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Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 14 August 2010
If urgent steps are not taken, South Africa will run out of water for future economic growth within the next five years.
 This is among several alarming expert opinions contained in the second edition of “The Environmental Handbook: A Guide to Green Business in South Africa”, launched in Cape Town this week.
In a guest foreword to the publication, WWF SA chief executive Morne du Plessis warns that water availability is one of the “decisive factors” that will affect the country’s economic development.
“At current consumption rates, our demand will outstrip supply by 2015,” he says.
The handbook is published by consulting and research organisation Trialogue, which specialises in areas of sustainable business and corporate social investment.
Global warming
The latest edition focuses on global warming, and was coincidentally released on a day when local newspapers were highlighting one of its more dramatic global effects: a 260 square kilometre slab of ice which has broken off the Greenland icecap.
The handbook notes the effects of climate change and increasing water stress are now being felt in South Africa.
“We’re already at crux point with water, with only 2% of our supply in reserve – and, unlike the energy situation, there is no alternative to the resource we’re using,” it says. Continue reading South Africa out of water within 5 years
Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) - partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 07 May 2010
South Africa faces a far more disruptive threat than Eskom power failures, one that is potentially calamitous and may even be seen by religiously-minded citizens as the coming of the biblically predicted apocalypse.
It will be characterised by the failure of wastewater purification systems, the pollution of rivers and dams and even the poisoning of waters in reservoirs or dams serving as reservoirs if the purification process is inadequate at that level.
The first signs of the disaster are already visible in remote rural areas where the municipalities – which are responsible for wastewater purification – are too poor to attract appropriately qualified personnel to operate purification systems and ensure that they are properly maintained.
Though water and environment affairs minister Buyelwa Sonjica denies that there is a water crisis at present, she implicitly admits that one is inevitable unless strenuous action is taken to prevent it when she warns that South Africa will have to spend R23-billion to prevent the collapse of the wastewater treatment system.
An excellent synopsis of the main dimensions of the impending crisis if appropriate and urgent measures are not taken is contained in a publication by the Centre for Development and Enterprise and Business Leadership SA.
The publication summarised the contents of a round table discussion by representatives of government, business and academia on the genesis of the problem and the threatened crisis.
The scene-setting introduction makes two broad points: Continue reading SA’s water: A looming apocalypse?
Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) - partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 15 March 2010
Anthony Turton vice-president of the International Water Resource Association, explains why sulphur pollution is a bigger problem than carbon emissions.
 The Olifants River draining Mpumalanga is collapsing, specifically because of acidification. We have recently emerged from negotiations at Copenhagen that focused on greenhouse-gas emissions. Most greenhouse gases are derivatives of carbon and much is said about carbon in the context of global climate change.
What is left out of this discussion is sulphur, which, in my professional opinion, is far more important to the immediate and short-term future of the South African economy than carbon will ever be.
Sulphur is relevant in South Africa in two important manifestations. Atmospheric sulphur, in the form of sulphur dioxide, combines with moisture in clouds and falls to earth as acid rain. Aquatic sulphur, in the form of sulphate salt, combines with water in underground mine voids and produces sulphuric acid, which in turn manifests as acid mine drainage (AMD). Continue reading Acid rain more important than carbon emissions
Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) - partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 08 March 2010
Anthony Turton, vice-president of the International Water Resource Association, explains how our water problems can be solved to benefit the economy.
 Acid mine drainage The phrase “acid mine drainage” (AMD) has been bouncing around in the media for months. It is caused by disused mine workings being flooded, which brings water into contact with the pyrite base of the ore body. Bacteria attack the pyrite, a sulphide compound, releasing sulphate and, through a complex chemical reaction, oxygen. The oxygen feeds back into the process, making it a self-sustaining reaction, much like fire feeds off fresh air.
The resulting product is a toxic cocktail of heavy metals, including arsenic and uranium, all dissolved in this highly acidic stream of water known as AMD. This is clearly not a good thing, because the volumes are substantial and the toxic loads are high. AMD from Witwatersrand gold mines is also radioactive.
Is this good news for the South African economy? Clearly not when you consider that the water decanting from the Witwatersrand mining basin will contribute about 5% of the flow volume of the Vaal River and will increase the load of toxic salts in the river by 20%.
The increased salinity of the water will eventually destroy all agriculture downstream of where the salts enter the river. But the way you frame the question dictates the answer you get, so let’s be clever and redefine the problem. Continue reading Water for the future
Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) - partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems 29 January 2010
DUE to heavy rainfall in the past few weeks, acid mine drainage is “thundering” into the Witwatersrand Western Basin, causing it to spill over, carrying radioactive waste into the Tweelopiespruit and the Crocodile River system, which [...]
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This is among several alarming expert opinions contained in the second edition of “The Environmental Handbook: A Guide to Green Business in South Africa”, launched in Cape Town this week.
