These were among the key issues of the latest Strategy Steering Committee meeting of the Vaal River System held. The committee comprises representatives of agriculture, local authorities, water service providers, mines, energy and industry sectors, national departments and provincial government, representing a wide variety of stakeholder groups in the Vaal River System. It gives guidance to the Department of Water Affairs (DWA) in monitoring the implementation of various actions needed to ensure sufficient water is made available to supply the water needs now and for the next thirty years.
The present Compliance Monitoring and Enforcement processes within the Upper Vaal has been noted by water users and there is a clear indication that numerous unlawful water users have stopped their over abstraction without any direct action being taken by the Department Water Conservation and Water Demand Management Significant progress is being made with some of these actions, including the recent commitment by the City of Johannesburg to intensify efforts to save water through managing the water.
However the the City's water use is still increasing and the resourcing of Water Conservation/Water Demand Management projects to achieve their 2015 target of 110 million m3/annum must receive priority to avoid water restrictions.
At the same time The department is pleased that The City of Tshwane has successfully implemented measures to save water and achieved their interim targets. In the Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality, water savings are evident in their water consumption data, however they are trailing their target and a turn-around action plan to address real and apparent losses was proposed to put them back on track.
The Strategy Steering Committee was also notified that the bulk water service provider, Rand Water, applied for an increased abstraction licence from DWA for a volume of 1802 million m3/annum. This was not accepted by DWA due to the limited resources in the Vaal River System. DWA's view is that the potential to save water is there and that the set targets must be achieved.
Rand Water has therefore started a programme to engage with their customers and come up with detailed plans to manage water use. These plans and relevant protocols to implement water restrictions on the municipalities that are not achieving their Water Conservation /Water Demand Management targets must accompany a revised licence application to be submitted by Rand Water to DWA.
South Africa and Lesotho signed an agreement in Maseru in August 2011 for the implementation of the second phase of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project. Subsequently South Africa and the newly elected government of Lesotho ratified the project and it will now proceed.
Progress has also been achieved with implementation of the emergency interventions consisting of the pumping-out of acid mine drainage to protect the Environmental Critical Levels for AMD water and construction of neutralisation plants to correct the pH and to remove metals from the acid mine water from the mined-out gold mines in the Witwatersrand. Decant of acid mine drainage in the Western Basin has subsequently ceased, construction of the emergency works in the Central Basin is progressing well and the implementation of emergency works in the Eastern Basin is to commence in due course.
In addition, the Strategy Steering Committee was informed of the progress made with the study (being carried out by DWA) into the feasibility of long-term solutions for the acid mine drainage challenges associated with the East, Central and West Rand underground mining basins. The Feasibility Study is progressing well and is due for completion on 31 July 2013, where after implementation of the long-term solution in each of the three basins is to commence.
More detailed progress reports on the water resource management strategies can be found at the following: www.dwa.gov.za/Projects/VaalWRMS/documents.aspx.
AllAfrica is a voice of, by and about Africa - aggregating, producing and distributing 2000 news and information items daily from over 130 African news organisations and our own reporters to an African and global public. We operate from Cape Town, Dakar, Lagos, Monrovia, Nairobi and Washington DC.
Go to: http://allafrica.com/
