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Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 25 August 2010
The Yangtze River – the longest river in Asia and the lifeblood of millions of Chinese – was once said to be so clear you could see the bottom. Today, as China’s massive economic growth takes its toll on the environment, it is at the top of the list of the 10 most-threatened rivers in the world, according to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).
 The Yangtze River provides China with 35% of its fresh water. To help reverse the tide, the WWF has joined forces with Coca-Cola, which operates 39 bottling plants in China, to improve the water quality of the upper reaches of the Yangtze. One project, for example, has them working with rural farmers to reduce the runoff of animal waste into the river by turning pig waste into biogas, a type of fuel that can be used for cooking and heating. Another involves searching for ways for the multinational to be more efficient in its own use of water.
The non-profit’s partnership with Coca-Cola is part of a growing corporate awareness that water is a threatened resource, not just in the Yangtze but throughout the world. Companies that require a lot of water to do make their products are beginning to assess the risks that they — and their customers — face on the water-supply front and what could be done to mitigate them.
For continued growth in China, Coca-Cola officials recognize that the company must strengthen what they call “water security.” The WWF projects are “not considered philanthropy [or] even CSR [corporate social responsibility],” says Brenda Lee, vice president of Coca-Cola China. “It is part of our business commitment. We can only prosper and thrive in communities that are sustainable.”
Coca-Cola is working with WWF to help clean six other rivers on the 10-worst list. The company isn’t the only multinational to add an environmental partner to its water-related efforts, which also involve industry groups. Indeed, Coca-Cola’s competitor, PepsiCo, has been collaborating for some time now with the China Women’s Development Foundation, the architect of the Mother Water Cellars Project, which provides ways for people in the most water-scarce regions of China to have better access to water. Continue reading WWF joins forces with Coca-Cola
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 – 21 July 2010
Millions of litres of highly acidic mine water is rising up under Johannesburg and, if left unchecked, could spill out into its streets some 18 months from now, Parliament’s water affairs portfolio committee hears.
 The last working mine still pumping out water in the Eastern Basin was Grootvlei The acid water is currently about 600 metres below the city’s surface, but is rising at a rate of between 0.6 and 0.9 metres a day, water affairs deputy director water quality management Marius Keet told MPs.
“[It] can have catastrophic consequences for the Johannesburg central business district if not stopped in time. A new pumping station and upgrades to the high-density sludge treatment works are urgently required to stop disaster,” he warned.
Speaking at the briefing, activist Mariette Liefferink, from the Federation for a Sustainable Environment, said the rising mine water posed an “enormous threat”, which would become worse if remedial actions were further delayed.
“This environmental problem is second [in South Africa] only to global warming in terms of its impact, and poses a serious risk to the Witwatersrand as a whole. At the rate it is rising, the basin [under Johannesburg] will be fully flooded in about 18 months”
She said the rising mine water had the same acidity as vinegar or lemon juice, and was a legacy of 120 years of gold mining in the region.
Acid water is formed underground when old shafts and tunnels fill up. The water oxidises with the sulphide mineral iron pyrite, better known as fool’s gold. The water then fills the mine and starts decanting into the environment, in a process known as acid mine drainage.
Keet said the problem was not just confined to Johannesburg, which is located atop one of several major mining “basins” in the Witwatersrand, known as the Central Basin. Continue reading Johannesburg CBD threatened by rising acidic water
Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) - partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 27 June 2010
By Bill Harding, a limnologist (aquatic sciences), who has been involved with issues to do with SA dams since the ’70s
South Africans will be aware that our country is not blessed with abundant rainfall, with an average of only 450mm a year, compared with the global average of 860mm a year.
Without substantial supplies of underground water, we rely heavily on water that is stored in dams. Our reliance on stored water is rendered critical by population growth and industrial expansion. Water resources per capita of population are dwindling.
 Brandvlei Dam. Pressure on many dams is increasing, with a considerable portion of their inflows made up of wastewater effluents and urban runoff. At the same time, pressure on many dams is increasing, with a considerable portion of their inflows made up of waste-water effluents and urban runoff.
The Department of Water Affairs and Environment manages 574 dams, of which 320 are major dams, each holding more than a million cubic metres of water. From this storage, irrigation uses 62%; urban and domestic use equals 27%; and mining, industry and power generation absorb 8%. Commercial forestry utilises 3%.
Evidence suggests that the quality of about 35% of the storable volume is already severely impaired – and nearly all of this in the economic heartland of Gauteng. Water quality is in fact poorest in the areas with lowest runoff and highest contribution to GDP.
Insidious and sinister changes are appearing in some dams, completely unnoticed by routine monitoring programmes. From this it may be reasonably assumed that SA would possess a national programme for reservoir management.
In recent months there have been many reports referring to a water crisis, mentioning the extreme levels of pollution in most Gauteng dams. Continue reading SA dams: a rapidly worsening water crisis
Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) - partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 16 June 2010
Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs, Ms Buyelwa Sonjica, gave the keynote address at the Official launch of Optimum Coal’s Water treatment plant at Optimum Colliery in Mpumalanga last week (9 June 2010)
The Mpumalanga [...]
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