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Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 31October 2010 Water users in the Western Cape will in the coming weeks have an opportunity to access valuable information on the services rendered by the Department of Water Affairs. Berg River Dam The department’s Regional [...] Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) - partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 13 July 2010 Many people believe that the electricity crisis will pale into insignificance relative to the water shortage that will hit the country – and particularly the Western Cape – in the coming years and decades.
Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) - partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 11 June 2010
A reply to a Democratic Alliance (DA) parliamentary question has revealed that 125 mines in South Africa are operating without a valid water licence. While the Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs claims to have a plan to expedite water licences for mines that have applied for these rights, the question to be asked is how are mines even allowed to begin operating if they do not have permission from the start to use water and discharge it thereafter back into water courses? And why are they allowed to continue to operate when it is known they do not have a water licence, especially in cases where no attempt has been made by mines to even apply for a mining licence? The situation around water use licences for mines is rotten and requires improved interventions by government before mines begin operating.  Untreated acid water The figure of 125 mines operating without valid water licences is in fact higher than the figure of 104 mines in this situation which was provided in the reply to a similar parliamentary question last year. It is not clear why this is the case, but is most likely as a result of new mines coming into operation over this period. The greatest number of mines operating without water licences is in Mpumalanga where 54 mines use and discharge water without the necessary authorisations. Gauteng has 28 mines in a similar situation, while KZN and Limpopo have 12 each, and North West province 10. The Minister has revealed that 118 of these mines are in the process of applying for a water licence, while 7 have not yet applied, but continue to operate. The figures reveal that Mpumalanga’s water resources may be under severe threat from mining, both in terms of water availability for competing users and in terms of availability of water of a suitable quality. Last year there were 13 mines in Mpumalanga operating without water licences, now there are 54. Continue reading More mines operate without water licences Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) - partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 04 May 2010 South Africa’s water boards are proposing increases of between 6.2 percent and 43 percent to the cost of the potable bulk water they supply to the country’s municipalities.
The proposals, details of which are contained in a document tabled at a meeting of Parliament’s water affairs portfolio committee on Tuesday, appear to fly in the face of an announcement made by Water Affairs Minister Buyelwa Sonjica last month. “I want to allay the fears of South Africans that there is not in the near future a possibility of a hike. It’s not in the pipeline,” she told a media briefing at Parliament on April 13. However, according to the document, tabled by the department’s chief director for institutional oversight Thoko Sigwaza “neither the minister nor the portfolio committee has a mandate to approve or reject tariff increases”. The document includes a table of bulk water (the water abstracted from rivers and reservoirs, treated, and supplied to municipalities) tariff increases proposed by the 13 water boards. These range from 6,2 percent for Umgeni Water (from R3,24 a kilolitre to R3,47), to 43 percent in the case of Namakwa (from R6,37 to R9,11). Among the water boards supplying the larger metropolitan areas, Rand Water is calling for a 14,1 percent increase (from R3,48 a kilolitre to R3,97) and Amatola for between an eight and 8,8 percent increase. Bushbuckridge Water is proposing a 12,46 percent increase. “Bulk water tariffs are not proposed by the department, but are determined by the water boards,” the document states. Continue reading Water tariff increases proposed Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) - partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 08 April 2010 The South African Local Government Association (Salga) has been formally notified of NERSA’s approval of a 28.9% tariff increase. This will be a rate at which municipalities will purchase bulk electricity from Eskom. This is [...] |
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