Latest news with #PlatformforaWaterSecureGauteng
Daily Maverick
10-07-2025
- Business
- Daily Maverick
Gauteng water pipeline catastrophic collapse – vandalism or sabotage?
The water supply system sustaining the Gauteng economy is complex and vast. Pipelines are big and cover long distances as water is pumped uphill from the Rand Water processing plant adjacent to the Vaal River. Pumps are big, and in need of constant maintenance and upgrading, but more importantly the pressures involved are high enough to be lethal if a pipe should fail. Even more importantly, the servitudes that carry this infrastructure need to be kept clear of habitation, so the encroachment of informal settlements erodes the reliability of the system, while also exposing residents to potentially lethal risk. Why is this of importance to the public? The answer is simple. If pipelines fail, people are directly affected, with a range of outcomes, all of which are undesirable. The worst possible outcome is the potential loss of life or property, but the most likely outcome is disruption to the water supply for all users serviced by any given pipeline. If a single pipeline fails, tens of thousands of people are inconvenienced, businesses are distressed and hospital services are degraded. All of this makes people angry. We see lots of anger right now, so let us drill down into the national security implications arising from this growing anger. Scheduled upgrades First, let me describe the context. Rand Water has been engaged in a series of complex infrastructure upgrades over the past few months. These have generally been well communicated across different platforms, including the Platform for a Water Secure Gauteng that I have been reporting on. Each of these upgrades has required some disruption to the supply chain, so communication has been designed to minimise that disruption. More importantly, each specific upgrade has been carefully planned and, in all cases, flawlessly executed within the projected timeframe, often ahead of schedule. One of these scheduled upgrades involved maintenance at the Zwartkopjes Booster Pumping Station between 30 June and 2 July 2025. This needed the C11 pipeline to be drained of all water. After the scheduled work was completed, the system was repressurised, and catastrophic failure occurred in the vicinity of Swartkoppies Road and Mall of the South when two air-relief valves blew out on Friday, 4 July. These relief valves are needed to bleed air from the system because water hammer damages the pipes and associated infrastructure. The resultant plume of water was visible a kilometre away, so the C11 pipeline was shut down, disrupting supply to Forest Hill, Berea Reservoir, Parktown 2 Reservoir, Hector Norris Pump Station, Crown Gardens, Oakdene, Glenvista, Glenanda and the Johannesburg inner city. Repairs were affected and the system was returned to service on Saturday, 5 July. This is where it gets interesting, because during the inspection that preceded the repair, it was noted that two air-relief valves had been vandalised when the system was offline for the Zwartkopjes Booster Pump maintenance. With my own professional knowledge of water as a national security risk, my immediate reaction is to ask whether this incident was the result of simple vandalism, or possibly part of deliberate sabotage? The answer to this question is extremely important, given the severe implications for disruption of water supply. I will therefore try to answer this question given the information available to me at the time of writing. The first point I must stress is that, according to a Rand Water press statement on 5 July, it was clearly stated that these pipelines pass through informal settlements and 'these areas are notorious for vandalising Rand Water infrastructure'. However, when I reached out to Rand Water for comment, I asked whether this incident was part of an observed pattern. I was informed that beyond the normal vandalism, this incident stands out as being different by virtue of the magnitude of the impact. The police are involved in an investigation, so we must not pre-empt their findings. Shades of 2021 Which brings me to the second point I wish to make. During July 2021, there was widespread social unrest that started in KwaZulu-Natal, but rapidly spread to Gauteng. This was characterised by extensive looting and a disruption of the supply chain at national level, but linked to political dynamics around Jacob Zuma. More importantly, however, was the fact that preceding the July looting, I had observed several incidents in the KZN South Coastal area which suggested to me that these were not just random acts of spontaneous looting, but rather suggestive of a coordinated set of actions with the intention of destabilising the area. For example, I noted a series of so-called vandalism incidents that just happened to destroy water supply in the Ugu District Municipality area. It was the selection of those critical pieces of infrastructure that suggested to me that a deliberate strategy might be playing out. From my observation, I noted that, with minimal effort, the destruction of critical components like valves brought about a disproportionally large impact. It was the asymmetry between effort and impact that suggested to me that the so-called vandalism might be part of a larger strategy. This is exactly what the C11 blowout is about, but on a larger scale. Then, separately from the 'vandalism' of the water supply was the so-called spontaneous mobilisation of different groups of 'protesters' who randomly converged on critical parts of the road infrastructure that 'just happened' to result in residents of KZN being unable to leave their homes for travel. At that time, people visiting the complex I lived in near Port Shepstone were unable to get to the airport for business meetings in Johannesburg. Other tell-tale signs caused me to conclude that something was amiss, so I put out a post on social media. My post happened just before the looters' war erupted and, as a result, I was contracted by commercial interests to assess whether the incident was criminal or politically motivated. The answer to that question would drive insurance claims to either Sasria or commercial insurance companies. The numbers were staggering. The stakes were exceptionally high. Which brings me back to the current incident. If the C11 blowout on 4 July was simply vandalism, then an appropriate response is for Rand Water to perform a risk assessment to identify vulnerable points in their system and upgrade security at those key points. Public education would be helpful. However, if the C11 blowout was sabotage, then it is likely to be a precursor of something of a greater national security threat – but it could also be related to the Tanker Mafia chasing tenders. This is why the police investigation is so important. I truly hope that it includes the preservation of forensic evidence that might speak to the deliberate targeting of vulnerable equipment on water supply networks as part of an asymmetrical power struggle. I truly hope that I am not seeing a bogeyman that doesn't really exist. DM
Daily Maverick
18-06-2025
- Business
- Daily Maverick
Avoiding Day Zero in Gauteng — a comparison with Cape Town's success story
The phrase 'Day Zero' has come to mean that precise moment when a city's water supply is predicted to be depleted, leaving taps dry and local economies in crisis. It entered the global lexicon in 2018 when the City of Cape Town was confronted with an acute water crisis. The actual Day Zero was estimated to be in April that year, with three different dates, depending on the models being used. With a population of more than four million people requiring water, the city's executives were forced to implement strict water reductions on the public and corporations in the city. With these severe water restrictions, the city was able to replenish its water resources and it announced that 'Day Zero' had been averted. That single event captured the attention of the global media, which ran stories in many countries. It has now triggered the XPRIZE after the Mohamed bin Zayed Water Initiative offered a $119-million cash incentive to radically alter the future role of desalination technology solutions. Cape Town managed to avert its Day Zero crisis through an aggressive review and application of innovative policy, supported by intensive communication designed to build consensus, retain social cohesion in times of crisis and change human behaviour. But trust in the government was eroded and is unfortunately still in deficit, as is manifested by the festering issue of sewage discharge into aquatic ecosystems. Analysis of this strategy has shown that water security requires a mix of solutions, with no single silver bullet being viable. A water secure Gauteng These lessons have been fed into the Platform for a Water Secure Gauteng (PWSG), which has been created to avoid Day Zero in the heart of the South African economy. A lot of the energy that fuelled the Day Zero narrative was hype, and the one lesson that I have learnt from three decades in the international water sector is the role of nuance in every water-related problem. In short, things are always different in various geographic locations, so I have become sceptical of simple silver-bullet solutions, often touted by over-enthusiastic solution-providers that seldom understand the complexity of the problem being managed. It therefore becomes instructive to compare the differences and similarities between Cape Town's and Gauteng's Day Zero narratives. Facts are our friends, so let us embrace a few of the most important ones. For starters, both the Western Cape and Gauteng regions are supported by a complex arrangement of institutions, dams, pumps and pipelines, so that is a good point of departure. The Western Cape Water Supply System (WCWSS) stores 890 MCM (million cubic metres), which is two years of average water supply needed for the city of Cape Town and the local economy. There are several dams, including Theewaterskloof, Voëlvlei, Berg River, Wemmershoek, Rockview, Kogelberg and Steenbras Upper and Lower, some of which are interconnected by pipelines, tunnels and distribution networks. The rainfall is naturally a winter event, so storage is needed for the long summer months. Water is cascaded into this system through a series of inter-basin transfers from an adjacent water management area. Now let us compare this with the Integrated Vaal River System that sustains 45% of the South African population and 60% of the national economy. There are a total of 14 major dams, with the most important shown in the diagram, which also indicates the depth of each and the degree of interconnectedness across the whole system. It is managed as a single entity and it has a total storage capacity of 10,554 MCM (million cubic metres), which is about six years of average supply under non-drought conditions. Water is sourced from many different river basins, including the Tugela in KZN and the Malibamat'so in Lesotho. This water is diverted over the Drakensberg Mountains into the Sterkfontein Dam in the case of the Tugela. The energy needed to pump these massive volumes uphill is taken from the Eskom grid as part of a pumped storage scheme needed to put electricity back into the grid during peak energy demand. This problem is solved in the transfer of water from the Katse Dam in Lesotho, where the Muela power plant generates electricity using the constant natural flow of the system. When comparing the two systems, achieving water security in Gauteng is significantly more complex than in Cape Town. This highlights the challenge faced by the respective water boards in each case. Rand Water is one of the largest bulk water suppliers in the world, responsible for guaranteeing water security for almost half the population and two-thirds of the national economy. The challenge in Cape Town is defined by the limited strategic storage of two years. Cape Town is on the coast, so sea water desalination at utility scale (bigger than 50 megalitres per day capacity) is the obvious long-term solution, along with the recovery of water from waste. Both options are part of its strategic plan to achieve water security, with the latter being implemented in a groundwater recharge programme, like the city of Perth. The challenge is restoring public trust and investor confidence damaged by the Day Zero crisis in 2018, but exacerbated by the city's response to public concerns over sewage discharges into aquatic systems such as Milnerton Lagoon. Gauteng's complex challenge The challenge in Gauteng is different and more complex, so Rand Water will be confronted by demands on its decision-making capacity on an unprecedented scale. I have previously written about the sewage challenge (see Understanding the sewage challenge facing Gauteng's water supply), suggesting that Rand Water might have to start considering the recovery of water from waste to achieve two outcomes – mitigate the risk of sewage pollution of the Vaal and augmentation of supply to industrial users that might not need potable water for their processes. Gauteng will also be forced to consider the desalination of acid mine water, and this is where their challenge differs from Cape Town. About 200 megalitres of water can be recovered from acid mine drainage, but the Capex cost will be in the vicinity of R15-billion, with an annual Opex cost of around R2.5-billion. Those are big numbers for a relatively small increase in supply. Furthermore, the disposal of brine is not possible on the Highveld as there is no sea into which it can be discharged. For this reason, desalination is likely to remain non-viable for Rand Water. The good news is that the salinity levels of acid mine water being discharged into rivers is slowly declining, which adds value to the decision not to desalinate. The important take-home message is that maintaining water security in Gauteng will place growing demands on Rand Water in a manner unparalleled by any other water board in South Africa. Its institutional architecture will have to adapt to new business models capable of responding to a set of challenges that will increasingly differ from what it has faced in the past century of its existence. The institutional health of Rand Water will be of increasing importance, so it is in our collective best interest to support it in any way possible. DM
Daily Maverick
27-05-2025
- Politics
- Daily Maverick
Water insecurity means Gauteng has reached the limit of its sustainable development
Those of you who read my articles will know I often speak of the lucrative nature of applying inappropriate solutions to misdiagnosed problems in the South African water sector. It is therefore refreshing to be able to report on genuine progress being made to rectify this situation. In June 2024, a structure known as the Platform for a Water Secure Gauteng (PWSG) was launched by the Director General of the Department of Water and Sanitation. Readers will know I am strongly supportive of this initiative because it represents a coherent strategy to avoid the ravages of a Day Zero scenario in Gauteng, so it represents an example of self-correction at work. The initiative brings together all the key stakeholders from all three tiers of government – national, provincial and municipal – in support of a common objective. I have been given a privileged position of insight into this process since its inception. More importantly, I have never been pressured or persuaded to write with a particular slant on the inner proceedings. I am grateful to the organisers for granting me this privilege, for it has enabled me to assess the decision-making processes and policy formulation with total independence. This is why I am now able to give an optimistic report back to the public. What I see unfolding before my eyes is a genuine attempt to accurately diagnose the problem. This means that certain uncomfortable truths are being laid bare for the first time. What follows is a summary from a Draft Discussion Paper that has been circulated among all PWSG participants to focus on the policymaking going forward. Stated differently, we are starting to see the green shoots of appropriate solutions being applied to accurately defined problems for the first time in decades. This is laudable and so I endorse the process. This Draft Discussion Paper frames the challenge as being chronic shortages of water in some places, and an increasingly widespread series of supply disruptions, unplanned outages and intermittent supply. In addition to this, the Draft Discussion Paper identifies increasingly 'visible leaks and losses from the (municipal) supply network', a problem made worse by 'slow response times and repairs that often require repeat visits to resolve successfully'. It is also noted that 'institutional weaknesses at municipal level have contributed significantly to this deterioration in services'. All of this is music to my professional ears because, for the first time, we are seeing an attempt at doing a root cause analysis. I have beaten the root cause analysis drum long and hard, because if we don't know what's causing systems to fail, how can we really fix them? I am naturally impressed when I see change taking place in the right direction. More importantly, we can now get to the nitty gritty of the contents of the Draft Discussion Paper. To accurately report on this, I will not paraphrase, deeming this significant enough to quote verbatim: 'These problems have been compounded by long delays in the nationally-led Lesotho Highlands Water Project Phase 2 (LHWP2) to increase bulk water supplies from the Integrated Vaal River System (IVRS) on which the region depends. 'At present, Rand Water, the bulk water provider to Gauteng, is taking more water than can safely and sustainably be supplied from the IVRS in the long term (1,600 million cubic metres per annum – MCM/yr), which is the long-term sustainable abstraction limit. 'Due to good rainfalls in recent years, DWS has given Rand Water a temporary licence to abstract 1,870 MCM/yr, which is renewed annually, depending on the status of the IVRS. If conditions in the IVRS deteriorate, DWS will have to revert to the long-term abstraction limit to avoid the risk of major water shortages should there be a multi-year drought.' Now it gets to the crunch, because 'even when LHWP2 is completed in 2029, Rand Water will only be able to increase its abstraction by a limited amount, given that it is already over-abstracting in terms of the sustainable long-term abstraction limit'. So, in essence, Gauteng has reached the limit of its sustainable development, and this is a very big deal indeed. Let us unpack some of these implications as part of the broader national dialogue. Water — investment enabler The first implication is that water insecurity is now constraining investment. It is refreshing to see reference being made to this specific issue, because when we created the SA Business Water Chamber to support the Public Private Growth Initiative (PPGI) launched in 2019, this was our concern. In a Presidential brief titled ' Public-Private Growth Initiative Believe High-Growth South Africa is Within Reach ' dated 29 January 2019, it was stated that 'the PPGI believes growth of 5% and more is possible, provided certain enablers for the economy are realised, and key inhibitors are eliminated'. At that time, water was simply not part of the thinking, so Benoit le Roy, Fred Platt and I engaged with the Presidency with one core message – water is an economic enabler – saying that if it is ignored by the PPGI, then the initiative will fail. It was ignored and the PPGI failed. So, we now see progress being made, because the Draft Discussion Paper acknowledges what we believed to be a self-evident truth, six lost years ago. The second implication is that water insecurity is impacting negatively on employment opportunities and therefore, economic growth in general. This is a welcome admission in the Draft Discussion Paper because it is the direct outcome of ignoring the fact that water is an economic enabler in the first place. We now have the first linkage at policy level between water security, employment and investor confidence. This is a significant breakthrough, in my professional opinion. The third implication clearly stated in the Draft Discussion Paper is that the quality of life for the residents of Gauteng will continue to deteriorate unless appropriate intervention occurs. In other words, what we have right now is as good as it's ever going to be, and if we collectively want to experience a better quality of life, then we must commit to a 10% reduction in water consumption per capita in Gauteng. Every proverbial cloud has a silver lining, and this is certainly true for this single policy objective, because the strategy recognises the central role that leakages and losses (known as unaccounted for water) play in the desired objective of sustainability. Finally, the comforting bit is that Rand Water is firmly recognised as a key player in the PWSG. It has a robust balance sheet, despite the generally negative public perception around state-owned enterprises. It also has the technical capacity to assist with institutional strengthening within municipalities where required. After all, it is municipalities alone that have the sole mandate to deliver water services to residents within their geographic footprint. Good news is a rare commodity, which is why it is so refreshing to find hard evidence that sincere attempts are being made to perform a root-cause analysis with the sole objective of developing appropriate solutions to accurately diagnosed problems. It is also comforting to the founders of the SA Business Water Chamber that water is indeed an economic enabler. Had the PPGI recognised this simple fact, then economic growth of 5% might have been achievable after all.
