March 2011 Issue

Exactly one year ago we emphasized the importance of cleaning our drinking water through our own filtration systems in the home and at work.

During the past 13 months we also illustrated the responsibility we all carry to ensure the continued preservation and protection of our water resources. Sadly it does not seem the general condition of our  water resources are set to improve soon ; so how do we turn the situation around?

It is abundantly clear that the overall responsibility lies with our policy makers which rely on input from scientific experts and implementation agencies to formulate policy. Civil Society has until recently had to take a back seat. Take for instance the thread of Acid Mine Drainage (AMD) in Gauteng. Authorities have been criticized for taking so long to come up with an assertive plan of action.

Only as late as September last year was an Inter-ministerial Committee ( IMC ) appointed to address the issue with a panel of experts subsequently tasked to investigate the issues at hand. Their final report was laid before Parliament in December 2010. The biggest question of who will carry the cost has not yet been solved nor has it been properly quantified. The Government's allocated budget of R 225 million over 3 years falls dismally short.

How does AMD affect me? Acid water is corrosive and highly toxic. Allowing it to enter our water sources will have devastating effects on humans, animals and plant life. Our Municipal facilities for cleaning our water will not be able to clean this water for human consumption. The cost of purification is prohibitive and time consuming. To date no effective treatment or solution has been decided on and no firm plans are in place to attend to this.

It is estimated that this water will start to decant by 2012 in the major basins in Gauteng. It will add to the salinity of water as it flows into the Vaal Dam, a major source of our province's water. This could cause affordable potable water to run out or the cost of potable water to soar. It is inevitable that whichever solution is eventually found, our water bills will increase drastically.

We will have to be more aware of our duty to save every drop of our water, cut down on daily waste and look at ways to augment our water requirements.

“Only water purification (as a mitigation strategy) is capable of producing water of a quality equivalent to that which existed prior to mining”; according to Professor Terence McCarthy, a mineral geochemist at Wits University”s School of Geosciences.

Did you know ?

Table Mountain is believed to be one of the oldest mountains on Earth, ( six times older than the Himalayas)!