% of water in SAgoes to waste before it reachesthe users. What is causing this?The figure is probably an underes-timation and relates to water themunicipality can’t account for. Alot of leakage takes place betweenthe household water metre and thetap.

To check turn off your taps, waitto make sure your cistern and gey-ser are full then check if the watermeter still turns. If it is, there’s aleak.

Or place a piece of toilet paperbehind your toilet to see if it getswet. If it does there are leaks.

What effect does climate changehave on SA’s water resources?This is hard to pin down but itlooks as if the western parts of thecountry will get drier and rainfallin the east will increase.

Winter rainfall areas are likelyto be most affected – rainfall willdecrease and it will be less predict-able.

The Southern Cape, a transition-al zone between winter and sum-mer rainfall, has seen a change inthe intensity of its drought andflood cycle. A year’s average rain-fall might fall in two days.

Even if the average rainfall ayear in the region remains stable,its falling pattern changed and thishas huge implications for farmers.

Rising temperatures also in-crease the evaporation rate. Evenif we receive the same amount ofrain we’ll need even more becauseof the amount of water evaporat-ing from our dams.

Government intends to draw uplegislation to “reserve” water forindustries pivotal to economicgrowth plans. Is this a good idea?Municipalities in the SouthernCape were challenged to drop theirwater consumption by 40% be-cause of the drought and most ofthem achieved it.

However the biggest water userin Mossel Bay was PetroSA, whichused the same amount of water asthe entire municipality. The com-pany helped to build part of theWolwedans Dam and receivescheap water as a result. PetroSA isguaranteed half of the water thedam contains unless the level dropsbelow 10%.

During the dry period, as far aswe could find out, PetroSA didn’treduce its water usage by even alitre.

This highlights what guarantee-ing an amount of water [to specif-ic industries] really means. Thisis particularly problematic whenit comes to climate change and theincreased variability of water as aresource.

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