Dr. Anthony Turton was prevented from presenting a keynote address on the quality and delivery challenges of water in the Southern African region at a conference in Pretoria last week. Not only was Dr. Turton prevented from delivering his report, he was also suspended from the CSIR for….
“certain statements – which could not be sufficiently substantiated”.
Dr.Turton’s report had been circulated within the CSIR for two months before the presentation and no-one brought up the issue of “certain statements not being sufficiently substantiated”.
Water is an extremely scarce and limited resource in South Africa, our mean annual precipitation is 497 mm/year and most of it falls in a relatively small area on the eastern side of the country. Another challenge is that most of the major cities in the Southern African region are located on watershed divides and not on rivers; this means that a vast and expensive infrastructure is needed to deliver fresh water to these cities for daily human and industrial consumption. It also means that there is a huge amount of effluent that flows out of these cities. If the infrastructure is not maintained and extended, then we start having problems where effluent is allowed to seep into river systems and precious groundwater supplies. It is vital that water is strictly controlled and that the infrastructure to deliver water is regularly maintained and expanded to meet the needs of a growing population. One of the most important challanges is controlling the amount and type of pollutants entering our water systems. The water we drink has been treated at a purification plant, however, according to Dr. Turton’s report we have now lost our “dilution capacity”. This means that water now has to be treated to ever higher standards of purification before being discharged back into communal waters or being depositied into landfills; which in turn means increasing the use chemicals.
This is the basis of Dr. Turton’s report. He is critical of the way that government is currently dealing with the situation and urges that they…
“must either accept that the development targets of the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for SA are unattainable, or must launch a radical rethink of how to mobilise SA’s science, engineering and technological capacity.”
He is also critical of the the effect affirmative action has had on the science, engineering and technology sector; particularly in water management. Instead of retaining highly skilled engineers and allowing them to pass on skills, most were retrenched or forced into early retirement - much to the detriment of the country. What government failed to understand in their eagerness to replace highly skilled engineers with unskilled people, is that the whole transformation process was meant to improve the lot of impoverished people, not make it worse – and that is exactly what is happening. Poor water management and lack of maintainance leads to a collapse of the infrastructure and the results are much like those we are witnessing on our border with Zimbabwe.
Dr. Turton goes on to propose some possible solutions to the challenges South Africa is facing with regard to our water management and warns that the country is
“heading for an unmitigated disaster way worse than the Eskom electricity crisis”
The fact that Dr. Turton was prevented from speaking and Water Affairs and Forestry Minister Lindiwe Hendricks’ vehement denials in parliament make me wonder what it is that government is trying to hide.
Read Dr. Turton’s report here
A statement about the suspension of Dr. Turton has been released by the CSIR and can be read here.
Filed under: Education, Politics, science | Tagged: CSIR, Dr.Anthony Turton, Engineering, Environment, Pollution, science, South Africa, Technology, Water, Zimbabwe
