STARVED OF WATER
Misery mounts in Adelaide as supply dries up
Residents in parts of Adelaide have not had water for six months and the Koonap River and springs that have flowed for generations have dried up, ratcheting up agri-costs and forcing some farmers off their land.
Drought and dubious management of the situation by the authorities have placed the area and its residents in a vicelike grip despite the heroic efforts of donors.
Angora goat farmer Ben van der Westhuizen said the drought had forced many Winterberg farmers off the land.
“The guys in that area rely on springs and many of them have now dried up,” he said.
“So a lot of guys have sold or moved their stock to the Free State, where they’ve had rain and where they’re renting grazing land, and, of course, that is a huge extra expense.”
Van der Westhuizen said he had farmed in the Adelaide area for 33 years and there had been challenging conditions in the past, but the situation today was unprecedented.
“On occasion during dry periods, we have lost all our grazing. But we have always had water,” he said.
“It has never been like this where there is no grazing and no water.”
He said the farmers who had stayed on their land and not rented extra grazing had either sought to sell off stock or, in seeking to keep their herds intact and make it through to the next rains, were taking a huge knock by bringing in food.
“So even if good rains came tomorrow, it will take us many years to recover.”
Van der Westhuizen said he had managed briefly in 2018 to irrigate from the Koonap River, but the situation had been deteriorating for years.
“The Koonap has been essentially dry for seven years.
“Our usual rainfall in good times is 350-380mm.
“This year I have had 86mm. “Usually, I plant lucerne and oats to feed my stock and give the veld a break.
“Now because I can’t irrigate, I can’t plant.
“The veld is taking a hammering and the cost of buying in pellets and roughage is huge.”
A bag of pellets cost between R200 and R250 and he was having to supply his animals 20-25 bags a day, he said.
“It’s especially important to maintain the condition of my ewes to keep them strong and with sufficient milk for their lambs and therefore to keep the herd going.
“The condition of the animals is also directly connected to the weight, density and quality of the mohair which I need to sell.”
Stefaans Malan said the severity of the crisis had been brought home to him by the change in the flow of his household spring.
“Malans dating back to 1850 have used this spring, which always used to fountain out of the ground,” he said.
“Now for the first time it is not strong enough to push out and I have had to install a
pump to extract the water.”
Malan said if the people of Adelaide could survive the present crisis and if the longmooted Foxwood Dam could be built, Adelaide, backed by the farming community, could become a mecca.
“Water is life. Sustainable irrigation programmes could then be put in place.
“Investors and the big agriequipment, seed and fertiliser guys would see the opportunity. Jobs would be created.”
DA proportional representative councillor for Raymond Mhlaba local municipality, Ernest Lombard, said the town’s poor communities were suffering the most.
About three hours of water a day was being piped through the system, which was managed by the district municipality, he said.
The water came from the Adelaide treatment works which, in turn, received flow from the Fish River and boreholes which were being sunk by aid group Gift of the Givers, after being commissioned by the district municipality.
“The system is gravity-fed so while most of the residents living in the town itself receive this supply, most residents in the higher-lying areas of the town and in the townships of Red Location and Bezuidenhoutville get none at all.”
Besides this dynamic, there were often problems in the Fish River system, which fed this supply.
“People who can afford to buy water, or with tanks to store it when it does come in, can survive,” Lombard said.
“The most marginalised residents in the townships are the hardest hit.
“Some people there have not had water for six months.
“Besides for drinking, water is needed for washing and sanitation.
“Thousands of flush toilets installed in the townships don’t work. It’s a crisis.”
Lombard said residents had been informed by the district municipality that a water flow of 23 litres a second was needed to supply Adelaide’s 12,500 people, or 3,000 households.
“My understanding is that the present flow through the Fish River line coupled with the boreholes gives us at present just 6.1l/s.
“If it were not for the donations of water, people would have been killing each other.”
These donations together with the trucking in of water and the new boreholes had been a vital intervention.
“But the concern with all these new boreholes is what is this is doing to our water table and what this will mean longterm for our agriculture and other sustainable enterprises.”
The best solution was to get the Fish River line functioning properly and then to build the proposed large Foxwood Dam, which the government should have done years ago, he said.
Plans for the Foxwood were first mooted in 1953 but in the last decade they were brought to the fore and budgeted for by the water department.
Apparently with this strategy in mind, the district authority had declined to accept an offer of a large-diameter pipe link to the Fish.
And now, in the grip of the fiercest drought ever, the Adelaide Dam was dry, the larger dam was still pending and the town was fed by only a relatively small pipe.
“The drought is one thing but there are huge losses occurring on the line and there has been no foresight about how to counter a crisis like this.”
Lombard said he was also concerned about the quality of the water supplied by the Fish system, considering that just 80km-odd upstream of the extraction point at Cradock untreated sewage had been pouring for months into the river because of the collapsed treatment works there.
“I have requested a number of times to be shown the results of the tests they say they are doing, but there has been no response,” he said.