“The impact of Acid Mine Drainage in Gauteng is a significant environmental problem that has a potential to undermine socio-economic development, and pose a threat [...]]]> Johannesburg – Acid Mine Drainage (AMD) in Gauteng poses a threat to residents and government needs to act swiftly in addressing the problem, the provincial housing department said on Wednesday.

“The impact of Acid Mine Drainage in Gauteng is a significant environmental problem that has a potential to undermine socio-economic development, and pose a threat to human lives. The impact of this can already be seen in some municipalities in the province,” the department’s deputy director-general on human settlements William Bhila said.

This emerged at one-day conference between the South African Local Government Association and the department, which addressed the impact of AMD and explored ways to manage the problem.

AMD is presently a cause for concern in the West Rand basin, the Central Rand basin and the East Rand basin, Bhila said.

“AMD has already been decanting from the West Rand Basin since 2002. This resulted in the loss of animal life and the corrosion of fittings in the Mogale City area.”

Bhila said the government needed to act swiftly before AMD started to decant in the other two basins. Marius Keet from water affairs department said the best way to tackle this problem is through collaboration by all stakeholders.

“We need to explore the possibility of partnerships between public and private sectors”, he said.

Bhila said the general solution is to pump the water from below the environmental critical level to the surface where it is neutralised.

Water Restrictions Still Applicable In Greater Hermanus Area.

Residents in the greater Hermanus area are reminded that water savings measures are still in place and that their full cooperation is needed to ensure that the dry season can be seen through with the available water resources.

Gardens may not be watered with potable water [...]]]>

Water Restrictions Still Applicable In Greater Hermanus Area.

Residents in the greater Hermanus area are reminded that water savings measures are still in place and that their full cooperation is needed to ensure that the dry season can be seen through with the available water resources.

Gardens may not be watered with potable water provided by the municipality. With the gardening season now starting, keen gardeners are encouraged to recycle grey water harvested from baths, showers and washing machines.

The 24.9 mm of rainfall measured in September is far below the monthly average of 50.9mm. The De Bos dam level is currently 42% full, which essentially means 33% full because the municipality wont be able to extract water from the dam when the dam level reaches 9%.

A report by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said climate change will reduce river runoff and aquifer recharges, adding that the loss [...]]]> Rome – The UN food agency warned climate change will restrict the availability of water for farming in decades to come, including in the Mediterranean region, and urged governments to take action.

A report by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said climate change will reduce river runoff and aquifer recharges, adding that the loss of glaciers “will eventually impact the amount of surface water available”.

The report said that in Asia “large areas of irrigated land that rely on snowmelt and mountain glaciers for water will also be affected”.

“Heavily populated river deltas are at risk from a combination of reduced water flows, increased sanity and rising sea levels,” it added.

FAO also found that while increased temperatures will lengthen the growing season in northern temperate zones they will reduce it almost everywhere else, leading the yield potential and water productivity of crops to decline.

It said governments should improve the ability of countries to measure their water resources, as well as encourage farmers to change their cropping patterns to allow earlier or later planting and reduce their water use.

“Farm size and access to capital set the limits for the scope and extent of adaptation and change at farm level,” the report said.

An International Energy Agency meeting of the ministers and industry leaders in Paris was clear about the scale of the challenges: Global [...]]]> Paris – Energy demand will skyrocket in the coming decades and much of it will be met with fossil fuels, increasing risks of pollution and global warming, a group of energy ministers warned.

An International Energy Agency meeting of the ministers and industry leaders in Paris was clear about the scale of the challenges: Global demand is expected to grow by a third by 2035, most of it in developing countries – where “dirty” fuels are most common.

That message was a reminder that while much of the focus of late has been on the economic slowdown, many parts of the world are still growing at a quick pace.

This week, for example, China reported 9.1% growth for the latest quarter – a slowdown for the behemoth but still many times the growth rates in the US or Europe.

Australian Energy Minister Martin Ferguson, who chaired the two-day meeting, said that even as more pollution comes from poorer countries, the burden for introducing new, cleaner technology rests with the developed world.

“Those less developed economies have the same aspirations and right in the demand for energy,” he told reporters after the meeting. “It’s not for us to deny it to them, but to invent clean energy technology at the lowest possible cost to ensure that they have the same opportunities.”

If advances aren’t made in clean technology, Ferguson, citing an upcoming IEA report, said carbon emissions could cause global temperatures to rise more than 3.5°C. That’s significantly higher than the threshold of 2°C  beyond which serious damage from climate change is expected.

Go green

To prevent that damage, the ministers urged significant investment in clean technology, but offered few specifics.

In a statement that summarized the meeting, Ferguson said participants acknowledged that coal would “remain the backbone of electricity supply in many parts of the world.” To head off its ill effects, they could only hope that the technology might eventually be developed to capture and store its pollution.

Ferguson also cautioned against talking about the end of nuclear power – once considered the great clean-energy hope – in the wake of Japan’s nuclear crisis.

“Nuclear is part of the future,” he said, especially for developing countries like China. Countries that are ending their use of nuclear, like Germany, however have to find other clean energy, he said.

The IEA, created in the wake of the 1970s oil crisis, is made up of more than two dozen mainly European, oil-importing countries. It works to co-ordinate responses to supply disruptions and gather research and data on the energy sector.

“The demand for water is expected to increase by about 32% over the next 25 years,” she said in a speech prepared for delivery in Johannesburg.

This meant that by 2035, the [...]]]> Johannesburg – The demand for water in South Africa is expected to exceed supply by 2035, Gauteng Rural Development MEC Nandi Mayathula-Khoza said.

“The demand for water is expected to increase by about 32% over the next 25 years,” she said in a speech prepared for delivery in Johannesburg.

This meant that by 2035, the demand for serviced water would exceed supply by 17%, she said.

According to the Gauteng spatial development framework, the province’s population was expected to grow from 10.5 million in 2009 to 28 million by 2055.

“Will we have enough food and water to sustain such population growth?” Mayathula-Khoza asked.

While environment-friendly technology was advancing, the economic and political climate would determine whether sustainable practices would be adopted, she said.

“It’s very hard to stipulate one major threat because you’re dealing with such a diversity as climate change, but because you’d have such intense changes in the climate one of the [...]]]> Cape Town – Lack of water and food in South Africa is a critical threat as climate change takes hold, environmental organisations have warned.

“It’s very hard to stipulate one major threat because you’re dealing with such a diversity as climate change, but because you’d have such intense changes in the climate one of the biggest things we’re going to have to deal with is lack of water, and as a result, lack of food,” Ferial Adams of Greenpeace Africa told News24.

The UN COP17 climate conference takes place in Durban in November and negotiators have been tasked with hammering out a binding deal to replace the Kyoto Protocol which is due to expire.

Key countries though, have rejected attempts to extend the protocol and the Cancún conference in Mexico descended into chaos when no binding deal was achieved.

Food production

“The one thing that the international community has agreed to is we need to keep the global average warming below 2°C. That might not sound like a lot, but bear in mind when the global average increases that much, parts of sub-Saharan Africa within certain regions, the average will increase 4°C to 5°C.

“That means a lot more evaporation of moisture from the soil and so a lot of challenges for agriculture, in particular,” World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) climate change programme manager in South Africa, Richard Worthington, told News24.

The lack of water would have a profound effect on food production in SA, Greenpeace said.

“So major food insecurity and scarcity of water in a country that already has a lack of water,” said Adams.

Pollution has been cited as one of the major causes of water scarcity and mining, in particular, has come under fire in Gauteng as that province grapples with the problem of acid mine water drainage.

“What is concerning is that the department continues to give these licences for big mines and doesn’t do enough to hold them accountable for what they’re doing.

“So it’s not only the coal mining, but the gold mining, and we’ve seen the acid mine drainage as a result,” said Adams.

Pollution

Earthlife Africa suggested that because of high consumption by industrialised economies, the planet’s pollution load was distributed unevenly.

“If you worked out the pollution load on the planet and shared it equally among every human being on the planet, to reach parity, China would be allowed to double its emissions and the US would be required to drop its emissions by 60%.

“We’re not suggesting China double its emissions, but what we’re saying is that the playing field is not level. And when you consider that, the vast majority of China’s production and emissions is actually for the consumption of the north, then the actual footprint in the north is much higher than stipulated,” said Muna Lakhani, Cape Town branch co-ordinator for Earthlife Africa.

The rate at which the ice shelves melted was of concern, said Worthington.

“Most of the sea level rise that is included in the predictions relates to global expansion. What we have less certainty about is the rate at which we lose ice shelves.

“If we get accelerated ice shelf loss which the science is suggesting, sea level rise could be a lot quicker from all of that water stored in global regions entering the oceans.”

Comparison

Countries vulnerable to climate change like the Maldives have appealed to the UN to accelerate the release of promised funds to help those countries take the actions necessary to mitigate climate change.

Water scarcity in SA will have a devastating impact, particularly on the poor, Greenpeace said.

“You have to do a comparison in terms of how much water people are using and we’ve got millions of people in South Africa who still don’t have access to proper clean water and that is a concern,” said Adams.

Duncan Alfreds

“As we know, we are running out of landfill space and most of the waste landfilled is recyclable,” she said in a speech prepared for delivery in Polokwane.

Recycling had the benefit of [...]]]> Johannesburg – Recycling needs to be more accessible as a way to dispose of waste, Deputy Water Affairs Minister Rejoice Mabudafhasi said.

“As we know, we are running out of landfill space and most of the waste landfilled is recyclable,” she said in a speech prepared for delivery in Polokwane.

Recycling had the benefit of reclaiming energy and materials that would otherwise be wasted, she told a waste management conference.

Recycling should, therefore, be incorporated into waste collection systems, and these services should be available to indigent South Africans.

While industrial waste recycling was handled mainly by the private sector, plans were being formulated to increase municipal waste recycling, she said.

Mabudafhasi said municipalities would need to strengthen their revenue collection systems – for those who could afford to pay – before these initiatives could be put in place.

It would also create sustainable jobs in the waste disposal industry.

This had improved from 88.7% in 2002, according to statistics in the General Household Survey.

These figures did not take into account the distance people had to travel to reach water and regarded [...]]]> Pretoria – Statistics SA said on Tuesday that 93% of South African households in 2010 had access to safe water in 2010.

This had improved from 88.7% in 2002, according to statistics in the General Household Survey.

These figures did not take into account the distance people had to travel to reach water and regarded safe water as piped, tap and borehole water.

The Eastern Cape had the lowest access to safe water in 2010 at 74%.

It had, however, shown remarkable progress from 59% access in 2002, the report said.

The Western Cape had the best access in 2010 at 99%.

Having access to water did not mean that safe water was easy to access, according to the report. Only 45% of those with access to water actually had it in their dwellings.

Limpopo was the worst at 14%, followed by North West at 25% and Mpumalanga at 29%.

A total of 59% of households in 2010 used flush toilets connected to a public sewerage system – up from 56% in 2002.

Households with no toilet facilities dropped from 10% in 2002 to 5% in 2010.

The government had not yet managed to eliminate the use of bucket toilets although its use had dropped from 2.5% to 0.8% in 2010.

Thirty-thousand households were surveyed in face-to-face interviews.

Given water’s role in power generation, the impact of about 300 million Google searches a day is around 150 000l daily – in [...]]]> Singapore – A Google search for “world water shortage” will produce more than four million results in 0.17 seconds. It will also use a tenth of a teaspoon of water, experts say.

Given water’s role in power generation, the impact of about 300 million Google searches a day is around 150 000l daily – in a world where water supplies are increasingly a major concern.

“These two things – water and energy – come together and that’s a big thing for the world to understand,” said Len Rodman, a US-based water and energy expert.

“If you squander water, if you indiscriminately use power, then in the long run that will have implications for the world,” said the chief executive of Black & Veatch, a major global water and energy company.

Water is used not only to generate power through dams and steam but also as a coolant for nuclear, coal and gas-fired power plants, which are competing with agriculture, industry and urban consumption for water supplies.

Energy demand

The Asian Development Bank has forecast the region’s energy demand to double by 2030 to 6 325 million tons of oil equivalent, or about 74 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity.

Water will play an increasing role as a power source for Asia but supplies are already under threat, said the ADB.

China and India, the world’s most populous nations, are expected to have a combined shortfall of one trillion cubic metres of water within 20 years.

Bangladesh, Cambodia, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines and Vietnam are already under “water stress” conditions, meaning they are experiencing periodic or limited water shortages.

During an international water conference in Singapore in July attended by Rodman, industry players and government officials called for better integration of water and energy policies to help find solutions to looming shortages.

“There is a growing realisation that we can no longer think about energy and water separately,” Peter Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute in California, said at the conference.

A recent survey of more than 700 US utilities firms by Black & Veatch showed that for the first time, water supply was the top environmental concern among the respondents. Asia is likely to face the same problems, Rodman said.

Advanced technologies

“It will truly be exacerbated in this region because of the urban densities that are there. You’ve got tremendous numbers of highly concentrated urban areas,” he said.

The needs of the region’s agricultural sector can also affect power supplies.

In 2008, 2.2 billion cubic metres of water were diverted from three major hydroelectric plants in Vietnam for agriculture, leading to a shortfall of 430 million kilowatt-hours of electricity, Black & Veatch said.

Research is continually being carried out on water treatment technologies that require less energy as well as power-generation facilities that would need less water, experts said.

Advanced technologies to treat polluted water as well as recycle water from toilets, kitchen sinks and sewers for use in homes and industries will help address Asia’s future needs, they said.

Companies like Siemens Water Technologies are doing research aimed at integrating desalination – an energy-intensive process to purify seawater – with solar power.

Rodman said encouraging people to change their consumption patterns of water and energy by helping them understand the link between the two is equally important.

“Gone are the days when water is independent from energy,” he said.

Briefing members of Parliament’s water and environmental affairs portfolio committee, the department’s acting chief director for water resources information [...]]]> Pretoria – Water affairs officials were unable to tell MPs on Wednesday whether the health of South Africa’s rivers was improving or worsening, but a rash of red spots across maps they presented suggested the latter.

Briefing members of Parliament’s water and environmental affairs portfolio committee, the department’s acting chief director for water resources information management, Moloko Matlala, listed the main problems affecting the quality of the country’s river water.

These included faecal pollution, eutrophication (the inflow of nitrates and phosphates), high salinity, high toxicity (from, among other sources, agricultural pesticides) and acid mine drainage.

Displaying a brightly coloured map of the country’s main river systems, Matlala advised the committee: “When you see red dots, you know there are problems.”

In what he described as a “snapshot” in time (June this year) of the microbiological state of rivers, large red dots are clustered like bunches of grapes along certain Western Cape, Gauteng, North West Province, Mpumalanga, KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape water courses.

Human faeces

They indicate the water from these rivers, if drunk untreated, poses a high risk to those consuming it due to the presence of “mainly Escherichia coli, but in some cases faecal coliforms”.

E coli and faecal coliforms are bacteria found in human faeces. They are linked to diseases such as cholera and typhoid.

Another map displayed by Matlala showed the risk of eating “raw” crops from agricultural lands irrigated with untreated river water. Here, red as well as yellow (indicating “moderate” risk) dots occur mainly in the Western Cape, Gauteng and the Eastern Cape.

A third map suggests that swimming in certain rivers in many areas of the country could be a dangerous form of recreation, especially in parts of Gauteng and North West, but also in the Western Cape (the Berg River) and certain Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal water courses.

Matlala singled out some rivers for special mention.

“The Vaal River system and Orange River [near the confluence of the two] are impacted due to… mining activities, irrigation, power generation and sewage effluents.

“The Waterval, Blesbokspruit, Natalspruit and Klip rivers are also affected by effluents from waste water treatment plants and industries.”

Chemical nutrients

He said the lower Crocodile River had elevated salinity and phosphate concentrations, and posed a concern, especially with respect to irrigation.

“The upper Crocodile River [is] polluted by effluents from gold mining activities and effluents from waste water treatment works. The trophic state [the phosphate and nitrogen content] of virtually all the dams in the Crocodile River catchment is very high, and algal blooms are common.”

Freshwater algal blooms are the result of an excess of chemical nutrients, particularly phosphates.

Matlala said that in KwaZulu-Natal, the Umgeni River, which flows out to sea near Durban, had high phosphate levels due to “poultry farms, effluent from cattle feed lots and informal settlements without sanitation facilities” along its banks and feeder streams.

The province’s Umlazi River was “heavily impacted due to… sewage effluents discharged into the river”. Ironically, the river’s name stems from the isiZulu word “umlaza”, which means sour tasting.

Matlala said a solid waste site close to the river as well as discharges of industrial effluent by a textile factory were also affecting its water quality.

In the Eastern Cape, the Umthatha River carried high levels of nutrients and faecal pollution “due to overflowing sewer manholes and overloaded waste water treatment works”.

No data

Along the coast, the Buffalo River was similarly affected, though upstream it remained “pristine”.

Matlala also warned that sulphate concentrations in the Witbank, Middelburg and Loskop dams were increasing, and exceeded quality standards.

The department’s acting deputy director-general for water resources management, Mbangiseni Nepfumbada, was unable to say whether the health of the country’s rivers was improving or worsening.

Responding to a question on this, he said it “needs to be looked at”, adding that no data was immediately available.

According to a document tabled at the briefing, titled Report on the State of Rivers and Dams for 2010 – 2011, high salinity levels – caused by chemicals such as sulphates, chlorides and sodium – is a “huge” water quality problem across SA.

“These are mainly produced in areas where there are activities such as mining, agriculture [and] irrigation.”

It notes that water quality is not always monitored regularly.

“Some areas are not monitored regularly, or not at all, due to human and financial constraints.

“Faecal pollution and pesticides are not monitored widely, yet they pose health risks to human and agricultural activities,” it states.