Green Hills, Blue Cities

PROBLEMS WITH GRAHAMSTOWN’S WATER SUPPLY AND SANITATION The goal of ensuring sustainable and reliable water supply and adequate sanitation in Grahamstown is faced with several challenges, including: • The possibility of substantial reductions in rainfall by the end of this century like most of Southern Africa (IPCC 2007). • Historical inequities in service delivery between Grahamstown East and West, with the previously white West receiving comprehensive services, and paying for them, while much delayed and often sub-standard services in the East are combined with a historical reluctance and inability to pay. A local councillor wrote in December 2006 “…the sum of unpaid accounts has steadily increased such that it is now in excess of one year’s operating budget, which has virtually eliminated the capacity of the municipality to purchase new equipment and squeezes the maintenance budget to about 6 per cent of the operating budget” (quoted in Maki and Mullins 2007). • Outdated and unreliable infrastructure, which has not been maintained adequately. The pumps and pipelines from Howison’s Poort to Waainek were installed in 1931 and could provide 2 050 litres per minute up the 454 m lift to Waainek, which was then the highest lift in the country. In 2010 Howison’s Poort was empty, and when it refilled in December, the pumps, unused for several months, failed to operate and had to be repaired. • Inadequate technical capacity among municipal employees. The provision of bulk water, and the treatment and disposal of wastewater from a community of more than one hundred thousand will necessarily have environmental impacts. The regulation, storage and abstraction of water from local rivers disrupt their flow and geographical continuity, with severe consequences to the riverine biodiversity. The disposal of even treated water has consequences for the downstream water quality, in terms of increased salinity and nutrients. In addition to these consequences of urban development, Grahamstown’s water footprint is partly responsible for environmental problems in a wider geographical area. The Orange/Great Fish water transfer, on which Grahamstown relies for much ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS AND SUSTAINABILITY APPROACHES

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