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dam-l SA Water article/LS
http://www.journalism.berkeley.edu/SouthAfrica/default.html
This site examines that transition through the reporting and writing of
eight students at the University of California, Berkeley Graduate School of
Journalism, who visited South Africa in March, 1999 to produce stories
about the nation's struggles in advance of the elections. The students are
enrolled in an International Reporting class at Berkeley, one of three
courses offered this spring in which students are traveling overseas to
report news and feature stories.
South Africa's water shortage -- the future looks dry
By Vicki McClure
PIETERSBURG, South Africa - In the arid hills of the Northern Province,
two worlds collide as the
South African government applies its constitutional mandate of "some for
all, not all for some" to the
nation's scarce water supply.
Albert Dykema surveys his corn and potato crops from a white Toyota pick-up
truck and speaks of one day abandoning
the 150,000 acre farm he built from scratch. Without irrigation, Dykema
worries that he will suffer the fate of his
father, a dry-land farmer who routinely watched his crops wither during
the country's frequent droughts.
"We all know that there is not enough water in South Africa for the
future," says Dykema, a second-generation Afrikaner
farmer. "There is no guarantee. The government can come tomorrow and turn
(it) off."
Sixty miles east of Dykema's farm, Butsi Mashiloane, a five-foot-tall
grandmother of six, remembers the mile-long
walks she made less than a year ago as she carried home a 6-gallon bucket
of water balanced on her head.
Today her journey takes her 50 feet to a communal tap located in front of
her cinder-block house. Although she must now
pay 14 Rand for the water her family uses, she feels the monetary
sacrifice is worth it.
"I sometimes do not have enough money for food," says Mashiloane, "Although
sometimes it is difficult, I feel it is
worth not having problems getting water."
Five years after the African National Congress won the country's first
all-race election, the delivery of water to three
million South Africans like Mashiloane has been one of the government's
most striking successes.
However, as the government prepares to extend service to a remaining 12
million people, officials at the Department of
Water Affairs say that the country's demand for water may exceed its
supply in the next ten years. Many hydrology
experts believe that the most likely solution will come at the expense of
farmers like Dykema.
"There will have to be some serious thoughts about the quantity of water
used by agriculture," says Peter Ashton, a
hydrologist at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research.
"The gravity of the situation needs to be recognized," says Minister of
Water Affairs and Forestry Kader Asmal in a
recent departmental report. "We can no longer rely on developing yet
another water source."
As the ANC prepares for the nation's second free election in June, it
faces pressure from voters to accelerate the delivery of
basic services such as water.
"We still have to complete the process of transforming the state. We need
to move faster," says Thabo Masebe,
spokesperson for the ANC. "The immediate challenge we have is to change
the lives of all those people who have had to rely
on water that was not healthy."
While the ANC publicly maintains that no water will be taken away from
farmers, its own water policy experts speak
frankly about the need to reallocate.
"I don't think we need to produce all our food in South Africa. We can
import our food from our northern neighbors, where
water is much more plentiful," says Johan Van Rooyen, director of water
resources planning at the Department of Water Affairs.
According to the Department of Water Affairs, agriculture used 54 percent
of the nation's water in 1996, while urban and
domestic use stood at 11 percent, mining and industry at eight percent,
forestry at eight percent, and the environment at 19 percent.
The South African Agricultural Union intends to sue the government if
water is taken from farmers without compensation.
"Taking away a person's rights to irrigate a certain area without
compensating him in market terms - I think that's a
major issue," says Nic Opperman, director of resource services at the
South African Agricultural Union. "Eventually, you
must have trust in your court system, the legal system of your country."
As farmer's fight to hold onto their water, the legacy of
Apartheid tinges the debate.
"Let's be frank about it, underlying there is always
this racial
tension, because a majority of the farmers are white.
And they
are seen to have all the benefits in terms of having
access to
water. And there are what is generally called the
disadvantaged
blacks who haven't got the access," said Gerhard R.
Backeberg, a research manager who specializes in agriculture
at the Water Research Commission. "Obviously it's an issue -
how are you going to reallocate?"
Give and Take
Although South Africa is rich in minerals, it is poorly
endowed with ground water and lacks a major aquifer. All of
the country's major interior rivers have been dammed,
and the
region receives a paltry amount of rainfall - 19.6
inches a year
- just over half the world's average. By comparison, Texas
receives an average of 28.1 inches annually.
Last fall, the Department of Water Affairs nationalized the
nation's water supply. The department pushed for the
historic
act in order to fulfill its obligations under the country's
two-year-old constitution, which considers basic
services such
as water to be a human right.
"Our new water law must ensure that the values of the
Constitution are felt by all South Africans in their daily
lives," says Asmal. "This will mean not only protecting
ecological processes, but also ensuring that
allocations to use
water are equitably and sustainably distributed."
Under the old apartheid regime, farmers owned water outright
as part of their land deed. They could draw an unlimited
amount of water not only from the ground, but also from
rivers abutting their property.
Under the new water act, farmers must now apply for
three-year licenses subject to renewal by the Department of
Water Affairs. Next summer, the department hopes to have a
policy in place which specifies how the water will
actually be
reallocated.
Dykema saw the change coming and built a dam on his
property two years ago, channeling water from the
neighboring Pienaars River into a reservoir on his farm. He
uses it to supplement the allotment he receives from a state
reservoir near Pretoria, 55 miles south of his farm.
"This is the farm's dam. The state did not pay for it," says
Dykema. "If I can't have water, I can't farm."
As the Department of Water Affairs determines the
mechanisms and criteria for the redistribution of
water, it has
adopted a policy that guaranties every person at least
25 liters
(or 6 gallons) of water per day.
Although that amount seems minuscule by U.S. standards -
the average American consumes more than 80 gallons per day
- the department intends it to be simply a starting point in
meeting the demands of a previously disenfranchised
population.
"If you multiply 25 liters of water per person per day by 15
million [the number of people without services], it's an
insignificant quantity spread over the water balance in
South
Africa," said Van Rooyen. "But if you now take that same
number of people over a twenty year period, their per capita
consumption now raises to 250 liters per day for someone
living in a nice house with a small garden, then the picture
changes dramatically. That's where the big demand will
actually come from."
For Mashiloane's village of Tisane, the arrival of tap water
means the hope of economic development. After the
community completes a sanitation project for its 5,000
residents, it would like to build a resort and nature
reserve to
encourage tourism and bring jobs to the area.
"Water was the priority," says Simon Mashiloane, a native of
Tisane and chairperson of the water project. "We were
drinking
with animals from the same stream. Once you are healthy,
then you can think of other projects."
end
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Lori Pottinger, Director, Southern Africa Program,
and Editor, World Rivers Review
International Rivers Network
1847 Berkeley Way, Berkeley, California 94703, USA
Tel. (510) 848 1155 Fax (510) 848 1008
http://www.irn.org
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