Page 26 - Thola Issue 17

24 Water and Sanitation
staff and consequently, industry has at times outwitted the regulators, causing pollution.
Mitigation
A proposal was submitted to the
City Manager’s restructuring official
to address the situation. A number
of positions were recommended by the official to recruit skilled staff and provide better remuneration packages. Networking with the Water Research Commission and the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Pollution Research Group is going a long way to assist in addressing industrial pollution.
NGOs such as the Rose Foundation, The Duzi Umgeni Conservation Trust, Afriforum, Palmiet River Watch, WESSA, South Durban Environmental Alliance, catchment management fora and others, assist the City to control industrial pollution.
LOW GDP
It is well known that, for various reasons, the gross domestic product per capita is less than a quarter of
that of countries with services that
we aspire to. The shortage of capital was highlighted in a KwaZulu-Natal Indaba several years ago on water and sanitation. It showed that the Province had only half the finances needed to meet millennium development goals (this is not a high level of service) by this year. This was masked by the shortage of skills in the country to convert what finances are available into service delivery.
More developed countries focus mainly on maintenance rather than development of their infrastructure.
We are creating maintenance
backlogs by funding much needed development at the expense of maintaining infrastructure. Preventative maintenance and life-cycle approaches to infrastructure need support. The City recognises this and is attempting to put in place asset management systems to combat this decline.
In order to address skills shortages, retention allowances, bursaries and internships have been implemented.
More rates and taxes will need to be levied in the short- term. The cost will be recouped in the long-term from the sustainable development of the city.
Further co-ordination of activities with respect to co-operative governance
at the three spheres of government continue.
PUBLIC AWARENESS AND POLITICAL WILL
The public are not always aware of the very critical issues creating the decline in the quality of our water resources. It will require finance and skills to reverse the trend. Fortunately, there are hidden economic benefits to this trend reversal. A city reducing water pollution can provide economic opportunities for the use of this water downstream, thus adding to the economy. An example
of this is protecting the City’s beach water quality, which helps to promote the City’s tourism industry. Conversely, if we look to the Haartebeesport
Dam in the Brits area as an example, the pollution of the dam water has allegedly restricted the tobacco and citrus industries. Further, the dam produces unpalatable drinking water despite expensive, advanced treatment processes; many people are driven to buy bottled water for drinking. What
is worse is that property on the banks of the dam has reduced in value due to obnoxious smells arising from the water.
More rates and taxes will need to be levied in the short-term. The cost will be recouped in the long-term from the
sustainable development of the city. The political will in South Africa to
address the environment protection
is embodied in its environmental legislation. While there are very earnest efforts in Government, the success of this legislation at local level is unclear.
Legislation requires action to
be taken to stop or reduce water pollution. Management of activities focusing on pollution requires planning, implementation, monitoring, review and adjustment stages. One cannot manage without measuring. The measure that national government uses for the success of local government is the Service Delivery Budget Implementation Plan. The King Reports on corporate governance refer to the triple bottom line for reporting, namely the finance, social and environmental bottom line. Currently, the emphasis is purely on financial reporting. The indicators for environmental performance still need refinement.
CONCLUSION
Generally, the quality of South Africa’s water resources is declining due to various point and diffuse sources. As humans, our bodies comprise in excess of 60% water yet we are all guilty, in some shape or form, of contaminating or wasting the very water that sustains our lives.
As the population increases and, hopefully, living standards increase, there are greater and greater demands on our precious water resources. This
is not helped by crime and corruption;
it is believed that eThekwini loses over 10% of water purchased from Umgeni Water, our main bulk water supplier. There are technical solutions to these problems, but it requires a major political will to turn this state of affairs around. This, again, emphasises an even greater need for protecting our water resources.
The establishment of the Catchment Management Agency in KwaZulu-Natal and the International Conference on Water in Durban show that there are moves to redress the situation. These initiatives will inevitably have a benefit for biodiversity in general.
thola: VOLUME 17. 2014/15