• Updated: 16/01/2012 16:02:30
• Warning: Take action
• Subject: Extremely uncomfortable; Heat Wave
• Detail: Valid for 17 to 19/01/2012: Warning: 1. A heat wave with persistently high temperatures is expected over the western and southern parts until Thursday. 2. Extremely uncomfortable, humid conditions will be experienced over the western and southern interior until Thursday.

With this heat wave in mind, it will be difficult to keep your lawn from looking like this:

The alternative for using your precious municipal water to water your garden, you might consider having the Water Rhapsody’s grey water system installed, namely Garden Rhapsody. In which case the Garden Rhapsody collects all your grey water, from your baths, showers, hand basins and laundry. The grey water sprays out onto your lawn or where you’ve directed it via hosepipe to spray. Imagine the feeling of watering your garden while taking a shower….

If you harvest rainwater through the Water Rhapsody Grand Opus, you will be making use of your own rainwater in your shower, your lawn will be watered with that same water. Shouldn’t everybody be heading this way?

Have us visiting your premises for a free no-obligation quotation to install these systems.

Contact Frans @ 082 7712 062 or Ansie @ 082 851 9761

The department is in the process of lifting restrictions on the city’s water usage from the two major dams which are wholly dedicated to it, the Churchill and the Impofu on the Kromme River, from 15% in the 2010/11 water year, to 10%. It will drop the 10% restriction entirely once both the Churchill and three-times-larger Impofu reach a combined capacity of 85%. Yesterday they stood at 76%.

Both the Loerie and Kouga dams have been overflowing for weeks now. For the last water year, which ended on June 30, the Bay could only use 60% of its allocation from the Kouga Dam, or about 14000 megalitres a year. The city’s water consumption from that dam is monitored carefully, as it is pumped from the Kouga Dam to the Loerie Dam, and then to the city.

Gamtoos Valley farmers were told earlier this month they could use their full quota (60000Ml a year) of the Kouga Dam’s water again, after being forced to use just 40% (24000Ml) during the last water year, crippling many citrus farmers. Gamtoos Irrigation Board chairperson Pierre Joubert, who also sits on the Algoa Water Study Group, said it was essential that the department seriously considered raising the Kouga Dam wall to add to the region’s water security. Raising the 82m-high wall by an additional 15m has been under discussion for more than 10 years, and is part of the Algoa Water Study Group’s long- term recommendations to the department.

- Brian Hayward  The Herald 14 Jul’11

“We expect the SA market for wind-power to grow significantly over the next three years. I’ve had various meeting with role-players,  including government officials, and it seems clear to me that the current SA administration is intent upon moving increasingly towards renewable as far as energy supply is concerned.”

Applications for at least 88 wind farms have been received by the Eastern and Western Cape authorities and some of these wind farms are expected to have as many as 600 turbines located on them.

According to figures submitted to the Department of Environment Affairs there are 40 wind farms likely to be erected in the Western Cape and if these are approved, about 2 800 turbines will be installed around the province.

At least five of the proposals for new wind farms have not stipulated how many turbines they are likely to build to supply electricity to the provincial grid.

There are 31 applications for wind farms in the Eastern Cape.

Each wind farm application has to be accompanied by an environmental impact assessment. Each turbine is between 80 metres and 120 metres tall, the height of a 20-or 30-storey building.

The wind farms sites are all reasonably close to the national electricity grid but are scattered throughout the provinces and sited in places where there is a consistent supply of wind.

Many of them are planned for spots along the windy West Coast stretching from Darling (about 60 km north of Cape Town) to Vredendal on the Olifants River, 300 km away from the city.

There are eight wind farms proposed for the Garden Route, four around Swellendam, two near Mossel Bayand fiver in the Overberg. There are also three farms planned for Caledon and two in Bredasdorp.

The smallest wind farm application is at Albertinia where just six turbines are likely to be built. The biggest wind farm is expected to rise at Middleton near Bedford in the Eastern Cape where 685 turbines will be built if the province approves the plan.

Several wind farms are planned for the Karoo and many of these are also large. Outside Beaufort West one farm will have about 275 turbines while another near Laingsburg will comprise 400 turbines.

The government’s Integrated Resource Plan 2010 says that 19,7% of new electricity generation will come from wind power as part of its plan to stop the country’s reliance on coal-fired electricity generation in the future.

In terms of the Integrated Resource Plan (developed by Government), SA will have approximately 11 000MW of wind power by 2030, which might be 3000 turbines in all across the entire country.

Why not let your rainwater harvesting system pay for itself?
By using your harvested rain water instead of municipal water, you not only save money on your water bill but also on your sewerage costs. Municipalities charge for sewerage based only on the volume (number of kilolitres) of water that you consume. You are charged for the amount of water that has run through the water meter and the same goes for your sewerage charge. If less water runs through your meter and rather from your full water tank, the lower your water AND sewerage charge will be.
What to do with all that rainwater in your tank?
• Pump it through your whole household
• Toilet flushing
• Laundry washing machine

The installation can be as simple as a pump connected to the tank and a brass tap to connect your hose to. You can then use rain water for irrigation or to wash the car.
A better installation of course will be our Grand Opus installation. If you connect it to your toilets, you can save even more water by installing a Water Rhapsody Multi-Flush system.
It is not a romantic notion to harvest rainwater, but a noble cause if you use that water instead of municipality water.

How the average capacity of dams is calculated:
Each dam has a full supply capacity expressed as a volume in Mega liters (Ml). The percentages that are reported weekly represent the volume of water left in each dam, expressed as a percentage of that particular dam’s full volume.
The volume for each dam is different. One cannot add up the percentages and divide by five.
The volume left in all the dams (example 96 906 Ml) is then expressed as a percentage of the total volume (277 401 Ml) if all the dams were full. Therefore 96 906 Ml divided by 277 401 Ml gives 34.93%.

Have your rainwater harvesting system installed by Water Rhapsody and become independent of supply dams. Contact us for a quotation.

When referring to water do we know the difference between water as a commodity and resource?

The lead article in the latest edition of Water and Sanitation states “ DWA refines the National Resource Strategy”.  When referring to something one owns and sells, surely this should read “… the National Commodity Strategy?”

To purveyors of  (the sale of) water one can only assume that it is great to sell the water as a commodity, and great if one can market it as if it is a commodity.

When and if water is bought and sold, should this not be a commodity?  It is only while water is still in a river, the sea or in the form of rain that it should be considered a resource.  Once a river is dammed the stuff in the dam is no longer a resource.  This is not semantics but an important fact.

Interesting times lie ahead with problems; sorry… challenges to meet the needs of a burgeoning population.   Couple this with occasional droughts and we have a real challenge.

The Gauteng region is presently lulled into a sense of security in terms of water supply.  Their water all comes from the Lesotho Highlands, and abundant water has fallen in the region this rainy season.

Although Lesotho is completely surrounded by South Africa it is another country. Yet South Africa claim ownership of that water too, which is evident in the fact that South Africa have already built one dam in the Lesotho Highlands called the Katse Dam.  This dam was built on the Orange River tributary and a complicated system of pipes and tunnels sends this water into the Vaal System.  It is only interesting in that the South African Government in doing this lay claim to the water which flows from the dam into the Vaal System.  This water is then sold to users who in turn sell this water to consumers.  The term user only means some organized body i.e. a water board or municipality.

The ANC led Government was so sure of its ownership of the Lesotho water, having spent so many billions building the Katse dam that the they sent troops to secure the dam, and to Maseru to quell the rebellion against the King.

So, does it matter whether water is a commodity or a resource? Sure it does!

To inventors of conservation it has mattered.  To those responsible for marketing water as a resource, inventors are simply a nuisance to whom they have been forced to give lip service to their faces but undermined behind their backs. This undermining has sometimes even been aggressive especially at local government level.  Councillors and bureaucrats have empires based on the sale of water. They are frightened to have their empires disturbed by those who purvey tools to get people to use less water are equally to blame for ignoring demand management of water as a tool to provide more water to those who have little or none.  Either that or too stupid as saving water makes perfect sense, and everyone is saying so except them!

It is only since the arrival of the comprehensive range of ideas and developments of the Water Rhapsody Systems of Conservation, and the concentration of those purveyors of the Water Rhapsody Systems that Cape Town City has taken heed.  Heed? Yes there are some very concerned people within the council that are making progress, and what with the forthcoming drought these are the voices that will be heard.

This is a turnaround from the time when a not too bright David Erleigh was a City Councillor.  He fought bravely and earnestly against water demand management.  This was the time that an expert in demand management by the name of Charles Chapman was lured to Cape Town from Rand Water in Johannesburg to start a demand management department. Mr Erleigh was under pressure from Prof Kader Asmal to show that a demand management strategy was implemented before he would sign off for the last dam Cape Town would ever get. Erleigh was shrewd. He lured Chapman with a budget of two million Rand.  Chapman was hooked, and prepared to come to Cape Town.  Before he walked off the airplane his budget was reduced to two hundred thousand, and thereafter to a completely insignificant figure of fifty thousand or twenty thousand the actual figure is not important because this was not real money.  This was so interesting because the budget for building the dam was two billion Rand!  So Cape Town had a ratio for demand: supply ratio of 1:100 000. Needless to say was that it was written into Chapmans contract that he would not speak to the press.  Chapman muzzled it was left to Water Rhapsody to go to press.

This was really serious because we were able to prove that with demand management we could save more water than the dam could and with far fewer Rand, and wrote this to the press.  Erleigh was enraged and proceeded to attack me in person in the press.  He accused me of having an agenda of my own.  Erleigh was not very clever because he played the man and not the ball. Chapman was upset by this and showed me the draft of the attack.  His attack did not change anything, and even worked against him.  Minister Asmal who was a client of mine even then, was firmly in the driving seat and refused steadfastly to sign off the dam. After Asmal came Kasrils, who seemed to be a caretaker minister, and did not allow the dam either.

Now though the dam is built, and the environmental damage is visible, but it made little difference as we are out of water once more. The ball is now back in the corner of demand management, and in this corner it must stay.  There are no more sustainable supply schemes that can possibly be built, including extraction from the Tm Aquifer and desalination of sea water.

Water needs to be treated not just as a commodity but as a scarce commodity, and the sooner this is done the better off we all will be.

- Jeremy Westgarth-Taylor, Founder of Water Rhapsody

What is it going to take to stop the plans to threaten our sensitive Karoo region from being destroyed by Shell’s plans to blow it apart in search of natural gas?

A controversial application by oil giant Shell to explore for gas in an area of the Karoo should be put on hold, the Democratic Alliance said on Tuesday. The opposition party warned that exploration would involve processes that risked contaminating surrounding bodies of water, but Shell countered that processes were in place to prevent this happening.

In a letter to the Minister of Environmental Affairs and Water, Ms Edna Molewa, Mr Gareth Morgan questioned whether the minister “has the ability to assess the efficacy or appropriateness of these activities at this stage.”

Clearly, it is incumbent that all who know or care about the future of Karoo life should participate as much as possible to ensure that responsible decisions are taken at high level.

He emphasised the serious threat to the rare water resources of this region, due to

• the large quantities of water needed for this fracking process, as “each fracking event uses at least 15 million litres of water and each well can be “fracked” several times”…  I am not sure how many wells Shell would drill if granted the exploration right, but it could be hundreds as they could explore for up to nine years” and
• the threat of ground water contamination. “There is then an attempt to fracture the rock using a high pressure flow of liquid, including water, sand and so-called ‘special-purpose’ chemicals.”
• “The Environmental Protection Agency in the USA has begun a two year study on the possible relationship between hydraulic fracturing and drinking water following concerns reflected by the US Congress about the process in its 2010 budget report. If a country like the USA, with immensely more technical capacity than our own country, is concerned about “fracking” then we should be too. Added to that there is a moratorium on “fracking” in New York State and apparently over 160 municipalities in the USA have banned “fracking” through local by-laws.”

In a letter we’ve received from Dr. David Gaynor, manager of the Sneeuberg Nature Reserve in the Graaff-Reinet, he also looks at the threats to livelihoods and the desertification of the Karoo:

Short-sighted profits rule

“Fracking for gas is not appropriate development for the Karoo. The exploitation of natural gas through hydraulic fracturing threatens the Karoo’s  most valuable resource – clean, uncontaminated water. The granting of exploration permits to Shell and other companies to search for gas in the Karoo will pitch the short-term profits of mining a fossil fuel against the risk of permanently contaminating the scarce water resources of the Karoo.

The gas, a mixture of methane and other gases might be cleaner burning than oil or coal in terms of some pollutants, but produces the same amount of carbon dioxide meaning that it will be a significant contributor to global warming. Each commercial well will probably only produce for 10 -15 years and create very few local jobs. Most of the profits will go into the multinationals pockets and any long-term problems will be left to the inhabitants of the Karoo to live with.

10 million litres of water each time

Initial exploratory drilling will require up to 10 million litres of water, with around the same amount being needed for each hydraulic fracturing of the underground rock. Not only does this water have to be sourced, but it is then mixed with a toxic cocktail of chemicals to aid the drilling and fracturing process.

Most of this contaminated water will be pumped to the surface and will have to be safely stored and treated. Significant amounts of this polluted water will remain underground and could potentially infiltrate underground water sources.
Underground water is the life blood of the Karoo. It is scarce, but if utilized wisely it underpins all sustainable development in the Karoo. It supports the cattle, sheep, wildlife, lucerne and other pasture Lands – the main economic activities in the Karoo. It supplies clean water to the towns and growing townships, whose existence is dependent on clean water and the income from livestock farming, hunting and tourism.

Livelihoods threatened

Are the risks of permanently contaminating the one thing essential for life and livelihoods in the Karoo – Water – worth the short-term and limited local benefits of mining a fuel that will only contribute to global warming?

The best regional models for global warming indicate that with continued use of fossil fuels the proposed area of mining will by 2040 experience conditions so hot and dry as to be only comparable with the Namib desert. It would be ironic if this degradation was fuelled by the exploitation of gas reserves in the very same area, especially when this area has so much potential for the development of renewable energy sources such as solar and wind power.

The government has promulgated feed in tariffs that ensure that companies like Shell can invest, assist development and make money from renewables rather than relying on the old carbon economy to make money for their shareholders.

There is currently a public participation process, as Shell needs to consult with all interested in affected people and compile an Environmental Management Plan, before they could be awarded this right.”

Shale gas is natural gas stored in rocks that are rich in organic material such as dark colored shale.

“Does it take a genius to predict drought?

While the fear of water restrictions work in favour of those of us who are involved in water conservation, it would be preferable for all of us to have smoothed restrictions rather than an all or nothing scenario.  All of us mean the population at large, the municipality, the Department of Environmental Affairs as well as Water Rhapsody. Please let me explain?

Cycle of drought

Six, seven years or perhaps even eight years may elapse between one and the next season of drought.  These years between drought cycles are winter months in Cape Town of higher than average rainfall, and the reverse in the northern regions of South Africa where we get summer rains. During these years of higher than average rainfall, all thought of the fact that we live in a water poor region of the world, is forgotten.  Forgotten is the notion of drought by the bureaucrats and politicians that run our city.  Drought is a long forgotten figment in the memory of the population at large as well.  Every drought season, virtually a whole new generation needs to be re-educated in our need to use less water, and how to use less of the precious stuff.  We should not forget what was written in biblical times that we have seven years of drought and seven years of plenty.  While some areas north of Cape Town are experiencing floods of the magnitude seen but forgotten, the floods normally coincide with drought in the Western Cape.

During the years of drought in the Western Cape from 2000 to 2004, Capetonians had restrictions and increases in water tariffs imposed the like of which we hadn’t seen before.  The city even appointed some officers to police water use, which officers disappeared into the woodwork (redeployed), and after higher than average rainfall fell in 2005 all restrictions were lifted with the exception of daily irrigation times(no watering between the times of ten till four 0’clock).  Laughable though it is, this is the only water restriction left, and no police to check on this.  It would be silly too to deploy a police force to check up whether or not you were watering your garden a 10.30 in the morning!

New drought cycle.

We are as I write going into a drought cycle in the Western Cape.  This is going to be the mother of droughts ever seen if the stacked reports from climatologists are correct.  We have been warned of this drought, and our Department of Water and Environmental Affairs should know of this too.  It is strange that the people who work for this governmental department have not applied restrictions in a bid to save water while we still have water in our storage dams. Within eight months there will be panic in local and higher ranking government when we have little or no water.  We will have poor rainfall in the winter of 2011, and 2012 and more than likely 2013. This will mean that the supply dams to Cape Town that are falling at record rates and are already getting low for this time of the year may dry up completely.   There are another three months of summer to go and if the dams continue to fall at this rate (2.8% per week), then expect the dam levels to be at around 45% of capacity by mid April.  It would take a year of higher than average rainfall to put the dams back to where they were at the start of this summer season.  But alas higher than average rainfall will is not forecast.  Rainfall of below average is forecast, and perhaps the dams will rise but perchance to less than 80% of capacity.  This is the magic figure at which 30% restrictions get announced, and this decision would be taken in October.

The meaning of 30% restrictions by DWEA

30% restrictions merely mean that DWEA (Department of Water and Environmental Affairs) demand from the Municipality that they show a reduction in demand of 30% less than the volume of water that Cape Town is allocated by DWEA. It is up to Cape Town Municipality as to what restrictions they put in place to lower demand by the prescribed percentage.

Low Fruit

The low fruit has a couple of meanings here.  The first is the low fruit of supply generally, that of dam building and simply robbing rivers of their water. Hereafter desalination of water is the higher fruit as this comes at a price far higher than raw river water.  The second low fruit pertains to the dams, viz water quality in the dams differs from dam to dam, and some are much further away than others.  Also some are deep and others have a huge surface area delivering their yield to evaporation. Actually the aspect of evaporation is very serious.

The low fruit of dam water use has already been picked.  The low fruit of the water in the lower Steenbras dam which though in today’s terms is small, is close to Cape Town and is good quality raw water.  This dam is now below 50% of capacity, and there is precious little inflow to augment the yield.  Although the upper Steenbras is almost full (97%) the majority of this water is stored for electricity power generation. This power generation works under normal circumstances to level the graph of the daily amount of electricity needed for the City of Cape Town which has spikes in the morning and evening, and troughs in the middle of the day and during the night.  During these spikes, water is allowed to flow down to the Gordon’s Bay side through the mountain turning huge hydro electric generators, and in the period of low consumption the water is pumped back up to Steenbras.  However there is a large pipe from the lower dam to the sea, so if we had plenty of water in the upper dam, and needed some extra electricity, this could be used as a hydro electric generation plant until all the water in the dam was used up.  If  we have energy shortages, you bet much of the precious stored water in the upper dam will be used for energy consumption, or at least held in the upper dam for a just in case, which of course makes this water unavailable for domestic consumption but rather kept for energy generation.

Once the water in the lower Steenbras dams is consumed and it is going fast, then Cape Town Municipality must start to rely more heavily on the poorer quality water from Theewaterskloof and other outlying dams. This water is more expensive to process, and the lower the dam level gets, the worse the quality.

Politicians dam building and jobs.

Election fever has also gripped South Africa, and any immediate talk of water restrictions in the coveted Western Cape must be dispelled.  It seems so strange that the issue of drought which inevitable leads to water restrictions should be seen as bad political management.  The city politicians could not be more wrong.  There is a sense of camaraderie in times of shortages, and we all help each other, and in fact jobs are created during these times.  What is unpopular though is the loss of revenue to the Council when restrictions are imposed.  Revenue from the sale of water goes to the fiscal budget and profits are used wherever the bureaucrats and councillors like.  The less the volume of water that is sold by the municipality, the higher goes the tariffs, and in actual fact an escalation in tariffs is an excellent way of stemming demand for water.  In reality though the city staff who run water supply are well aware that when both tariffs and water restrictions are applied together, the average use per person per day drops which is absolutely logical.  What they dont like is that the per capita usage once restrictions are lifted never returns to the same point as before the restrictions were imposed and prices escalated.  The following fact is not just surmise:  this is the reason why demand does not increase after restrictions are lifted shows that devices to save water are very effective. Once Water Rhapsody clients use our unique systems, there is no looking back.   The efficiency of the Water Rhapsody Systems goes on and on.  This very important fact was given to me by Dave Ramsay who was the chief water engineer for Cape Town a few years ago.  If only the authorities would realize what they could possible do for our environment by actually promoting water saving with all the tools at their disposal including the devices that Water Rhapsody supply and install.

Job creation through demand management

Far, far more permanent jobs are created during times of drought than the temporary jobs created during dam building activities.   It was so interesting to hear the engineers responsible for the building of the last dam possible in Cape Town that of the Berg River Scheme using job creation as a motive to build the dam.  They built temporary houses for their staff and housed them there.  After the dam building process was complete, all the staff were retrenched, and the houses were all sold.  So is it up to those who wish to conserve water to provide jobs?  The answer is an emphatic YES.

Politicians excuse

Of course the fact that there are floods in some parts of the country helps the politicians down play any need for water saving in the Western Cape.  We see daily jockeying for positions for Mayor, party elections, and promises regarding jobs etc.  There is simply no time to address items of so little importance as water, and nobody wants to take an unpopular decision like instituting water restrictions.

Cape Town out of water by 2012

I have stated regularly that the year 2012 will be the year that Cape Town runs out of water.  The debate now will be interesting as to who gets priority over supply of water.  Who will get water in times of outages?  Will farmers get their share?  When Theewaterskloof was built and filled, 90% of water from the dam was assigned for agricultural use.  The farmers though could not use all the water allocated to them and the then DWAF (Department of Water Affairs and Forestry) as it was known then decided that because the farmers did not take up their allocation, that this water would be allocated to Cape Town Municipality.  This gave Cape Town water security in the middle eighties, but since Cape Town has grown so rapidly, this will be insufficient in years of lower than average rainfall, which years we are now in.

Future augmentation – desalination

We have plentiful sea water for desalination purposes do I hear you say?  In order to desalinate enough water to provide one days supply, we will need six million kilowatt hours of electricity. We simply do not have enough energy nor will we be able to find this capacity in the near future. If say at worst we should run out of water completely like Beaufort West.  The average daily demand for water is 1.5 million cubic metres.  The amount of extra energy we would need to desalinate this volume of water would be a minimum of 6 million kilowatt hours every day, for the desalination process.  This water would need to be blended with some other water, most likely treated sewerage water for palatability, and pressurized to municipal pressure.  This would be expensive and with energy we simply won’t be able to find.  Until now all the supply water for Cape Town has been virgin raw water extracted from rivers.  The end to this luxury is nigh.

Water outages

Water outages are a blunt but absolute as an efficient demand management measure (to get people to use less water).  Will we have to endure water outages or wont we?

If everyone installed water saving devices as per the Water Rhapsody Systems of Conservation, we would have no need for measures as tough as outages, but this is not the case. The steps of what can be done culminate in the following:  Install the Water Rhapsody Grand Opus to provide rainwater to the whole household.  This unique system receives rainwater from roofs but is also augmented with municipal water to give all households an emergency supply seamlessly. Water Rhapsody fix the emergency supply from the municipal to your water tank/s for an  emergency supply when, (not if) the Municipality turn off the water supply.  If you lived in Beaufort West and had installed the Water Rhapsody System, you would have a contiguous supply, and you would be unaffected by outages.  Secondly should you reduce your demand for water (without a change of lifestyle) you could reduce your water demand (usage) by half.  The reduction in demand is essential to get your precious saved rainwater to go so much further, and is done in five ways viz: by re-using grey water for irrigation purposes, or for toilet flushing, by re-using swimming pool backwash water and lastly by the use minimizing toilet flushing.

As restrictions bite, the municipality will quickly wake up to the erosion of their revenue, and will raise water rates.  These rates will represent the price of the next augmentation scheme, and the capital to provide enough energy for running the water augmentation, that is of course desalination.

All of these systems come at a cost, and the question is frequently asked, can we afford to install such systems?  Our answer is a rhetorical question: can we afford not to do these things?  Well the answer will be a resounding YES as soon as restrictions bite, and bite them surely will!”

Jeremy Westgarth-Taylor

Founder of Water Rhapsody.  Inventor of all the Water Rhapsody Systems.

2011-01-20

Radio Interview on SAFM 104 – 107 with Karabo  14hr30. 18 January 2011

TRANSCRIPT NOT VERBATIM

Are we doing enough to control flooding?  On the line we have Jeremy the founder of Water Rhapsody.  Welcome Jeremy, are we doing enough to control flooding?

J Flooding should not be seen as a bad thing.  Water that reaches the sea from rivers is not wasted water.  Estuaries need floods to be able to function as estuaries. Rivers need to have the mouths to the sea scoured from flooding which makes a flood a good thing.  Estuaries are places where sea fish swim during floods to breed and spawn to procreate more, and because of over extraction of water from rivers, there is between three and four percent of fish left in the sea that there was 100 years ago.   Dam building has been the reason for over extraction.  Remember that a river is a biosphere, which is the maximum number of eco systems.  As soon as water rain falls on roofs, this water runs to streets and the combined water into a river.  The engineers in their wisdom then build a canal to get the flood water from one place to another as rapidly as possible moving the problem which moves the problem from one place to another, and in so doing deliver this water directly into the sea instead of an estuary.  This kills all frogs, fish shell fish etc, and any birds and other animals that live in the biosphere and these all simply go away.

Why are dams built?

J Dams are built for agricultural irrigation and for use by humans in cities.  I am not in favour of dam building as a means of flood control.  Dam building only makes losses worse.  During periods of normal rainfall over perhaps ten or so years, the minor floods are controlled by dams.  Then up comes a 20 or 50 year flood, and the dam makes no difference.  In the mean time people have settled on the banks of the river, and so the rule should apply, that you should not build on a flood plain. In South Africa there are no more places to build dams.  We are dammed out.  Dams are not necessarily the way to go to augment supply.  There are other ways to augment supply, and to control flooding.

So Jeremy what are the methods to augment supply and control flooding?

J Well if everyone harvested rainwater, and roads were made Porous, then the flood water flowing from roofs would run into rain tanks, and people would be able to draw on this water during the rainy season pumped into houses so that they need not draw on municipal water and have an emergency feed at all times.

It would not be a popular decision to do away with roads?

J I did not mean that we should do away with roads, but I said to build roads in such a way that they are porous, in that the water that falls on roads should not run off, but go through the road and into the water table. With just these two, city flooding would be controlled.

Stored water in rain tanks, surely that would help the poor?

J           I wholeheartedly agree with you.  Everyone should have the chance to harvest rain water to alleviate the plight of the poor.  They too could have insurance against outages.  The outages that exist all over South Africa are as a result of over extraction.  Boreholes are drying up, and they have now collapsed.  If everyone had rain tanks this could not have occurred.

How does the system work?

J Rainwater falling onto roofs falls into gutters, and into downpipes where we sieve the water and introduce this water into a ring main into which all the downpipes are teed, runs into water tanks.  The water is pumped into the house in such a way that when you switch on a tap, the pump starts, and when you switch the tap off the pump stops. Mains water from the municipality is seamlessly introduced to augment the rainwater, so that one never runs out of water.  If like Beaufort west, the water is switched on every 36 hours, one could live normally from the water supplied from the municipality into the tank.

Caller:            Andrew : I agree with everything Jeremy has said.  I have stored 17500 litres of water at my house.

Caller:            Dennis:  Can one drink rain water?

J This is Hobson’s Choice.  If one looks at the quality as in Hartebeespoort where the municipality openly tell you that you may not drink the water and Eastern Cape in the Port Alfred region, where they have bored for water in the dunes, one quickly realizes that the water quality is sea water.  Furthermore if one filters rainwater with a filter from H2O the water is perfectly safe to drink

Out of time; thank you Jeremy for coming on air to tell us about flood control.  Jeremy is the founder of Water Rhapsody, and if you want to get hold of Water Rhapsody their web site is www.waterrhapsody.co.za