While the West Coast and the entire Western Cape is crippled by the worst drought since 1904, it is maybe the catalyst that was needed to force the Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) to reconsider its priorities and make haste with its long-awaited National Water and Sanitation Master Plan (NW&SMP) that was due in August last year.
One advantage of the newly acquired “disaster area” status is that local municipalities can make area-specific decisions regarding water restrictions in specific locations and Province can issue instructions to enforce such changes where it is deemed necessary. Whether this includes imposing more severe restrictions on industries and mines using millions of litres of precious drinking water, will have to be seen.
The following three articles that appeared in Creamer Media’s Engineering News provide an interesting overview of the country’s dysfunctional and outdated water and sanitation structure and what is planned to improve it.
Along the West Coast, residents have been in uproar over their sky-high water bills since the implementation of the Level 3 water restrictions. Many claim that their monthly water bills have doubled. There is also great resistance against the severe penalties imposed on those who exceed a certain limit while “an illegal mine facing a High Court case is allowed to use millions of litres of potable water”. It is the same Department of Water and Sanitation that granted an integrated water use licence to the controversial Elandsfontein/KROPZ mine during the Easter holidays that is now scrambling to get stakeholder input to complete the National Water and Sanitation Master Plan as a matter of urgency. The Masterplan, which is supposed to “re-engineer the manner in which the water and sanitation business in South Africa is coordinated and guided” is expected to be tabled in September 2017.
Western Cape declared disaster area to repriotise funding
This includes the drilling of boreholes at hospitals, starting in the metro, and followed by schools in high-risk water scarce areas; expediting environmental impact-assessments (EIAs) for testing a mobile desalination plant using existing water inlet flows used for the reactors at the Koeberg nuclear power station site and drillinginto the Table Mountain aquifer.
“The disaster declaration will accelerate the Western Cape Disaster Management Centre’s ‘Avoiding Day Zero’ project, the province’s strategy to ensure that taps do not run dry,” Premier Helen Zille said in a statement.
The province will also appoint groundwater specialists in each district to identify main ground water sources and coordinate the exploration and management of these resources going forward, while local government would assess water restriction severity in respective municipalities.
While local councils remain responsible for making area-specific decisions, the disaster declaration enables the province to issue instructions for any changes to these restrictions that may be necessary in each locality.
The declaration will be formally gazetted this week, and was signed by the Premier during a Cabinet meeting last week. As it stands, the disaster will be classified for a three-month period, which can be extended if the need arises.
In the event of such a classification, the Disaster Management Act empowers the provincial government to protect key frontline service delivery points by reprioritising funding.
The project, led by the Western Cape’s Provincial Disaster Management Centre (PDMC), will focus on three areas including demand management, winter conservation and groundwater management.
Government will further prioritise interventions based on the provincial Drought Risk Register, while PDMC will focus on the most critical aspects of that list.
Funding will be reprioritised provincially and, should further assistance be needed, the province will approach National Treasury and the National Department of Water and Sanitation.
During the current declaration period, a provincial inter-Ministerial committee – chaired by Minister Anton Bredell– will meet regularly to assess immediate threats and recommend interventions.
In the last year, at least R27-million had been reprioritised for interventions in areas which were declared local disasters. In January, parts of the West Coast and Central Karoo were declared agricultural drought disaster areas.
Hydrological disasters were declared in Prince Albert, Witzenberg and Oudtshoorn, but through interventions, these localities are no longer deemed disaster areas. 
Long-awaited national water master plan to see light in September
19TH MAY 2017
The first draft of a master plan aimed at “re-engineering the manner in which the water and sanitation business in South Africa is coordinated and guided” is expected to be tabled in September, more than a year after its intended completion of August 2016.
The Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) on Friday convened a national dialogue in Pretoria to obtain stakeholder input in an effort to complete the National Water and Sanitation Master Plan (NW&SMP) “as a matter of urgency”.
DWS embarked on the development of the national plan to assist government with its investment planning for the development of water resources and sanitation services until 2030, Water and Sanitation Deputy Minister Pamela Tshwete told delegates at the dialogue.
The core purpose of the plan is to provide an overall perspective of the scope of water and sanitation in the country, provide an estimate on the investment required to ensure effective water resources and water and sanitation services delivery, and facilitate effective integrated investment planning, the coordinated implementation of actions and the evaluation of achievements.
“The water sector has achieved a lot, but more needs to be done,” she said.
Despite initiatives and considerable financial investments over the past two decades, there are still considerable gaps in the adequate provision and management of the country’s scarce water supply and sanitation challenges, DWS director-general Dan Mashitisho said.
“It is, in a nutshell, about sustainability,” he stated, adding that the country needed to plan for security of supply and the preservation and management of the precious resource.
“We are not going to spend more time in analysis and paralysis. We need to adopt a critical path; quickly get into this plan and implement,” he promised.
Mashitisho further indicated that the final NW&SMP must highlight where South Africa’s water sector was, whether its development was in line with national plans, where the sector wanted to be and how any gaps could be bridged.
“The plan is not a goal in itself, it is the process to getting to the already established 2030 plans,” he said, pointing out the NW&SMP will be aligned with, and supplement, various national and international plans, programmes and agreements, including the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, the National Development Plan, the National Water Resource Strategy and the Medium Term Expenditure Framework.
Specifically, the master plan will narrow its focus to “identification, prioritisation and execution of action”, with specific responsibilities and timeframes attached, and will relate to all sectors of the economy, including urban and rural development, energy, agriculture and mining.
The urgency of the plan could also see the DWS implementing some components of the plan while the document is under construction.
The NW&SMP would concentrate on existing and new projects and, where necessary, the implementation of additional projects to fill gaps in water and sanitation service delivery.
“It aims to mould existing and possible future work into a cohesive integrated approach, supporting enabling components to make it possible,” explained DWS deputy director-general for planning and information managementDeborah Mochotlhi.
“It is about bridging the gap – everything we are doing related to water and sanitation must be under one umbrella.”
She cited uncoordinated planning, or planning in silos, as a significant contributor to delays in the realisation of benefits from water resources development, resulting in delays in infrastructure development.
Further, the water sector suffered inadequate funding and strained finances, in addition to the neglect of operations and maintenance, the deterioration of quality, a shortage of skills, the wastage or inefficient use of water and uninformed communities.
ROADMAP ROADSHOW
The new plan would deal with institutional and legal arrangements for implementation, operation and maintenance, funding requirements and models, and monitoring and evaluation models, in a clear roadmap.
“The master plan guides, integrates, sets priorities [for] and facilitates infrastructure development, refurbishment, operations and maintenance, nonrevenue water, stakeholder and community involvement and public awareness, investment programmes, the collaboration of accountable government authorities, institutional arrangements and roles, water use authorisations and compliance monitoring and enforcement,” she added.
The provincial and water management area roadshows will be held between June 21 and July 27.
The plan was initially targeted for completion in August 2016; however, Water and Sanitation Minister Nomvula Mokonyane noted last year that it was delayed owing to the large scale of the work, extensive data, resource requirements and the need for broad consultations.
The development of the master plan is also underpinned by collaboration with the Netherlands, with experts assisting with the integration of the various specialist inputs into the final document.
The plan will be updated and revised periodically.
Die Wes-Kaap is nou amptelik ’n rampgebied.
Helen Zille, Wes-Kaapse premier, het Maandag die provinsie tot ’n rampgebied verklaar.
Die Wes-Kaap ervaar tans sy ergste droogte sedert 1904, het Zille gesê.
In Kaapstad is daar egter reeds planne aan die gang.
Tenders vir die bou van ontsoutingsaanlegte by Koeberg en naby Atlantis sal teen Julie geadverteer word. Dit behoort 450 megaliter water per dag te lewer en sal sowat
R15 miljard kos.
Die Stad Kaapstad beplan ook om afvalwater van die Zandvliet-aanleg te behandel en in die waterstelsel terug te pomp. Dit kan 220 megaliter water voorsien.
Op kort termyn gaan die eerste fase van die Voëlvlei-aanvullingskema, waar oortollige water van die Bergrivierdam na die Voëlvleidam gepomp word, in werking gestel word.
http://www.netwerk24.com/Nuus/Droogte/wes-kaap-is-nou-rampgebied-20170522
What’s causing Cape Town’s water crisis?
2017-05-17 08:07
Berg River above the dam in May 2017. (Ashraf Hendricks, GroundUp)
Over the same period, dam storage has increased by only 15%.
The Berg River Dam, which began storing water in 2007, has been Cape Town’s only significant addition to water storage infrastructure since 1995. It’s 130 000 megalitre capacity is over 14% of the 898 000 megalitres that can be held in Cape Town’s large dams. Had it not been for good water consumption management by the City, the current crisis could have hit much earlier.
Source: City of Cape Town weekly dam levels 15 May 2017.
Possibly high consumption preceding current drought
Cape Town is in the middle of a drought. The graph below shows the decreased rainfall in the past two years for Theewaterskloof, the dam supplying more than half of our water.
The graph has been constructed using data from the National Department of Water and Sanitation.
The City would not provide us with historical consumption data. However, officials did provide us with the amount of water treated.
Note than in 2015 there was a spike in the amount of water treated. This suggests that consumption went up in that year, coupled with the onset of below average rainfall. However, Winter has cautioned that we can’t draw too much from this graph, because the correlation between water treated and consumed is not clear.
Constructed using data provided by City of Cape Town (Xanthea Limberg). (GroundUp)
This graph shows the city’s dam levels from 2000 to 2017. In the mid-2000s there was also a serious drought. Source: City of Cape Town. (GroundUp)
Climate change due to human-caused global warming
Winter explained that rainfall to the city’s catchment areas is coming later, dropping more erratically, and often missing the catchments altogether. “We have to acknowledge that carbon dioxide is finding its way into the atmosphere and has reached a new high,” he said. “This is a global system, so the bigger systems are beginning to impact us … there is no doubt that pressure and temperature are related. So disturb the temperature, you disturb the pressure and you start to see different systems operating.”
“Weather variability is suggesting two things to us. One is that the drought interval [the period between less than average rainfall years] is closing and that’s massively problematic if you can’t get a couple of good years to bring yourself back up,” Winter said. “[The other is that rainfall is] coming later. … We don’t get a sweep of cold fronts that are here for two or three days and drop the annual rainfall in nice, neat little batches. That’s no longer true.”
What this means is that we shouldn’t see the current water crisis as a temporary phenomenon that will resolve in a year or two. It’s a long-term problem. We will need substantial government intervention to make Cape Town’s water supply sustainable.
http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/whats-causing-cape-towns-water-crisis-20170517
Study finds that climate change threatens fynbos
The findings also raise questions about the effect this climate change impact could have on the Western Cape’s water catchment areas in the long-term, GroundUp reported.
Now, they have found an interaction between fire and climate change that is causing a loss of fynbos species.
Backtrack to 1966, when botanist Hugh Taylor, who recognised the value of long-term monitoring, permanently marked out 54 plots across Cape Point, recording all plant species that occurred in each.
In 1996, two UCT botanists carried out a second plant survey and in 2010 Slingsby and authors did a third. Slingsby said it was clear that there had been a decline in the number of species, but the cause was not as clear.
ALIEN PLANTS
Researchers identified that alien plants were a cause. There are good historical records of alien plant distribution at Cape Point. Although the aliens had been cleared 30 years earlier, the study found those plots which had had dense stands of aliens had clearly lost more fynbos species. Slingsby said while they did not know the exact mechanism that caused this, it could have been because the alien plants had altered the nature of the soil, making it less suitable for fynbos seeds to grow.
“But identifying one driver of change doesn’t preclude the existence of others. What about climate change?” Slingsby wondered.
The researchers looked at weather records that showed that temperatures at Cape Point had increased by more than one degree Celcius since the 1960s.
They also looked at the records of fires in the study area. Fynbos depends on fire for regeneration, and without fire, fynbos would eventually disappear. In the cool wet winter after a fire, fynbos regenerates; some burned plants re-sprout and the seedlings of other species pop up.
Ecologists have long known that if the first summer after a fire is hot and dry, many of the new seedlings and resprouting plants will die, which will affect the species composition of the area. Natural weather variability means that after a firethere will be some hot summers, others not so hot. But climate change is changing that.
“Unfortunately, the weather record for this study site shows that the duration of hot, dry summer weather has been increasing since the 1960s, suggesting post-fire mortality of plants should be more severe. Different study plots burned at different times and when we compared the plots, those that experienced more extreme weather in the first summer after a fire, showed a significant decline in species diversity. This confirms an impact of changing climate,” Slingsby said.
The study also found that fynbos species that have a low tolerance of high temperatures have been disappearing, while those that have a higher tolerance of warmer temperatures have been moving in and colonising the study areas.
CLIMATIC VARIABILITY
Slingsby said climatic variability may provide years that were sufficiently benign to allow fynbos to regenerate after fire.
“But many species that regenerate in the first year after a fire– most species in our study – are subject to a form of climatic Russian roulette. Unfortunately, as climate change intensifies, there are fewer empty chambers in the gun,” he said.
“All indications are that the winners from climate change in the Cape are the invasive species like pines, eucalyptus and wattles. These invasive alien plants use more water than the indigenous vegetation and greatly up the game in terms of scale and impact of fires,” Slingsby said.
Nicky Allsopp, SAEON’s Fynbos Node Manager, said a concern was that if there was more “drastic” climate change, then after each fire there would be poorer communities of plants, which may mean poorer ground cover. Less ground cover was likely to mean more soil erosion and might also affect the ability of rainwater to infiltrate the soil. Plants slow the movement of rainwater runoff, giving it more time to seep into the ground, recharging aquifers and seeping into streams and rivers over time.
The researchers conducted their study in the Cape of Good Hope section of Table Mountain National Park, one of the most botanically diverse regions in the world. SAEON scientists and researchers from three South African universities and four institutions in the US collaborated in the study.
The study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article/study-finds-that-climate-change-threatens-fynbos-2017-05-19
The action group West Coast Environmental Protection Association (WCEPA) shared a post of CCN reporter Derek van Dam in which he describes the Western Cape’s water crisis on their FB page with the following comment:
“Absolutely shocking and disgusting that during the worst drought in 100 years, the Saldanha Bay municipality allocates 1.6 million liters of potable water for a mine to pollute each day. This mine will further cause the destruction of a 5- 10 million year freshwater aquifer which is the backbone of groundwater within this area. They are further allowed to use about 700 000 000 liters a year from the aquifer and pump out a maximum of 20 million liters a day of mine processed water unto soft stockpiles, directly on top of the aquifer and all these “slimes” will be bulldozed back into the destroyed aquifer. Because job creation….”
Watch the video here:
“The worst drought in over a century continues to plague Cape Town, South Africa. The city & suburbs effectively have only 11% usable water left within its reservoirs leaving residents “waiting on a miracle.” Today on CNN, I covered the latest drought & dam level information for The Mother City and described the elements behind the crisis, while weighing in on what’s to come. This is not a short term phenomenon, it is a long term problem. Water conservation starts with you.”
*Thanks to Adam Spires/Wannabe Vlogger for the epic drone footage (https://www.facebook.com/adamspiresvlogger/)
https://web.facebook.com/derekvandamfanpage/videos/10154341740871249/