| Instant panic! Immediate thoughts would turn to your family and home. The taps would open,but nothing would come out,there may be a little water left in your kettle,and some in your geyser. Then you may hear the news that the city will be out of water for a month. More panic,but what to do about it. First things first. You need water to drink. You race off to the shops,only to find a long queue,patiently and some not so patiently waiting to buy bottled water . You may be among the lucky ones that get in first. I once saw people in a holiday town,fight at the Spar for a limited number of Bread Rolls that were becoming available. Imagine if the scarce resource were water! Then you would think of a longer term plan. Get a water tank. Quickly! So you could harvest any coming rain off your roof. But think about this. There are only about 140,000 water tanks made each year in South Africa. And we have a population of about 50 million. So there would be a mad scramble for water tanks until they were sold out. Isn’t it just more sensible to buy a water tank,get it installed by Water Rhapsody with the necessary filters,so that in the unlikely event of your town running dry,for whatever reason…you and your family will have some degree of protection? Contact us to get a quote to install a water tank now and protect your most important assets,your family. Posted by Water Rhapsody  Dear World Cup visitors,
Now that you are safely in our country you are no doubt happily realising you are not in a war zone. This may be in stark contrast to what you have been bracing yourself for should you have listened to Uli Hoeness or are an avid reader of English tabloids,which as we all know are only good for wrapping fish ‘n chips and advancing the careers of large-chested teens on page three. As you emerge blinking from your luxury hotel room into our big blue winter skies,you will surely realise you are far more likely to be killed by kindness than by a stray bullet. Remember that most of the media reports you have read,which have informed your views on South Africa,will have been penned by your colleagues. And you know what journos are like,what with their earnest two thousand word opuses on the op-ed pages designed to fix this country’s ills in a heartbeat. Based on exhaustive research over a three-day visit. Funnily enough,we are well aware of the challenges we face as a nation and you will find that 95% of the population is singing from the same song-sheet in order to ensure we can live up to our own exacting expectations. We are also here to look after you and show you a good time. Prepare to have your preconceived notions well and truly shattered. For instance,you will find precious few rhinos loitering on street corners,we don’t know a guy in Cairo named Dave just because we live in Johannesburg,and our stadiums are magnificent,world-class works of art. Which is obviously news to the Sky TV sports anchor who this week remarked that Soccer City looked ‘ a bit of a mess’. She didn’t realize the gaps in the calabash exterior are to allow in natural light and for illumination at night,and not the result of vandalism or negligence.
Read Full Story… Overseas visitors can drink Johannesburg’s water without fear because it is clean and safe,Johannesburg Water said last week. “We can say that residents and visitors to the city of Johannesburg needn’t fear about the quality of water supply to city,”the utility’s laboratory support manager Russel Rimmer said. Speaking at a briefing on the R3.1-billion program of improvements and replacements within the city’s 10,000 kilometer water mains network,he said they conduct more than the legally required number of sample tests on supplies they receive from Rand Water,and were confident that the city’s supplies were safe. “We do over 40 tests on the samples to be 100 percent sure of the water quality,”he said. “Sometimes we are even scared to brush our teeth and we go out [in Europe] and buy a bottle of water. So,our water is safe.” They had recently won the “Blue Drop”award from the department of water affairs which said the city had the cleanest water nationally and ranked among the world’s best. Cape Town –The government on it has for years failed to properly regulate municipal sewage works,many of which are discharging untreated or only partially-treated human waste into rivers around the country. “The regulation function was to some extent neglected,”water affairs acting chief director of regulations Helgard Muller told members of Parliament’s water affairs portfolio committee. “Let me admit,I think that immediately after 1994,and for some years,this function was not getting the right attention…We had to prioritise due to limited resources,”he said. Muller’s admission comes a fortnight after the release of his department’s Green Drop Report,which assessed 449 of the country’s 852 waste water treatment plants. It found only 32 of them qualified for so-called Green Drop status,broadly equivalent to them complying with international standards. Further,it found that “the bulk of the (sewage) plants can be described as poor to non-functional”,implying that hundreds of millions of litres of inadequately-treated sewage was being illegally discharged each day,mainly by small town municipalities. R23bn –the amount Water Affairs Minister Buyelwa Sonjica says she needs to patch up the country’s collapsing sewage works –was enough. Democratic Alliance MP Annette Lovemore said the Western Cape alone required R8bn to solve its waste water problems. “The Western Cape is by far one of the better-performing provinces,so R23bn for the country –I wonder if this is not a serious under-estimation,”she said. South Africa’s extensive network of sewage treatments plants,pipe networks and pump stations treats about 7.5bn litres of waste water a day. A third of the world’s people might have access to only half the water they need in the next decades if nothing is done to conserve the critical resource. It is estimated that 1.1 billion people globally rely on unsafe drinking water sources and that as much as 80 percent of waste water is being discharged untreated in developing countries. A report found that if no action was taken,projected population and economic growth would lead to global water demand that was 40 percent in excess of current supply by the year 2030. –Sapa The Bitou Municipality has put out a tender for the construction of a desalination plant. The Water Affairs Department and the municipality have signed an agreement for the release of R20,000,000 to construct the plant in drought-stricken Plettenberg Bay. A similar plant opened in Sedgefield near Knysna a few months ago. The municipality’s Henry Geldenhuys said it has managed to cut water usage by 40 percent since the drought set in. He said tenders for the plant have already been advertised. “We hope to finalise the tenders by the middle of June and have the plant completed by the end of October.” South Africa’s water boards are proposing increases of between 6,2% and 43% to the cost of the potable bulk water they supply to the country’s municipalities. Such tariff increases,if accepted,are likely to increase the cost of drinking water supplied by municipalities to end users. The proposals,details of which are contained in a document tabled at a meeting of Parliament’s water affairs portfolio committee on Tuesday,appear to fly in the face of an announcement made by Water Affairs Minister Buyelwa Sonjica last month. “I want to allay the fears of South Africans that there is not in the near future a possibility of a [tariff] hike. It’s not in the pipeline,”she told a media briefing at Parliament on April 13. Questioned about this later on Tuesday,the department’s media liaison director, Linda Page,said that there was no contradiction. “You will remember that the minister was responding to a question on whether there are likely to be tariff increases linked to funding for infrastructure and thus potential increases in the price of raw water. “The increases that the water boards are proposing…are the normal annual increases linked to the CPIX because they operate on a cost recovery basis,” These range from 6,2% for Umgeni Water (from R3,24 a kilolitre to R3,47),to 43% in the case of Namakwa (from R6,37 to R9,11). Among the water boards supplying the larger metropolitan areas,Rand Water is calling for a 14,1% increase (from R3,48 a kilolitre to R3,97) and Amatola for between an eight and 8,8 percent increase. Bushbuckridge Water is proposing a 12,46% increase. by Sapa. Water Affairs Minister Buyelwa Sonjica has asked the Treasury for a staggering R23 billion over the next six years to fix waste water treatment works that need “urgent”attention. Sonjica said yesterday the bill for refurbishing the plants could rise even higher,as the figure was an estimate. She said that while there was reason for concern at the parlous state of the country’s sewage treatment works,“we have not reached crisis levels”. She briefed journalists at the Union Buildings at the release of the much-delayed Green Drop report,an assessment of how sewage treatment works are performing. Poorly treated waste water pollutes land and rivers,posing problems for farmers,damage to eco- systems and health risks. Water experts have expressed concern over deteriorating conditions at the plants,which treat just under 7 600 megalitres of waste water every day. The report puts a capital replacement value of the country’s waste water treatment systems at R23bn –the amount Sonjica says she needs to deal with “hot spots”. Her department’s acting chief director for water services and regulation,Leonardo Manus,said R12.6bn was needed for infrastructure,R1.4bn for operational expenditure –including hiring technicians,scientists and engineers –while R9.2bn was required for pump station networks and water reticulation infrastructure. Sonjica said the R23bn was an estimate of the cost of dealing with problems only at the 50 percent of municipal treatment works assessed. by Xolani Mbanjwa  A forensic investigation is under way into a R50-million project to manage the flow of water piped to residents of Cape Town.
The City has,since 2007,installed 41000 flow-restricting water meters –supplied by three different companies –outside residents’homes. They are programmed to dispense a pre-agreed amount of water a day. The amount can be set to only the free 6kl (200l a day) or higher. Tenders worth over R50-million were awarded to the three companies and other firms responsible for installing them. The meters form part of a broader 10-year water-saving and management strategy costing about R750-million. The audit follows a letter by the SA Municipal Workers’Union to former mayor Helen Zille,now premier of the Western Cape,in April 2009. The union alleged that administrative malpractices may have been involved in the awarding of contracts. Mashoko said the city ultimately wanted the devices installed in all households. “The main reasons for this are the dire need to reduce water losses and support the poor who cannot afford to pay for services. “Because the initial focus is on the ‘pro-poor’initiative of the city,all indigent households –with a property value of under R88000 –are being addressed,while,in a parallel process,all new households and developments,as well as meter replacements,(will see) these devices installed,”he said. by Shanaaz Eggington THE Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University’s George campus has established a Sustainable Campus Project that aims to gather data on sustainable living compared to conventional households. The George campus,known for its positive response to addressing energy and waste management on site,launched the Green Campus Initiative,of which the Sustainable Campus Project forms part,to compare three houses equipped with solar energy geysers and rainwater harvesting systems to a sample of identical houses utilising conventional systems. “The Sustainable Campus Project is an exciting,living example of sustainable living that involves monitoring and comparing the daily energy and household water consumption of two groups of students living in houses on campus,” NMMU George campus marketing manager Alet van Tonder said. The first step was to fit on-campus student homes with relevant green technologies,such as solar panels for heating water and simple mechanisms to ensure the sustainable use of that water. The research data will be used to raise awareness about “sustainable living”. The campus hopes the results of the six-month project will help to develop a practical model which could be applied to other campuses or institutions. Neil Moll,owner of the company which donated the solar water heating systems,said:“We are …confident the research will prove beyond any shadow of a doubt that,indeed,it is possible to tread much lighter on Mother Earth.” by Janine Oelofse |  Against a global rainfall average of 870mm per year,South Africa receives a pitiful 450mm,making it the worlds 30th driest country. Water Rhapsody,with 15 years experience in water conservation,is number 1 in South Africa in Grey water recycling systems and Rainwater harvesting systems. Water Rhapsody,a WWF Green Trust award winner,can save you up to 90% of your municipal water bills!  WWF Green Trust Award |
