Get real about Grahamstown’s water problems

On Tuesday, 6 June, the GRA convened a meeting of its members and other interested parties to hear an update on Grahamstown’s water situation. Regrettably few attended, which may suggest that residents know what the situation is, don’t care to know or are tired of repeatedly hearing the same story.

And the situation is dire, no matter which way you look at it. • We have a critical water problem for these reasons: • We have a major drought on our hands, with no indication that it will break soon. • Grahamstown’s water infrastructure is not in good condition and needs to be attended to. • The municipality is bankrupt and imbued with incompetence (while there are many competent and very hard-working people). • There are problems with reading water meters, as they are often clogged up, and with accurate billing for consumption.

It seems to me that the public can do little, if anything, to address the first three of these issues. However, we can do something about the last. • South Africa is a water-stressed country. This is not going to change and it may well get worse. Look at the predicament Cape Town finds itself in – and other parts of the African continent, such as Ethiopia. • None of us can do much, if anything, about improving the infrastructure. It is useful to be reminded that Grahamstown’s water supply and infrastructure problem is probably 100 or more years old. Just read a Grocott’s of 80 or so years ago, or Lorraine Mullins’ excellent account of our water problems in 'Grahamstown’s Water Supply: a brief history from 1812 to 2008'. • Until there is an end to cadre deployment to government jobs, and competent people are appointed, in this case to municipal posts, competence levels will not change. • But, we can take responsibility for keeping our water meters clean and accessible for readers, or better still, read our own meters every month, submit the reading to the municipality and insist that they bill you for your actual usage. • As we live in a water-stressed country, we should all have water storage facilities. It should be a municipal regulation. RDP houses should not be built without gutters and a water tank, irrespective of our right to 6 kilolitres of clean, free water per month. Even if the municipal water supply is plentiful, we should use rain water for outdoor activities. It is surely madness that we fill swimming pools and water gardens with drinking water.

Wouter Holleman