Dead fish wash up in Durban’s uMngeni estuary at Blue Lagoon this week after renewed sewage spills. Picture Duncan Guy
Durban - South Africa’s water crisis could dwarf the power crisis, according to water expert Professor Anthony Turton.
The South Coast-based water expert told the Independent on Saturday that while electricity issues were all centred on Eskom, water issues, including the “never-ending sewage problem”, were scattered around thousands of institutions where capacity was limited.
Turton called the environmental health issue arising from sewage flowing into rivers “the biggest existential threat to national security”, adding that its roots were “deeply political”.
“I worked a lot on the National Water Act with Kader Asmal (the first minister of water affairs and forestry in democratic SA), who drafted it.
“At the time, the Zimbabwe land issue was starting. Asmal said the National Water Act would prevent that from happening.
“The National Water Act could drive land reform without having to go the Zimbabwe route. It stripped away the central body of the state, which during apartheid was very powerful.
“The whole idea was to democratise water.”
As a result, the responsibility for water went across various agencies, especially municipalities, which did not have the capacity. Gone went strong, central water planning, said Turton.
“That planning devolved to the municipalities that had no capacity.”
With the changes came the added challenge of more people moving to South Africa’s cities, living in informal settlements without services.
“The water crisis is more profound than the energy crisis,” he stressed. “And it’s more difficult to fix.”
Turton warned that nutrient loads in rivers would bring new problems.
“Sewage has every conceivable drug society is using in it, from ARVs to antibiotics, all in very low concentration and that is the start of a drug-resistant pathogen.”
He foresaw it increasing in dementia, attention deficit disorder and impairment of people’s central nervous systems.
“We shall be starting to see, in the near future, indications that we are poisoning society,” he warned, referring to the growing threat of nutrient loads in rivers, including blue-green algae that carry toxins.
“No bulk water provider is capable of filtering out the (anticipated level of) toxins.
“The average citizen is exposed to elevated levels in drinking water but we have never been able to prove this because there has been no funding for studies.”
The Department of Water and Sanitation did not responded to requests for comment yesterday.
Durban’s bulk water supplier, Umgeni Water, was unable to comment in the absence of more specific information.
However, spokesman Shami Harichunder said Umgeni Water’s raw water abstraction process was well managed and clearly demarcated.
“Its treatment process is rigorous and the water it produces complies with SANS 241 for drinking water quality.”
Harichunder also urged people to ignore “a false WhatsApp message” about water quality in Scottsville, Pietermaritzburg.
“A series of potable water (drinking water) sampling was undertaken in the closest proximity to where the WhatsApp message alleged there were issues with compromised water quality,” he said.
Tests showed the water was safe for human consumption, he said.
eThekwini Municipality did respond to questions about capacity, but spokesman Msawakhe Mayisela said water was tested regularly and this had been intensified to daily monitoring since the April floods.
“Repairs are under way as we speak. Some of the jobs have been completed,” he said, adding that the current beach closures were as a result of “natural weather conditions that the City had no control over”.
He also acknowledged that the problem of sewage in rivers had existed before the floods.
“This was largely due to vandalism to most of its infrastructure including sewerage pumps stations.”
This week, Durban estuaries and rivers saw a resurgence in pollution, with dead fish floating on to river banks in huge numbers at places like Blue Lagoon.
Ezemvelo KZN marine ecologist Santosh Bachoo noted that sewage spills on the affected estuaries in eThekwini, with resultant fish-kills, had been ongoing for decades. However, he said that spills since last year, especially in the uMngeni, had been particularly devastating.
“Coliform levels ranging from 25-35 million cfus (coliform forming unit) per 100ml have been recorded by the Adopt-a-River non-profit organisation that has been sending samples to accredited laboratories. We have certainly not encountered levels like these from previous incidents.”
This week people walking and cycling beside the lagoon, watching pelicans, wondered if the bird life would be the next victims.
BirdLife eThekwini KZN’s Nicolette Forbes said birds would most likely be affected by less food being available to them and that there would be an impact on the general ecology’s sustainability into the next cycle.
She also said that pollution in eThekwini’s 16 estuaries would mean less life moving between them and elsewhere on the coastline.
“It takes out a stepping stone.”
Ezemvelo’s Bachoo said at least 10 of the 16 estuaries in the eThekwini Metropolitan area were affected by poor water quality as a result of wastewater treatment works discharging into them.
“Some of these treatment works accept trade effluent from industry, exacerbating the impact when a sewage spill occurs.
“The most affected estuaries in the eThekwini area in general are in the highly urbanised areas and include the uThongathi, uMdloti, the uMhlanga, the uMngeni, Durban Bay, iSiphingo, iZimbokodo, aManzimtoti, aManzanamtoti and the aMahlongwa.”
Bachoo emphasised the importance of estuaries because they provide a nursery for juvenile fish.
“After hatching at sea, these fish migrate into estuaries which provide them with shelter and protection from larger predators and gives them an opportunity to grow before re-entering the sea.
“These include important linefish species like dusky kob, mullet, bream, stumpnose, spotted grunter etc. Every fish kill like this means we lose entire cohorts of new recruits into the marine ecosystem which will have a ripple effect along the coast. These become more difficult to recover from due to ongoing spill events.”
Bachoo said the quality of the river pollution would affect the available food resource for wildlife will decline especially if dead or dying fish are consumed, further affecting health in the long term.
“In the Durban Bay, fish have been found to have extremely elevated levels of heavy metals.
“These toxins are bioaccumulated up the food chain when they are predated on. This can affect the health of entire populations and their overall viability in the long term.”
He added that polluted rivers affected livelihoods that depend on fishing, with the commercial and subsistence sectors particularly hard-hit with declining catches.
The Independent on Saturday