As I write this post I am looking out onto grey and rainy Durban. Two days of persistent rain here make it unbelievable that a mere two hours up the coast a whole district has no water whatsoever. I think this is one of the main problems with Durbanites and our approach to water – we see it raining, we think of Durban as a tropical city and the thought of not having water becomes inconceivable. We think that as water shortages are not a part of our lives, why worry? On the other end of the spectrum I think of the rain water harvesting system we just installed in Kloof. The proud owner of the new system is no doubt looking out onto the grey rainy day with glee and thinking of his three 5000 litre water tanks filling up with water. His family will not have to rely on municipal water for a good couple of weeks, and, if we continue to get good Spring and Summer rains, possibly not even until Autumn. This is the way South Africans need to start to think if we are serious about sustainability and ensuring that all of our land has water.

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Many of the world’s most important food-producing regions depend on freshwater from massive underground aquifers that have built up over thousands of years. Among them: the Ogallala Aquifer in the midwestern United States and the Upper Ganges, sustaining India and Pakistan.

Yet many of those aquifers are now being sucked dry by irrigation and other uses faster than they can be replenished by rainwater, according to a new study in Nature. It’s unclear when many of these aquifers will be completely emptied — scientists are still trying to measure how much “fossil water” these aquifers actually hold. But it’s a worrisome trend: About 1.7 billion people rely on aquifers that are rapidly being depleted. And once they’re gone, it would take thousands of years to refill them.

The Nature study, published by researchers at McGill and Utrecht University in the Netherlands, offers a map showing the regions where the use of water from these aquifers vastly exceeds the rate at which they’re being refilled by rain.

Picture: The Washington Post

The map is a bit complicated, but it essentially compares the usage footprint with the actual rainfall a particular aquifer gets. Blue areas receive more rain than is being used up by humans. The Floridian Aquifer in the southeastern United States, for instance, can get quickly refilled by a big storm (though it still faces problems with saltwater contamination and overuse). Russia has plenty of freshwater. But orange or red areas indicate places where irrigation and drinking water use is drawing out more water from the aquifers than the rain can refill.

In some areas, the imbalance is staggering. Take, for instance, the Upper Ganges in northern India, which sustains farm irrigation in both India and Pakistan. The underground reservoir there would essentially need 54 times as much rain as it currently gets to replenish the water that’s being used by farmers and the local population. (That’s what the gray “footprint” at the bottom of the map shows.)

In the United States, aquifers are taking on increasing importance as food production expands and drought becomes a nagging issue. In regions like western Kansas, where farmers don’t get enough rain for their crops, they depend on irrigation, using freshwater from the Ogallala Aquifer. That’s especially true this year, amid the massive U.S. drought.

About 27 percent of U.S. irrigated farmland depends on the Ogallala aquifer, and it’s a key region for livestock, corn, wheat, and soy. But it’s slowly getting depleted. In some counties, the water table is dropping by as much as two feet per year. And, as David Biello notes, once the Ogallala gets drained, it would take about 6,000 years to recharge with rainfall.

Is it possible to stop this from happening? Perhaps. Across the High Plains, farmers have been experimenting for years with various water conservation practices, such as crop rotation, as well as more-efficient watering techniques like center pivot or drip irrigation. Those practices have helped slow the rate of depletion in the Ogallala, but they haven’t stopped it, as shown in the map above.

There’s also some hope for technological advances — new crop breeds that can use water more efficiently. Recently, I talked to Clay Scott, a corn grower in western Kansas who volunteered to plant two plots of Monsanto’s genetically-engineered DroughtGard hybrid corn among his 3,000 acres of regular corn this year. Like many farmers in the region, Scott relies on the Ogallala aquifer — especially when drought hits — and he’s trying everything he can to reduce his water usage. He’s hoping that this new engineered corn, which carries a gene that enables it to draw water more gradually from the soil, can allow him to rely less on irrigation.

“We’re trying to see if we can maintain yields but reduce our water usage,” Scott said. “In this region, that would be a game changer.”  He’ll know how the genetically modified corn did after weighing the harvest in the fall.

And with the global population soaring past 7 billion, this is one of the biggest questions the world is now facing. Can better conservation practices and new technology enable farmers to keep feeding the planet without depleting its most important water resources?

Story by Brad Plumer

The Washington Post

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A decision by the High Court in Pretoria upholding its earlier verdict relating to the supply of water in Mpumalanga was welcomed by the DA on Friday.

The court on Wednesday dismissed an appeal by Chief Albert Luthuli and Gert Sibande municipalities.

Democratic Alliance chief whip in Mpumalanga James Masango said it was evident the municipalities did not intend to abide by the court order issued in July.

“The fact that both municipalities had the audacity to appeal and to apply for relief while the appeal process is ongoing, shows that they did not intend to abide by the court’s order from the outset,” he said.

“They instead chose to waste more taxpayers’ money, which could have been used to deliver water in the first place, by applying for relief and having costs awarded against them,” said Masango.

He said the DA hoped the thwarted court bid would serve as a valuable lesson to the two municipalities, to deliver on their Constitutional mandate.

“Perhaps they will realise that it is futile to appeal the original ruling, and would rather concentrate their efforts on providing clean, potable water to thousands of residents desperate for relief,” said Masango.

The Gert Sibande and Chief Albert Luthuli municipalities in Carolina were taken to court last month by residents, claiming the water provided to them was not suitable for human consumption.

Residents complained that their water had been polluted since January, allegedly by coal mines in the area.

In July, High Court Judge Moses Mavundla ordered the municipalities to provide each person with a minimum of 25 litres of drinkable water per day.

Mavundla’s ruling still stands.

From – Times Live

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Deputy Minister for Water Affairs Rejoice Mabudafhasi said South Africans need to conserve water to avoid the country running dry by 2050.

She was speaking on Tuesday at a youth water summit held on Gauteng’s East Rand. The gathering aims to encourage young people to think about innovative ways to save water.

The deputy minister said researchers predict the country will run out of water in 38 years time, but said government was putting initiatives in place to ensure that did not happen.

Such initiatives include water harvesting and recycling.

Mabudafhasi said all industries need to support government’s initiative to ensure its goal is a successful one.

 -i Africa.com

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Eskom to cut water use by 260bn litres

by 260 billion litres a year by 2030. The utility said the alternative technologies used at its new power stations would reduce the water requirement to 270 billion litres by next year. The company would have needed 530 billion litres to operate its coal-fired stations had the new measures not been put in place.

Eskom consumed 327 billion litres of water in the 2010/11 financial year. It used about 1.35 litres of water to generate a kilowatt-hour of electricity, making Eskom responsible for about 2 percent of South Africa’s fresh water usage.

But the roll-out of dry cooling and alternative technologies will see Eskom bring down water consumption relative to power produced to 0.99 litres a kilowatt-hour by 2030.

South Africa is a water-stressed country and environmental groups have previously challenged the building of Eskom’s new coal plants, citing water competition they would bring to local communities.

However, in its “Eskom factor” report, the utility said both Medupi and Kusile would use dry-cooling technology. This would reduce water consumption per unit of electricity produced by as much as 90 percent.

“They are dry cooled, so (they) use only about a tenth of the water that conventional wet-cooled power stations require. So this is why we say Medupi and Kusile are ‘cleaner coal’ than our older coal-fired stations,” Eskom spokeswoman Hilary Joffe said.

Apart from investigating the use of mine water in the future, Eskom said it was looking at other improved water management strategies, including cold lime softening, a filtering technology that uses less water than conventional methods.

On “cleaner coal” technology, Joffe said the new power stations’ relative carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, in terms of tons of CO2 per unit of electricity sent out, were as much as 25 percent less than the average for the existing coal-fired fleet.

“That is mainly because they employ super-critical combustion technology, which is much more efficient,” said Joffe.

In the 2011 financial year, Eskom emitted a total of 230 million tons of CO2 into the atmosphere, at a rate of 0.96kg of CO2 per kWh of electricity produced.

The “Eskom factor” report showed that when benchmarking Eskom’s carbon footprint against a set of seven leading developed and developing economies, the utility ranked as the second-highest CO2 emitter.

But Medupi and Kusile would emit about 15 percent less CO2 per megawatt-hour of electricity generated compared with the rest of the coal fleet.

It was estimated that relative carbon emissions could be reduced to 0.68kg per kilowatt-hour by 2030, in which case emissions of CO2 would be at least 100 megatons less than what they would have been, had Eskom continued with current generation technology.

The power utility also said it expected to reduce particulate emissions to 0.21kg per megawatt-hour by 2016/17.

-Business report

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150,000 green jobs in the pipeline

About 150,000 jobs are being created within the “green economy”, the water and environmental affairs department said on Monday.

“In a nutshell we are already implementing a programme that is beginning to contribute to 150,000 jobs in this financial year…we are talking about newly created jobs,” said Director General Nosipho Ncaba at The New Age business briefing in Sandton.

“The Green Fund is the mechanism for us to at least make sure that there are enterprises set up to create development opportunities that are associated with either natural resources rehabilitation or greening the footprint,” she said.

The department was given R800 million for the Green Fund which would contribute to creating 300,000 jobs in the next three years.

Minister Edna Molewa, who was also at the briefing said 800 school leavers and unemployed graduates would be recruited to undergo training in this field.

She said the programme would be for a period of two and a half years and participants would be recruited mainly from rural areas.

“We will ensure that participants are mentored and receive relevant experience to gain access into permanent jobs in biodiversity and the green economy,” said Molewa.

- Sapa

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 Molewa makes green economy a priority

Water and Enviromental Affairs minister Edna Molewa. Picture: Taurai Maduna/Eyewitness News

JOHANNESBURG – Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs Edna Molewa said the preservation of water and the wise use of electricity are on the top of her department’s agenda.

Molewa was addressing a New Age business breakfast on Monday in Sandton, Johannesburg.

She said her department was committed to prioritising a green economy, following agreements signed at last year’s COP17 climate change conference in Durban.

The minister said ongoing talks with power utility Eskom have ensured that water usage is closely monitored at power plants across the country.

As part of Environmental Month, Molewa said her department will next week launch its Youth in Green Development initiative.

She said the campaign will aim to, among others, educate youth on the importance of land-filled sights and a greener economy.

-Eye Witness News

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Malema’s allies milked millions from dodgy water projects

The water affairs department has written a damning report on a Limpopo district municipality run by a close ally of Julius Malema and Cassel Mathale.

Indicating that it paid out millions of rand for water projects that were never undertaken or completed.

A investigation has also found that some of the companies awarded contracts by the Mopani district municipality were owned by relatives of Selby Manthata, a prominent Limpopo businessperson, a well-known ally of Mathale and the business partner of Mathale’s wife, Mokgadi Kgohloane.

One of the contracts, for the construction of a pump and pipeline for R3.5-million, went to Manthata’s brother, Makgetsi Manthata. The report says the pump is not operational.

The Mopani district is a water-stressed area.

In February last year, the website capewatersolutions reported that “special and urgent intervention is needed to curb the water crisis” there.

Central to the saga is the mayor of the Mopani district municipality, Joshua Matlou, who served as the ANC provincial chairperson in the district alongside Malema in 2006. The two men are friends and allies.

Noncompliance
Matlou and Mathale, who hails from the Mopani district, are also known to be friends. Mathale did not dispute the closeness of their relationship when questioned by the Mail & Guardian, but he strongly denied that this had any bearing on the awarding of municipal contracts in the district.

The M&G repeatedly asked Matlou for comment over a four-week period. On Thursday, he referred the M&G to municipal spokesperson Neil Skwambane, who claimed to have responded to the questions. However, the M&Ghad not received his responses by the time of going to print.

The departmental report, leaked to the M&G, outlines how the district council spent funds allocated by the department in the 2009/10 financial year.

Introducing the report is a lengthy letter by water affairs deputy director Masala Mulaudzi warning municipal manager Tim Maake that the department intended withholding a fourth-quarter payment of R30-million because of issues of noncompliance.

Areas of concern highlighted by the department include service providers being paid for unfinished work or work not done, the council’s failure to adhere to its own supply- chain management policy and lack of cost-effective and competitive procurement practices.

Municipal contracts
The report reveals that companies owned by Manthata’s siblings benefited from Mopani municipality contracts and that the work was sometimes not properly done. It reveals that:

• Makgetsi Construction, owned by Makgetsi Manthata, Selby’s brother, received a municipal contract for the replacement of a pipeline and pump in Giyani village worth nearly R3.5-million. The report said the pump station was not operational and “the contractor who constructed the pipeline damaged the electric cables to the pump station”. Makgetsi was adamant that the company carried out all the work as specified;
• A borehole supposedly upgraded at a cost of R400000 by Mokhomazi Trading – a company wholly owned by Manthata’s sister, Constance Malebati – is “not in operation”; and
• The Mopani council paid R614460 to a company owned by Manthata’s brother, Makgetsi Construction, for the upgrading of a pumphouse in Mokgolobotho village, even though Makgetsi allegedly knows nothing about the contract. “I never did such work at Mokgolobotho,” he told theM&G.

In 2010, City Press revealed that Makgetsi Construction was a sub-contractor for SGL Engineering Projects, of which Malema was a director. Makgetsi did not dispute his close ties with Malema and his brother’s links to Mathale, but denied that these had played a role in him winning Mopani municipal contracts.

Last year, a losing bidder took Malebati and her partners in another company, Tlong Re Yeng Trading and Projects, to court after the Mopani council awarded it a R200-million contract for the installation of pipes from dams to villages.
The court granted an interdict suspending all work pending determination of whether due process was followed in the tender.

The departmental report also lists the following companies as having received contracts that were either not carried out or properly completed:

• Jabbeca Trading received almost R1-million for the “excavation of sewerage ponds” at the Murhogolo sewage pump station. The report said “no such work was undertaken”;
• Almost R400 000 was paid to A-Leo-Projects to equip a borehole in Siyandhani village. Although the report stated that water shortages were “critical in the village”, it said the borehole was still inoperable;
• Butuka BK received nearly R500 000 to equip a borehole in Petanage. The department said the borehole was “not operational”; and
• Delta Safety, a Western Cape-based company that went into voluntary liquidation in November 2009, was paid nearly R1.4-million for boreholes in four villages, two of which were not operational.
• Water affairs department communications director Linda Page said the department eventually withheld R10-million from the municipality during the 2009/10 financial year.

She said: “The department realised that negotiation with the municipality to resolve outstanding issues was not going to yield a satisfactory outcome … [it] then had to inform the municipality about the intention to withhold the funds before the end of the financial year.”

The department was of the view that the municipality had failed to address adequately areas of concern flagged in the report, she said.

From 2006 until the current financial year, the department had transferred just more than R440-million to the municipality in a bid to address critical water shortages in the district.

When the M&G phoned Malebati, she said: “No comment, I’m sick.” Despite repeated attempts to get comment from Manthata and Maake, they had not responded by the time of going to print.

The M&G Centre for Investigative Journalism (amaBhungane) produced this story. All views are ours. See www.amabhungane.co.za for our stories, activities and funding sources.

-Mail&Guadian

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Residents with no water for 8 years

FOR EIGHT years residents of Kgapane township near Modjadjiskloof in Limpopo have been subjected to life without water.

NOT A DROP: Children at Ledile creche crowd around a dry tap. Due to the shortage, people of Losmycherry at Kgapane in Limpopo are forced to collect water from a well. PHOTO: ELIJAR MUSHIANA

The residents of Maplankeng, Kgaphamadi and Losmycherry sections of the township have been forced to buy water from fellow residents who have boreholes in their yards.

The residents said the problem started in 2004 when taps started to run dry.

They accused the Greater Letaba municipality of failing to provide an explanation for the lack of water. They said the municipality had also failed to dispatch water tankers to supply them with water.

Of concern to them is that the municipality had continued to bill them for water monthly though they did not have a single drop.

A few residents showed Sowetan copies of their municipal accounts which indicated they owed as much as R11,000 for water consumption.

Ledile Maphalle, who owns a crèche in the township, said yesterday that she had gone for days without bathing because of lack of water.

“The only water we can afford to buy is that of feeding our families. As for the children, they have to bring containers of water from their homes for drinking during the day,” said Maphalle.

Residents Helen Serumula and Mosima Lebopa have been living in the township for many years.

They both accused the municipality of not taking issues of service delivery seriously.

They said they were certain that the water problem did not affect the Parktown area of the township, where mayor Godfrey Modjadji lived.

Modjadji lives a stone’s throw away from the man-made fountain in the township.

“The treatment meted out to us goes to show that the government does not take us seriously .

“Our leaders only take us into consideration when they want our votes,” said Lebopa.

The executive mayor of Mopani district municipality, Joshua Matlou, seemed surprised when told of the hardships the residents were facing.

He said though his municipality was a water authority, the Kgapane challenges lay in the hands of the local municipality.

Spokeswoman for the Greater Letaba municipality, Lovers Maenetja, acknowledged there were problems of water shortages at Kgapane.

Maenetja said the problem was caused by the damaged reservoir and that, until it was fixed, the problem would persist.

“But it is not true that we are not providing water to those residents.

“We will check the schedule on which the tankers are supposed to supply water to them,” Maenetja said.

- frankm@sowetan.co.za

-Sowetanlive.co.za

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SA doesn’t want war over water

The Southern African Development Community’s protocol on shared watercourses is recognised as one of the world’s best. But sound agreements on the sustainable and equitable management of joint water resources require effective means to implement them.

Water officials from across Southern Africa are meeting in Harare, Zimbabwe, on Jun 5-6 to develop a mechanism to monitor the implementation of the regional agreement.

SADC’s 2003 Revised Protocol on Shared Watercourses stresses a basin-wide approach to managing transboundary waters, rather than an emphasis on territorial sovereignty. It spells out the objectives of sound management as including coordinated management, sustainable use, and environmental protection.

The river basin organisations that are holding their fifth meeting in Harare are charged with promoting equitable use, setting out strategies for the development of shared rivers and lakes, and developing a policy for monitoring shared watercourses.

Armed conflict over water has long been predicted; most recently the United States Office of the Director of National Intelligence said such wars would break out within the next decade. But although many parts of the region are already facing water stress, SADC expects its numerous transboundary watercourses to be the basis of closer cooperation rather than conflict.

“They say the next wars will be fought over water,” Dr Kenneth Msibi told IPS in Harare, ” but with these agreements, we are making sure that water will instead be an instrument of peace.” Msibi, a water policy and strategy expert at the SADC Secretariat, said the water sector is critical in helping build regional integration. “Cooperation will also lead to further integration and water is an engine for development and this means a tool for poverty reduction. This means protocols for shared water are critical for regional integration.” Msibi believes managing shared river basins in line with integrated water resource management principles – recognising that water management encompasses both social and economic goals, and should involve policy-makers, managers and users – contributes to SADC’s three key objectives: regional integration, peace and stability, and poverty reduction.

Sipho Nkambule, the chief executive officer of the Komati Basin Authority, which coordinates management of a river system that extends across South Africa, Swaziland and Mozambique, said he would use the Harare meeting as a chance to compare notes on how other river basin authorities were monitoring implementation.

He said the main challenge was explaining management of a shared river to people living along its banks.

“People are struggling to understand why they should share the resource with others,” Nkambule said.

“Those upstream are not happy to be told to allow water to pass, when they want to trap it for their own needs.” Sergio Sitoe, the Interim Executive Secretary of LIMCOM, the Limpopo Watercourse Commission, said he hoped the new monitoring tool would emphasise communication among member states sharing a river basin.

“Member states should notify each other on development projects along the basin, as notification is crucial and failure to do so may create problems downstream and might impact negatively on other members,” he said.

As an example, Sitoe mentioned a recent complaint in which the Botswana government felt their South African counterparts should have officially informed them before beginning a development in the river basin.

The LIMCOM head said that while regional agreements allowed for disputes to be taken to the SADC Tribunal, there were a number of conflicts in the region that were being discussed behind closed doors.

“It’s good that we are trying to prevent these conflicts,” Sitoe said, “and we are building trust so that everything runs smoothly.” Officials from across the region are agreed that implementation of the 2003 Revised Protocol on Shared Watercourses will promote peace and stability in the region.

Msibi said the river basin organisation meeting – which welcomed its latest full member, the Zambezi Watercourse Commission, whose founding agreement was ratified in September last year – was meant to provide guidelines and reach a consensus on what indicators would be used and how these could be applied in each of the region’s transboundary river systems.

“We are taking input from all the stakeholders, we will discuss the tool and indicators to monitor progress,” Msibi said.

“This agreement can unlock potential for member states, and it creates an opportunity for member states to work together to beat economies of scale,” he said.

_iAfrica.com