WATER QUALITY WATER POLLUTION

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WATER QUALITY / WATER POLLUTION

• Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Water
  Affairs and Forestry
• 20 February 2008 Cape Town
• Helgard Muller
• Acting DDG Policy Regulation
• and
• Deborah Mochotlhi
• Chief Director water use

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Do we have a WATER CRISIS as reported in the
SUNDAY TIMES?

• The Sunday Times on 3 February 2008 printed an
  article that painted a very gloomy picture to
  allege that we are facing a water crisis similar
  to that of electricity. Over the past few days
  there have also been several negative news
  stories about problems we are facing in water.
• Minister Hendricks issued an open letter on the
  14th of March 2008 to allay fears and put these
  issues into perspective.

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There are at least 4 distinct areas that are
often confused.

• WATER RESOURCES (Sufficient water supplied from
  our dams)
• WATER SUPPLY (Water board and municipal networks)
• WATER RESOURCE QUALITY (Water in rivers and dams)
• DRINKING WATER QUALITY (water in the taps)

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WATER RESOURCES

• Water has no national network (unlike Eskoms
  national grid) and therefore will always depend
  on regional schemes and be affected by regional
  droughts and floods. There is not a national
  water resource crisis. Most of our regional
  schemes have been planned to cater for normal
  growth and new sources are developed to cater for
  planned growth e.g. Lesotho Highlands for
  Gauteng, Berg river Dam for CT and the De Hoop
  Dam for mining and communities in Limpopo.

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WATER SUPPLY

• (Water board and municipal networks) Again a very
  municipal specific issue varying from metros with
  developed world type of standards of supply and
  rural areas where supply may be less reliable
  from time to time. But in general the fact is
  that additional millions of South Africans have
  got access to basic services. From 59 in 1994 up
  to 86 in 2007. There is not a national water
  supply crisis but there are challenges around
  reliability, bulk services and operation and
  maintenance in some of our towns.

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DO WE HAVE A WATER QUALITY CRISIS?

• DRINKING WATER QUALITY (DWQ) (water in the taps)
• WATER RESOURCE QUALITY (Water in rivers and dams)
• These will now be discussed in more detail

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Overview of current South African DWQ situation

• The larger majority of the South African people
  are supplied with safe drinking water, especially
  those residing in cities and bigger towns. In
  some of the smaller towns the lack of technical
  expertise and inadequate treatment infrastructure
  have resulted in DWQ at times not complying with
  national standards (SANS 241).
• SANS 241 compares favourable with standards in
  the developed world and is better than WHO
  guidelines.

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Overview of current South African DWQ situation

• DWAF monitors and works closely with the
  municipalities that supply the water to
  households to ensure that there is clean drinking
  water. The testing of drinking water quality is
  ongoing and we have in place a countrywide
  electronic monitoring system that produces
  monthly reports on our drinking water quality.
  The information from these reports allows us to
  make rapid interventions before a problem with
  our drinking water / tap water arises.

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Overview of current South African DWQ situation

• Lately more than 50 000 sample analysis (per
  month) taken from 3200 sampling sites across the
  country. For the past 13 months compliance levels
  with Health Aspects of SANS 2412006 have been on
  average 94 (this in spite of a remarkable
  increase in DWQ data being submitted to DWAF.).
• This information derives from the 90 of WSAs
  reporting DWQ info to DWAF via the electronic
  water quality management system. (In 2005 only
  42 of WSAs were monitoring DWQ.)

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South African DWQ monitoring status
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Pro-active DWQ Regulation

• DWQ Monitoring Programmes
• Register Assess Monitoring programmes
• Proactive Assurance of safe drinking water
  supply
• Audit Treatment procedures DWQ Management
  practices
• Ensure the drafting of Water Safety Security
  Plans (start with 2010 FIFA World Cup host
  cities)
• Facilitate the implementation of efficient DWQ
  Management systems
• Communicate DWQ Responsibilities to Authority
  Officials and Councilors

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Responsive DWQ Regulation

• Respond to incidents of unacceptable DWQ
  according to the Enforcement Protocol.
• Ensure plans are set in place to prevent a
  reoccurrence of the failure.
• Ensure effective communication with affected
  communities where failures occurred.
• Generate Intelligence on failures and outbreaks
  to prepare for similar situations in the future.

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POLLUTION AND QUALITY OF THE WATER RESOURCE
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INTRODUCTION

• Some of our rivers are polluted and Minister
  Hendricks identified some of the causes of this
  pollution in her open letter
• The mining industry e.g. from coal mines what
  is referred to as acid mine drainage
• From poor municipal infrastructure which is not
  treating the waste water to the required
  standards before releasing it back into the
  rivers
• As a result of industrial activity
• Some pollution from informal settlements that
  establish themselves alongside rivers
• Diffuse sources such as agriculture.

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WARNING

• Regardless of whether a river or dam is polluted
  or not DWAF has always advised people not to
  drink water from the water sources unless they
  treat it first.
• This is why the Health and Hygiene programs of
  government is so important

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SOURCE CONTROLDECISION-MAKING HIERARCHYWATER
QUALITY AND POLLUTION CONTROL

• Pollution prevention
• Minimize pollution
• recycling and re-use treatment encourage
  cleaner production technologies encourage good
  housekeeping
• Disposal or discharge of waste water
• only under specified conditions precautionary
  approach differentiated approach polluter pays

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WATER USE REGULATORY (LEGAL) MECHANISMS

• Source directed measures
• Regulations
• General authorisations
• Licensing (differentiation according to risk of
  activity)
• Integrated water, waste water and waste
  management plans for individual sector water use
  activities
• Resource directed measures RQOs
• Protocols, agreements with other government
  departments and spheres

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WASTE DISCHARGE CHARGE SYSTEM (WDCS)

• Water use charges ... may be used to ensure
  compliance with prescribed standards and water
  management practices according to the user pays
  and polluter pays principles.
• The WDCS endeavours to shift some of the cost
  back to dischargers according to the polluter
  pays principle.

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WDCS (cont)

• Incentive charge
• Aim to reduce waste load at source
• This is not full cost recovery for service
  provided but environmental tax
• Generates surplus revenue.
• Mitigation charge
• User charge to recover the costs of mitigation
  measures deployed in the resource
• Categories of Mitigation Charge
• Mitigation through removal of load from the
  resource,
• Water resource system operation for the dilution
  of poor quality water
• Mitigation for treatment costs downstream

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WDCS (cont)

• Way forward
• DWAF ready to move to the next phase of the WDCS,
  the implementation of the system in three
  priority catchments the Upper Olifants, the
  Crocodile/Marico and the Upper Vaal
• Full implementation of the WDCS in these three
  pilot catchments will commence in the financial
  year 2009/10.
• A parallel process identifying other priority
  catchments for the WDCS is underway - the system
  will be implemented in other priority catchments
  following piloting.

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Current WQ Regulatory actions

• The Department has initiated regulatory
  investigations at 34 Waste Water Treatment
  facilities and 19 Water Treatment facilities
  across the country where non-compliance have been
  detected/suspected.
• Rectifications to be facilitated according to the
  Enforcement Protocol.

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Enforcement ExampleMogale City

• The Percy Steward Waste Water Treatment Works
  failed to discharge effluent of acceptable
  quality. (This works received recognition from
  WISA in 2005 and 2006 for excellent operations).
• The Departments Regulatory Unit intervened in
  November 2007 (Municipality failed to rectify
  after 2 DWAF notifications.)
• In spite of Municipal officials initially not
  being cooperative Municipal Management has shown
  good leadership and cooperation.
• Funds was availed by the Municipality for the
  rectification which is underway. Short term
  issues as been identified by DWAF is being
  addressed a medium and long term plan will be
  submitted to DWAF
• This is an example which proves that through
  constructive regulatory intervention we can avert
  a crisis and ensure compliance.

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• Thank you