Water solutions

INSTEAD of cutting off water to the public, the supply of which will soon cease to exist when dam levels in the Western Cape drop below 10%, as reported on the front page of yesterday’s Cape Times (February 1, 2017), why not do the following with immediate effect?

Buy water from those African countries which right now have abundant rainfall and would, as a source of revenue, gladly send it by ship to all major South African ports where it can be redistributed in containers by train to where it is needed most.

Send tugs to the Antarctic to tow drifting icebergs to South African ports for chopping up and redistributing as above.

Use industrial-strength lasers to rapidly cut the icebergs into neat container-sized chunks which can be lifted by a standard dock crane into bogeys before they melt.

In the interests of safety, a siren signal similar to that used when blasting will ensure the area is cleared of all personnel during cutting. An allclear will be sounded when cutting is completed .

These procedures should be continued until the national integrated dam levels reach about 75% and re-introduced when it falls below about 60%, the exact figure to be decided by national government based on empirical data.