Bid to manage water crisis isn’t answer

Johannesburg and its surrounds have been hit by water cuts.

Water interruptions have been happening for years, but they have been scaled up dramatically in recent weeks.

The deteriorating situation recently forced Water and Sanitation Minister Senzo Mchunu to intervene. On 27 September, he announced a new initiative – “water shifting”. The proposal has echoes of load shedding. What is “water shifting”? Three weeks ago, the national and regional water authorities announced a plan that would spread the impact of water cuts between communities. The term the politicians coined for the new measures is “water shifting”.

The plan is to begin “sharing” water to take the pressure off the worst affected areas. By and large, high-lying areas of the city have been the hardest hit.

The reason for this is that the distribution of water requires pressure, which comes from a water source – a reservoir or water tower. When pressure is lost within the system, high-lying areas are usually affected first as there is not enough pressure in the system to get the water to them.

Rand Water plans to shift water from a reticulation system with sufficient pressure to a struggling system. The idea is to provide an equitable supply of water to municipal customers.

Rand Water will implement water shifting as an interim measure to assist in the recovery of struggling reticulation systems. An implementation date has not been given.

But Joburg Water, which is responsible for supplying water to the city’s residents, needs to develop and present a water management plan to address the crisis.

Could this crisis have been avoided?

In short, yes. Gauteng metros are perfect examples of the effects of poor water governance and management, as well as lack of political will over the past two decades. This has led to a lack of investment and underfunding of bulk water and sanitation infrastructure.

The result is that the water infrastructure – from water supply to treatment, storage, water resources and management – has fallen into disrepair.

Also at play is a lack of planning and management of growing water demands due to increased population, migration and expansion of settlements.

Rand Water and municipalities such as the City of Joburg need to stop the blame game and work together to address the primary causes of the water challenges, instead of the symptoms.