If South Africans knew what was good for them they would be very friendly with the Kingdom of Lesotho, for that country holds the key to SA’s survival and, as many South Africans like to say, SA is the key to Africa’s renaissance.
This is because Lesotho has the water SA needs. The two nations have been in an exchange of mutual generosity since the 1980s when the first phase of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP) began. In 2002, the scheme could transfer about 27 cubic metres of mountain-chilled water per second to the Vaal Dam, our own "warm little pond", as Charles Darwin might have called it.
But almost from the start, everyone knew it would never be enough. This is because of a combination of factors creating demand that would outstrip supply, including contamination from more than a century of acid-mine drainage, rapid and largely unplanned urban settlement and the high evaporation rate at its main impoundment, the Vaal Dam. So, LHWP II was introduced in 2005, if under a cloud of corruption that had tainted the first round.
This might not have been so urgent had post-1994’s water authorities at each governmental tier retained the skills and insights necessary to maintain and upgrade raw water treatment plants and wastewater systems. But this was sacrificed at the altar of transformation. Now, instead of a manageable strain on plant-treating Joburg’s drinking water, Lesotho’s precious and expensive water is used chiefly to dilute Joburg’s effluent.
The dead fish floating down the Vaal over the past weeks are a superficial symptom of the humanitarian and economic catastrophe in the making. And, as always, the face of catastrophe will be that of the poor. These people have escaped rural poverty and inadequate piped-water supplies to live in shantytown poverty, with no piped water whatsoever, and with pit latrines — if they are lucky at all.
What floats down the river is not just dead fish and faeces — heavy metals and radioactive uranium, an assortment of viruses and, from the nutrient-rich primordial soup that is our own "warm little pond", cyanobacteria arise in blooms of primitive bacterial life.
This process – known as eutrophication —will soon be a household word.
In a 2016 paper published by the South African Institute of Race Relations, water-politics specialist Anthony Turton, draws our attention to two specific cyanobacteria, anabaena and microcystis.
"Anabaena generates anatoxin, which has three different permutations, all fast-acting nerve poisons, [and] microcystis produces microcystin, which is more prevalent than anatoxin. When it is altered or denatured, its component parts can be more toxic than the entire molecule."
The World Health Organisation’s safe level is 1.0 micrograms per litre for microcystin, but in SA’s rivers levels of between 10,000 and 18,000 micrograms per litre have been measured. Two-thirds of the country’s large dams have now been affected by eutrophication.
Microcystin levels in SA’s tap water are much lower, at about 10 micrograms per litre, but still 10 times higher than the safety standard. Turton says these results have never been published because the government denies the information, and funding is either withheld from scientists or they are under pressure not to investigate.
Phase II of the effluent-dilution plan is already five years behind schedule, with transfer into the Vaal expected at the end of 2025. This may be due to the same trouble that bedevilled Phase I, a thing the Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa euphemistically calls "longer than anticipated tender review and approval processes".
This is an economic bailout type of euphemism that can kill an untold number of people and cause misery. President Cyril Ramaphosa can forget about any sort of number-shuffling economic growth if he cannot get his water & sanitation department to do its job, pronto.
But SA is broke, from the top of the public purse to the lowliest municipal treasury, which leaves the president with just two cards he must play in quick succession. First, he must accept at least a partial privatisation of the water economy and, second, he must make certain that Lesotho is SA’s best friend, forever.
• Blom is a flyfisher who likes to write.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.