“If you look at [...]]]> Water-stressed South Africa needs to invest a massive R573 billion in water infrastructure, services and demand management over the next decade, but has budgeted for less than half this amount, government said on Monday.

This gap was a “significant shortfall”, water affairs chief operations officer Trevor Balzer told reporters at Parliament.

“If you look at [what is needed across] the total water value chain, you’re looking at a figure of R573 billion over 10 years.”

This included about R394 billion for water services; R162 billion for water resources infrastructure; and R16 billion for water demand management.

“If you look at the current budget allocations, taking into account all of the grant-funded programmes that National Treasury has put in place as well… our 10-year projection is that 44 percent is budgeted for. You’ve got a gap of 56 percent,” Balzer said.

The R573 billion total covered all departmental, municipal and water board infrastructure and services requirements, he said.

Water Affairs Minister Edna Molewa told journalists it was clear a “lot of money” was needed to meet the country’s growing demand for water.

Asked if above-inflation tariff increases to help fund this huge shortfall were now on the cards, she replied: “Probably.”

Molewa said that when a lot of money needed to be found, “it goes without saying that the cost is likely to be very high. And therefore the charges that have to be paid may also be high”.

The department was looking at standardising tariffs across the various sectors, and there was therefore a possibility of cross-subsidisation. This exercise would be completed by the end of the year, the minister said.

Source: Times live

Contact Water Rhapsody to start saving water. We offer a range of products, including greywater reuse, rainwater harvesting, water tanks and over water saving technologies that could save you up to 90% of your water bill.

Durban plans to become the first South African city to purify and recycle sewage into [...]]]> Yuck! This is the response in most instances to the proposal to recycle water from sewage effluent.

But experts warn that there are already substances in our water supply that might draw similar reaction – and we drink it anyway.

Durban plans to become the first South African city to purify and recycle sewage into quality tap water. The plan involves producing about 12 percent of the city’s tap water supply from recycled sewage effluent – mainly in the northern suburbs and townships.

Dr Jo Barnes, a senior lecturer in epidemiology and community health in the faculty of health sciences at the University of Stellenbosch, said it was worth remembering that all water on Earth had been used before.

“The treatment cycle is just much longer for water harvested from nature, while the water directly harvested from households is still very polluted. The major difference is that household wastewater needs aggressive purification.”

The concern in many minds, she said, was that all engineering systems had the potential to fail at some point.

Source: IOL

Should Cape Town decide to increase its sustainability and persue the same option, which it most likely will, in the near future, then we will be assured of a further inflated water tarrif. As reported in the article, “household wastewater needs aggressive purification”, and this certainly implies a more comprehensive and expensive treatment process.

In the end households will be charges 4 or more time for the same drop of water they use. (1: Lightly treated freshwater from dams; 2: wastewater produces from fresh water; 3: aggressively treated purified wastewater, 4: wastewater produces from purified wastewater. etc…)

As one of the best managed municipalities, The City of Cape Town, according to it’s own report is unable to deal with all the sewage effluent it receives and hence spills excess untreated sewage into rivers. How can such a wastewater purification system guarauntee safe drinking water to you and I?

The trouble is that Cape Town needs to find a source to augment its fresh water supply and the purification of wastewater is the most cost effective, alternative bulk supply the City has access to.  Unless individuals start conserving water at home (greywater reuse, rainwater harvesting and other water saving technologies) then there are few other alternative. Desalintion is more costly than household wastewater purification.

The purification of household wastewater can however to done successfully albeit at a cost.

“In sub-Saharan Africa, we are unable to convince them that giving money for water is an economic investment; that you will get your money back,” he [...]]]> Marseille – A failure to invest in water infrastructure is holding back the economies of many sub-Saharan countries, said African Ministers’ Council on Water (Amcow) executive secretary Bai-Mass Taal.

“In sub-Saharan Africa, we are unable to convince them that giving money for water is an economic investment; that you will get your money back,” he said, speaking at the World Water Forum in Marseille, France.

“They cannot see it. What they can see is that when they give agriculture money, use fertilisers, and then sell the produce, then something comes back.

“Now we are telling them that water is an economic commodity. Every dollar [US] spent on water, you can get from six to 12 dollars in return.”

Taal said many African countries were spending “too much money” on health.

Economic development

“In sub-Saharan Africa, over 60% of hospital beds are occupied by patients with water-borne diseases… If you invest in water, you are reducing your medical bill.”

Amcow had started a dialogue with African finance ministers “so they will know that water is the backbone of their economic development”.

He said water was the “driving force” for economic development in Africa – not only the provision of drinking water, but for agriculture as well as hydro-electric power.

Taal cited the example of South Africa’s multi-billion rand investment in the Lesotho Highlands Water Project, the water from which was being used to fuel economic development in Gauteng.

Asked if he thought a rocky road lay ahead for sub-Saharan Africa, he said policies in many of the region’s countries were changing.

“Policies are changing… We know that we are only using about 8% of our water resources in Africa… We have to use the rest for development.

“We hope that, by 2040, we will have achieved the master plan that has been drawn for Africa. It’s going to be bumpy, but it’s not gloomy,” he said.

Water minister Edna Molewa said it had become apparent there was “very little co-ordination” between what was said at Amcow meetings and what was being done in some sub-Saharan countries.

Molewa is the current president of Amcow.

She said that as president she had realised “there has been very little co-ordination and reporting back in our countries of origin, when we return from meetings”.

“For me, that’s actually the biggest problem, because even after attending a meeting as a minister… when you return, you do not report or engage with colleagues to get plans embodied and infused in your local programmes.”

This had resulted in a lack of funding, a lack of buy-in on the ground, a lack of co-ordination and a lack of delivery, Molewa said.

Among the resolutions adopted by Amcow at the forum is one to call finance ministers to attend their meetings.

Africa is one of the key focus area at the WWF, which ends on Friday. An estimated 350 million people on the continent do not have access to safe drinking water and 450 million are without sanitation.

Source: news 24

“The challenges are huge and the problems are deep-rooted,” French Prime Minister Francois Fillon said as he opened the sixth World [...]]]> Marseille – A global meeting on water opened in France on Monday with demands to provide billions of poor people with clean water and decent sanitation and address the spiralling demands of the future.

“The challenges are huge and the problems are deep-rooted,” French Prime Minister Francois Fillon said as he opened the sixth World Water Forum in the southern city of Marseille.

“The number of human beings who have no access to clean water is in the billions. Each year, we mourn millions of dead from the health risks that this causes. This situation is not acceptable – the world community must rise and tackle it.”

The World Water Forum, held every three years, gathers policymakers, big corporations and non-governmental organisations.

As many as 20 000 participants from 140 countries are expected for the six-day event, including scores of ministers for the environment and water and a scattering of heads of state from francophone west Africa.

Climate change

Separately, a massive UN report, issued only once every three years, said water problems in many parts of the world were chronic.

Without a crackdown on waste will worsen as demand for food rises and climate change intensifies, it said.

“Pressures on freshwater are rising, from the expanding needs of agriculture, food production and energy consumption to pollution and the weaknesses of water management,” UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said in the report.

“Climate change is a real and growing threat. Without good planning and adaptation, hundreds of millions of people are at risk of hunger, disease, energy shortages and poverty.”

Demand for food will increase by some 70% by 2050, which will lead to a nearly 20% increase in global agricultural water consumption, the UN’s Fourth World Water Development Report said.

Abstraction of aquifers has at least tripled in the past 50 years and now supplies almost half of all drinking water today. “In some hotspots, the availability of non-renewable groundwater resources has reached critical limits,” the report said.

The report demanded an overhaul in the use of water, especially by curbing waste. Smarter irrigation, less thirsty crops and the use of “greywater“, or used water, to flush toilets are among the options.

Environmentalists

Already, more than 2.5 billion people are in need of decent sanitation and nearly one in 10 has yet to gain access to “improved” drinking water, as defined under the UN’s 2015 development goals.

Ministers attending the forum will issue a non-binding statement on Tuesday affirming their awareness of the problems and intent to fix them.

Looking ahead to the “Rio plus 20″ summit in June, Fillon stood by France’s plan to create a World Environment Organisation, an idea opposed by the US.

“What is at stake here is the historic change of our societies from a development that is economically efficient but environmentally destructive to a model that combines economic development, the fair sharing of resources among the region’s of the glob and the preservation of ecosystems,” said Fillon.

The water forum is shunned by some environmentalists or development activists, who deride it as a trade fair lacking democracy and transparency.

An alternative forum is being staged elsewhere in Marseille by 2 000 members of civil society from Europe, the US, Latin America and Africa.

“Water cannot be solely determined by politicians, financiers and technicians,” organisers of the rival forum said in a statement. “Every woman and every man, whatever his responsibilities, must take part in decision-making, contributing to the protection of water and ensuring fair access to it.”

Source: News 24

Municipal spokesperson Sello Matsie said on Monday that [...]]]> About 45% of water purified for human use in Kimberley is lost through leaks, a municipal study has found.

The study, commissioned by the Sol Plaatje municipality in 2010, found that only 26.2% of the water it distributed was properly metered, invoiced and paid for by consumers.

Municipal spokesperson Sello Matsie said on Monday that an overhaul of infrastructure had already begun to tackle the problem.

“The remaining activities [recommendations] will start as soon as designs and budgets have been finalised,” he said.

Matsie said the municipality asked for the study after realising its water supply system was not functioning efficiently.

The audit revealed that 75 megalitres a day – 45% of all the water produced — was lost because of leaks in the system.

Matsie said it had also emerged that the municipality had about 5 900 residential non-paying consumers and about 235 non-residential consumers not paying for water.

There were an estimated 7 800 illegal connections.

Other problems identified included stuck water meters, undersized and old water meters, properties with no meters, and meters with no readings.

Matsie said steps would be taken to make the water network more efficient and reduce leaks by as much as 30%.

Source: News24

This is a definate water crisis for the area and and water conservation will need to be look at to reduce the strain on inadoquate and outdated infrastructure.

www.capetown.gov.za/water

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Stay exempt from all water restrictions, this summer and the ones to come, by reusing greywater. Speak to your local Water Rhapsody dealer to find out more.

www.capetown.gov.za/water

Future water supplies lie in demand management.

The article “Consumers set to pay the price as city seeks solutions to water crisis” Cape Times 19 December 2011 refers.

Melanie Gosling in her usual eloquent and environmentally friendly way has provided the bare facts as to how bad supply management of water has [...]]]> Sir / Madam

Future water supplies lie in demand management.

The article “Consumers set to pay the price as city seeks solutions to water crisis” Cape Times 19 December 2011 refers.

Melanie Gosling in her usual eloquent and environmentally friendly way has provided the bare facts as to how bad supply management of water has become.  Suddenly water is in the news again, but never has the situation been as dire as today.  Quite simply – Cape Town is out of water.  Any new augmentation schemes are not sustainable.  These are the proposed:

• Damming the Lourens River at Somerset West:  this will add less than one percent capacity to our beleaguered situation.  There are no more rivers that can possibly be dammed to provide any more water for Cape Town.
• Extracting water from the berg by pumping to the Voëlvlei Dam:  The well-respected head of the Freshwater Research Unit at UCT Prof Jenny Day commented that this was a “no no”.  Already the salinity of the Lower Berg River is rising to unacceptable standards, and any further extraction will make this worse.  The situation of the Lower Breede River is equally parlous.
• Desalination of sea water:  this is not sustainable as it is too costly on any scale let alone on a large scale.  Costly because each kilolitre of water desalinated from sea water will cost more energy than we have got or we likely will get. Desalination costs eight kilowatt hours per kilolitre of desalinated water.  Further problems of desalination are that a super saline concentrate is returned back to sea, which turns valleys in the sea into a place where neither plants nor animals can survive.
• Pumping from the TMG (Table Mountain Aquifer):  Already we have seen deep boreholes dry up and collapse in this aquifer and any extraction from this aquifer will have a negative impact on the river systems as this is most likely where the recharge of the aquifer will come from.  These are the same rivers that are now dammed to extinction throughout the Western Cape.
• Recycling of sewerage effluent:  while this is to be supported, it must be understood that this will not be acceptable to some of our religious groups.  It should also be noted that our sewerage systems are in an unsafe condition, and we need some 6.6 billion Rand to upgrade and build new sewerage treatment works.  Here too energy plays a huge roll, as 90% of the running cost of our sewerage treatment works is the energy cost of pumping water around the various treatment sewerage works.  At last check there was only 300 million on any long term budget for upgrading sewerage works.  All grey water extracted from the sewer system for irrigation purposes means far less effluent to be treated. (Grey water goes in the same pipeline as black water unnecessarily to be treated at sewerage treatment works)

In an interview with John Maytham on Cape Talk Radio on 20 December 2011 the Director of DWA (Department of Water Affairs) Rashid Khan correctly stressed demand management as the way forward to use less water.  He mentioned “re-use on site” water.  Unfortunately Khan seemed unable to mention the two golden words – “Grey Water”.

All of our present problems of water supply would simply go away if everyone could simply use less water.  Halving one’s water demand is easily achievable by re-using grey water either for irrigation purposes or toilet flushing, minimizing toilet flushing with a device where the user takes control of the volume of flush and re-using swimming pool backwash water to the pool.  Furthermore there are now huge benefits of rainwater harvesting to supply whole households with rainwater for normal use i.e. for bath, shower, hand basins, laundry and toilet flushing etc.  This makes perfect sense if one considers that – of the water from dams that can be accounted for, 60% of water delivered to the Greater Cape Town area, is used in the home.

If grey water were to be re-used on a large scale we would see a reduction of up to 90% of effluent reaching our sewerage treatment works, saving huge sums of money and giving our sewerage treatment works some spare capacity which they don’t have at the moment.

Water Tariffs are also set to rise dramatically as a tool to get water consumers to use less water.  The City of Cape Town has a monopoly on both the supply of water as well as the tariffs, except that one may now supply one’s own water by delivering rainwater harvested from roofs to one’s whole household during our winter rainy season. On top of tariff hikes, water restrictions etc. any further action by Cape Town, should we run out of water, would be to have water outages as a means to stem to stem demand.   This was used recently in Beaufort West where they got outages for 36 hours at a time.  Anyone using rainwater harvesting to supply one’s home would be exempt from outages as rainwater tanks double as an emergency feed of municipal water as well.

If there is any further proof that demand management could fix the water supply problems that are upon us, a Water Engineer of Cape Town – Dave Ramsay stated about ten years ago, that when water restrictions are imposed, consumption comes down.  This should be enough to convince suppliers and users of water alike of the benefits of demand management.  However he went on to say that once the water restrictions were lifted, the demand rises again, but never to the level of demand prior to the implementation of water restrictions.  This is perhaps because to stem demand, historically the city fathers have restricted irrigation with municipal water and to keep their gardens alive, homeowners had installed water saving devices, including devices to re-use grey water for irrigation purposes.

Jeremy Westgarth-Taylor

Founder of Water Rhapsody Conservation Systems and winner of a WWF Green Trust Award.

Additionally of appeal is that tenants can derive cost savings from renting green buildings, said Org Geldenhuys, managing director of property development and marketing [...]]]> Landlords who invest in green buildings might be able to lure a higher calibre of tenant – and should have a far higher occupancy level than landlords selling space in non-green buildings

Additionally of appeal is that tenants can derive cost savings from renting green buildings, said Org Geldenhuys, managing director of property development and marketing company, Abacus Divisions.

Geldenhuys said one of the property developers at Route 21 Corporate Park in Irene – a R2 billion office park development – is currently investing R60 million in a 4 000 square metre green building*. “The owner, while charging a similar rent to other property owners in the office park, is building a fully fledged green building, which has the potential to save its tenant a total of up to R40 000 in monthly operating costs.

“While the building is in the process of being completed the owner is taking a 20 year view of his investment – but is expecting to attract high calibre tenants, with a very high occupancy rate compared to traditional buildings.”

Geldenhuys said green-efficient air conditioners can save up to 50% on running costs of normal air conditioners – which account for as much as 60% of the overall electrical bill. On a 4 000 square metre building, electricity costs could run between R80 000 – R100 000 per month.  This means that, by having the benefits of energy-efficient ‘green’ air conditioners, tenants cold save up to R30 000 on the monthly electricity bill.

Additionally, because this new building is making use of rain water harvesting, the tenant – based on water usage of 360 000 litres per month – can expect a monthly saving of R 4000 per month on water. When it comes to sanitation savings, this figure could be as high as R1 200 per month.

“If you start considering other green benefits – which are not as easily quantifiable – tenants could be looking at making further monthly savings of around R 5000 per month due to green features such as occupancy sensors (for lighting), recessed windows, daylight harvesting, solar-powered geysers and external sunscreens. If you take into account all of these extras, a tenant who decides to occupy a fully fledged green building could save up to 10% on monthly operating costs. On a 4 000 square metre building, this saving could be around R40 000.”

While Geldenhuys admits the jury is still out, he does believe that green buildings will definitely attract high quality tenants – and long-term tenants – something that will ultimately play out in favour of thelandlord.

Source: Eprop