Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) - partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 21 February 2010

Not one of one of Cape Town’s 26 sewerage plants is working properly. The problem is not so much the quantity of waste that the Mother City’s burgeoning population produces, but rather the volume of water used to transport that waste to the processing plants.

Blue-Green algae deposits at Zeekoeivlei

“There is just too much water arriving at these plants,” says Jeremy Westgarth-Taylor, who has studied the water situation in South Africa over the past 16 years, and is a past winner of a WWF Green Trust Award.

Mr Westgarth-Taylor was addressing guests at a recent “Green Drinks”, a monthly event at which Hout Bay residents share ideas about topical environmental issues.

According to Mr Westgarth-Taylor, the catastrophic poisoning, in 1997, of Wildevoelvlei, the series of pans between the sea and Imhoff’s Gift estate in Kommetjie, was a case in point. A highly toxic blue-green bloom (thought to be algal) formed on the surface of the lakes as a result of wastewater overflowing from a nearby water treatment works. The treated and untreated water had a high concentration of phosphates – a major component of washing powder. To prevent the “blue-greens” from reproducing, SANParks had to turn the lake anoxic (without oxygen), thereby killing an entire generation of organisms.

Even more alarmingly Mr Westgarth-Taylor claims Cape Town has exhausted all damming opportunities on local rivers. Theewaterskloof Dam, which draws on the Dutoits and Riviersonderend rivers, Voelvlei, which drains the mountains west of Tulbagh, and Steenbras Dam above Gordon’s Bay together supply close to 700 million cubic metres to the metropole. Despite the addition of the Berg river scheme just last year the area’s demand for water will out-strip supply in just two years, he says. Continue reading Too much water going to waste – expert