Sewerage shapes up as next crisis
Dave
Sewerage shapes up as next crisis
18 March 2008, 09:46
Related ArticlesWaste water treatment 'dire' - Minister
Bad whiff about fish kill reports
Lack of skills spells road to ruin
DA will pay for independent water analysis
By Victor Munnik
Any local politician would prefer to be remembered for "building" a
thousand new houses, rather than for passing a budget setting aside
more money for the local sewerage network. But it is exactly this
innocent twist of human nature that is helping to shape a sewerage
crisis, which is now hitting the country.
Since 2004 a spate of surveys and technical papers have noted that up
to 70 percent of municipal waste-treatment works face collapse for
lack of proper maintenance and extension, while around a third require
"immediate intervention" and another third intervention "within the
short to medium term".
Collapse may be the wrong word, but what is happening is ongoing decay
as municipalities increasingly fail to comply with the specifications
of the licence that allows them to release "treated wastewater" into
our rivers, with serious consequences for human health and water
ecosystems.
Signs of this decay among the nearly 1 000 wastewater treatment works
nationally are becoming ominously visible, in sewerage works in
Gauteng, beaches outside Durban and Western Cape facilities.
Last week, while denying that South Africa faced an overall water
crisis, water (DWAF) minister Lindiwe Hendricks told Parliament that a
DWAF audit of municipal wastewater treatment works "found that the
situation in many municipalities is dire, and must be addressed as a
matter of urgency".
"The pollution in some of our rivers can be directly linked to failure
on the part of these municipal wastewater treatment plants, and there
is no denying that some of these plants are in poor condition."
The crisis is not confined to small towns.
The Percy Stewart works in Mogale City (Krugersdorp) feature in a
Democratic Alliance report detailing overall infrastructure
maintenance problems. The nearby Flip Human works have also run into
difficulties.
A 2007/8 DWAF study of the drinking-water quality of 28 Western Cape
municipalities found poor water quality (a lower than 97 percent
compliance with E coli or faecal standards) in 13 Western Cape
municipalities, including Stellenbosch and Oudtshoorn.
In Durban, a sewage leak into the Umhlatuzana River was the main cause
of the fish killed in Durban Harbour in late December.
All three of the sewage works in Emfuleni are, if not in crisis, at
least under strain. North West University water researcher Professor
Johan Tempelhoff has observed raw sewage from the Leeuwkuilspruit
works in Sharpeville reaching the Vaal untreated, and raw sewage
spilling from the Sebokeng works into water used by Sebokeng residents
for washing clothes, for their kids to play in, and as drinking water
for animals.
In August last year, on Women's Day, raw sewage from the Rietspruit
works lined the road between Vanderbijlpark and Potchefstroom for a
distance of two kilometres.
DWAF has intervened in Emfuleni where a residents' organisation, Save
the Vaal Environment (Save), is threatening to take the municipality
to court. Emfuleni will now spend R50-million on emergency measures
while DWAF has undertaken to build a new, regional sewage works at a
cost of between R500- and R800-million, and has upgraded sewage pump
stations along the river.
The many reports on sanitation agree on what the solutions have to be:
regaining skills to operate wastewater treatment plants, and budgeting
for proper operations and regular maintenance. Many people responsible
for water and wastewater management are inadequately experienced, and
lack the skills required for effective and compliant works operation.
They often lack the clout to convince the politicians that limited
municipal budgets must give greater priority to funding for staffing,
maintenance, repairs, rehabilitation and expansion. Works are
frequently under-staffed, with a single operator working during office
hours on plants running 24/7.
Because of the complexity of wastewater treatment, many plants have
been automated. However, there is a national shortage of
instrumentation technicians, who are paid far better in the private
sector. This leaves municipal plants at particular risk of failure.
Municipal water services personnel are operating under extreme stress.
Often the easiest solution is to defer decisions, including
maintenance. There is high staff turnover, and institutional memory
and routines are lost. A new study by Allyson Lawless, published by
the SA Institution of Civil Engineering, demonstrates that today
municipalities employ only a seventh of the number of engineers
employed 15 years ago, while service coverage has increased
significantly.
Shockingly, 94 municipalities currently employ no engineering staff at
all. Training institutions remark that workers who come to them for
"advanced training" are often not equipped with the basics. Managers
take on positions that require technical training, knowledge and
experience, often without having any of these.
Municipal budgets focus on new construction, and not on the
unglamourous task of maintenance. The emphasis in government is on
building new housing and extending services to the unserved. All this
increases the burden on the existing network and treatment works, some
of which do not even have the water supply needed to do their job.
Because pipe and storm-water systems are badly maintained, storm water
and contaminated rainwater also enter the system, overloading the
treatment works.
Similarly, the government is also putting in flush toilets wherever it
can. Flush toilets and sewered systems depend on the idea that water
carries the waste to where it can be treated and disposed of safely.
But when this assumption no longer holds, our sanitation system ends
up deliberately polluting fresh water.
The flush idea comes from water-rich Europe, whereas South Africa is
an arid country with many poor people. The idea of toilet-flushing, at
say 12 litres per flush, is hardly feasible within the current
allocation of 6 000 litres of free basic water per household per
month.
The irony is that the huge investment in extending coverage in taps
and toilets may well lead to rising diarrhoea incidences if we cannot
ensure the quality of our effluent treatment and our drinking water
treatment. The results are a pollution nightmare.
Our current sanitation system of "flush and forget" is a dangerous one
- made more dangerous by the way it is not working. The first mistake
is to mix urine and faeces, which makes for a much more active
chemistry than they would separately, and then to drop that into clean
water.
This mixture then goes through a network of sewer pipes, some of them
really old and cracked, with tree roots growing into them creating
hooks for plastic bags and condoms.
Assuming it gets to the treatment works, it is then treated by a
person who may well not have mastered the basics of his or her job.
To add another layer to the crisis, power interruptions mean that
sewage treatment is interrupted too. When the pumps and aerators are
out, delicate chemical and biological treatment processes are
disrupted, and minimal treatment is possible. The result is that
inadequately treated effluent is discharged.
The water, when released from the water treatment plant, may or may
not meet the stipulated effluent specifications. However, it still
contains nutrients like phosphate which leads to eutrophication - an
excess of nutrients in the water resulting in algal blooms - which can
turn toxic and disturbs ecosystems.
Even though most of the works treating effluent that is discharged
into the Hartebeespoort dam do comply with the conditions of their
discharge permits, it is the sheer volume of the nutrient load coming
through that is impacting on water quality.
Munnik is an independent environmental researcher working in
Johannesburg.
This article was originally published on page 9 of The Cape Times on
March 18, 2008
Baba Mung
"Dave" <d...@d.durbs> wrote in message
news:9u5vt3lvvfs3tilvg...@4ax.com...
Its a problem in Britain too with privatised water authorities like Thames
Water failing to deliver contracted services. The company has at times
deliberately discharged sewage into the Thames.
MC
Dave
<baba...@redyonder.co.uk> wrote:
>Its a problem in Britain too with privatised water authorities like Thames
>Water failing to deliver contracted services. The company has at times
>deliberately discharged sewage into the Thames.
>
>MC
>
I even stopped my favourite sport, kayaking, waiting for cleaner
water. Luckily, the water gets analyzed quite often; by outsiders of
course. Lost blue-flag status etc.
Suidwester
"Dave" <d...@d.durbs> wrote in message
news:9u5vt3lvvfs3tilvg...@4ax.com...
>
>
> 18 March 2008, 09:46
>
> Related ArticlesWaste water treatment 'dire' - Minister
> Bad whiff about fish kill reports
> Lack of skills spells road to ruin
> DA will pay for independent water analysis
> By Victor Munnik
-----So die stront gaan julle verswelg?
Dave
wrote:
wat watersport aanbetref, ja.
Die vis voer ons uit na Nam
Suidwester
"Dave" <da...@durbs.koza> wrote in message
news:8ocl24l3n2s05da6m...@4ax.com...
nou doer in die Kaap. Daai Durban het mos niks......behalwe hitte en stank
nie.
>
>
>