SA facing a water crisis

25 November 2008

WHEN Water Affairs and Forestry Minister Lindiwe Hendricks said in Parliament this year that SA was not facing a water crisis, we believed her. We had to. The electricity crisis had brought the country to the brink of economic disaster, and no one was in the mood for any more doom and gloom.

But now a hard-hitting paper outlining just how critical SA's water situation is has been banned from being delivered, and its author, Anthony Turton, an internationally respected political scientist at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), has been suspended and charged with insubordination.

If there was anything that should rouse South Africans from their slumber about the impending water-supply crisis, this outrageous act of censorship and cowardice by the CSIR would be it.

By attempting to suppress Turton's findings, the CSIR has given its strongest endorsement of the conclusion that we are, indeed, facing a grave and immediate danger - perhaps far greater than the power crisis.

Turton was to deliver the keynote address, A Clean South Africa, at the CSIR's Science Real and Relevant conference in Pretoria last week. But the paper was removed at the last minute because it contained what the council described as unsubstantiated facts and images of the xenophobic attacks around the country earlier this year, which, the council said, "may disturb people".

Fortunately for SA, the paper has been in internal circulation for about two months. And it is indeed disturbing. It is based on an analysis of SA's climate, its spatial development and the country's unique sociological make-up and historical legacy. It means, simply, that SA's poor rainfall (497mm a year) and its topography reduce the capacity of its aquatic systems to dilute effluent and pollutants.

When that is combined with the water distribution patterns (98% has been allocated), it is clear that the country has no surplus capacity. Very few people have grasped this, but it would seriously constrain all future economic development.

The second crisis driver is the fact that southern Africa's major cities and centres of economic development are on watershed divides. It means it requires sophisticated engineering and technology to move water to these areas and that effluent is a major threat to future economic development.

Third, and perhaps most insidious, as Turton puts it, is our history of political violence and disrespect for human rights, as illustrated by colonial exploitation in the past, and the xenophobic attacks more recently. Turton uses this to illustrate what might happen if one day water becomes scarce enough to fight over.

The most alarming aspect of Turton's paper is that when he turns to the technical ingenuity required to find solutions to the water crisis, he finds that the demand for technical ingenuity (scientific, engineering and technological capacity) in water management far outstrips supply, a fact that he blames on poor promotion of scientific and technological endeavour.

What he really means (and probably the reason he has been suspended) is that white engineers have been run out of jobs in municipalities, and many poor towns no longer have any capacity to process water and, thus, protect their citizens from disease.

That is not what transformation was supposed to do. It was, surely, supposed to improve black lives, not make them worse.

Some of the technical aspects that form part of the paper may be arguable, since Turton is a social scientist, but it is difficult to doubt the main findings on which his conclusions are based. Even in the worst case of research oversight, which this report is not, it is inconceivable that a paper produced by a researcher of Turton's international standing should be suppressed.

The paper should have been delivered, debated by supporters and detractors and the consequences widely distributed. The fact that Turton is being vilified for doing his job and setting an example to scientists everywhere disgraces the CSIR.

Suppressing uncomfortable facts about SA's prospects is an appalling thing to do. If SA is to have any future at all, that has to change. Yesterday, the CSIR was disinclined to explain Turton's suspension.

We hope it is reversed, and that he is encouraged to give his paper. A cardinal sin, apparently, was for Turton to speak to the media. What? Are there any adults running the CSIR?

We lied to ourselves throughout the Mbeki years. Let's stop, and embrace the truth, especially when we disagree.

source: http://www.bday.co.za/


NOTE: Click THE TITLE ABOVE to sign the petition against Dr Turton's suspension