About seven billion litres of sewage are released every day into rivers and dams. (Andy Mkosi)
The National Water Act has failed to meet its objective of improving the quality of water in South Africa’s rivers and dams, according to a resource management scientist.
“We release about seven billion litres of sewage every single day into our rivers and dams and the purpose of the National Water Act at its heart is to improve the quality of water resources,” said Anthony Turton, a professor at the Centre for Environmental Management at the University of the Free State.
“Many of our rivers and dams have now reached a point of collapse where they can no longer recover so we can state with empirical evidence that the National Water Act has failed; it’s failed to meet its objective of improving the quality of water in the rivers and dams.”
He was speaking at a recent Tipping Points webinar on “South Africa’s Water Whirlpool of Pain”, hosted by the Oppenheimer Generations Research and Conservation. There, panellists discussed how the country’s water crisis is accelerating beyond its capacity to fix it.
About 80% of the sewage released into waterways comes back into the system either partially treated or, in some cases, untreated. “How long can we continue without seeing human health implications? It’s only a question of time,” he said, referring to the 30 cholera deaths in Hammanskraal last year.
Sewage does not only contain human waste but also pathogens such as bacteria and viruses, as well as partially metabolised medication. This includes high levels of oestrogen for birth control purposes and partially metabolised antiretroviral medication partially metabolised antibiotics. “It’s not inconceivable that multidrug-resistant pathogens will come out of these places.
“We have some evidence now — there’s probably eight to 10 cases that I’m aware of — where people have been in contact with bacteria in the river where they have either injured themselves slightly … and that has created an open wound in which a certain bacteria has entered the body: flesh-eating bacteria.”
According to Turton, the rate of pollution in rivers and the rate of change in these river systems is “consistent with this notion of a tipping point”.
“The change in the country’s rivers is becoming so rapid that I believe there’s a strong possibility that it will start exceeding our institutional capacity to cope.”
Yet at the same time, public confidence and public trust in the government and the institutions that provide water is under severe pressure. “We need to go out of our way to have communication that is honest and accurate and to have incredible leadership.”
Water-energy-food nexus
Panellist Sylvester Mpandeli, an executive manager at the Water Research Commission, and adjunct professor at the University of Venda, noted that South Africa falls among the 30 driest countries in the world. “And we have a responsibility to ensure that we use our water resources in a very efficient and sustainable manner.”
Climate change or high extreme climatic events pose serious risks across climate-sensitive sectors, he added.
“And, over and above that, our population increases annually — we are sitting at 60.6 million people. You ask yourself how much do we make sure that we produce enough food without constraining the system and how do we make sure that we provide water and energy without squeezing the fiscus pocket?
“We also need to make sure that we assist vulnerable communities by making sure that they build strong adaptive capacity and making sure that we move away from a high-intensity economy to a low-carbon economy,” Mpandeli said.
This water-energy-food nexus is of significant national strategic importance, Turton added. “The questions very soon around this will be whether South Africa can continue to be nationally self-sufficient in water, in food and in energy. Because it’s very clear that we cannot have all three of those simultaneously.”
Crumbling water infrastructure
Mariette Liefferink, the chief executive of the Federation for a Sustainable Environment, pointed out that findings by the World Bank have shown that South Africa will be unable to afford to reach the sustainable development goal 6 and its targets by 2030. This centres on the availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all.
Meanwhile, the National Water and Sanitation Master Plan has revealed that a funding gap of R333 billion is anticipated over the next decade and a projected 17% water deficit by 2030.
Liefferink said South Africa is facing a water crisis caused by insufficient water infrastructure maintenance and investment; recurrent droughts driven by climatic variation; inequities in access to water and sanitation; deteriorating water quality and the lack of skilled water engineers.
The master plan determined that from 1999 until 2011, the extent of main rivers classified as having a poor ecological condition soared by 500%, with some rivers pushed beyond the point of recovery. More than 50% of the country’s wetlands have been lost and of those that remain, 33% are in poor ecological condition.
According to the recently approved national eutrophication management strategy, South Africa has some of the world’s most highly enriched surface waters, which is already having a significant effect on economic growth and the well-being of South Africans, she said.
The 2022 Green Drop report showed that 40% of wastewater treatment works are in a critical state while 64% are in a poor or critical state. Similarly, the Blue Drop report found that it is not microbiologically safe to drink water in almost half of the country’s drinking water systems.
“We’ve got the most eutrophic waters, certainly in Africa and possibly in the world and we’ve got a whole lot of issues coming out of there from a tipping point perspective,” Turton added. “One of them is the fairly recent discovery of at least two new species of cyanobacteria [blue-green algae]. Those cyanobacteria are producers of toxins that are potent toxins.
“The funny thing about these two new cyanobacteria species is that they are coming into our systems because of changing ecological circumstances. One of them could be, and I say ‘could be’ because we haven’t fully established it, the changing of the alkalinity status of receiving aquatic systems as a result of the neutralisation of acid mine drainage [the seepage of toxic polluted water from mining areas].
Neutralising acid mine drainage flows change the pH of the water, it means the alkalinity of the water is changed and that could be a reason for the two new species of cyanobacteria, Turton said.
The significance of these species is that “they’re coming in very quickly” and they have a comparative advantage over the other dominant species, “which are the blue-greens we have at the moment. One of these species is a red algae so it’s not inconceivable, in the not too distant future, that we’re going to see rivers running red in some of our highly eutrophic systems.”
Failing municipalities
Liefferink noted the department of water and sanitation and water boards spend R12 billion annually in the form of grants, technical advice and management to poorly-performing municipalities. “The [department] is repeatedly providing municipalities with grants to repair infrastructure, which is not maintained by the municipalities, deteriorates again rapidly and then funding needs to be provided again.”
Turton added that the growing debt burden of many of the country’s municipalities, and water boards in particular, are burdened to the point of not being able to stay afloat in the not too distant future “has grave implications for the rest of South Africa”.