Africa Water, Sanitation & Hygiene Africa Water & Sanitation & Hygiene August 2018 | Page 6

NEWS in brief
Around Africa
“We believe it is worthy of a deeper look. It is not a short-
term silver bullet that can solve the drought, but it can fit
in as an option for Cape Town’s long-term supply,” he said.
Von Holdt, from Aurecon’s asset management, is one of
several volunteers from a variety of disciplines who formed
the Southern Ice Forum to help work on a plan to tow
icebergs to drought-stricken Cape Town.
Katutura Hospital
that serve the hospital, and that this may have contributed
to the disruption in water supply .
“There seems to have been a loss of water experienced
when the new pump was installed, and this resulted in the
hospital not having water,” he said.
He added that a maintenance team was on its way to the
hospital to attend to the matter.
South Africa
Iceberg Water Could Be Cheaper Than Desalination
Icebergs can supply Cape Town with extra water in drought
years at a far cheaper rate than a big desalination plant.
It will cost R3.8bn to use Antarctic iceberg water to bolster
Cape Town’s water supply for any three dry years that are
likely to occur over the next 20 years - compared to R10.2bn
for the same amount of water from a large-scale desalination
plant for the same period.
This would be the cost for each source to produce 100
million litres of fresh water a day for any three dry years
over the next 20 years.
These facts emerged from a seminar at UCT on Wednesday
given by engineer Dr Chris von Holdt, who did a technical
assessment and economic evaluation of the iceberg
proposal.
He says towing icebergs to Cape Town for extra fresh water
during droughts is more viable than he had expected.
6
Africa Water, Sanitation & Hygiene • August 2018
Speaking at UCT’s Geological Sciences Seminar, Von Holdt
said the idea of towing icebergs to South Africa had first
been suggested by the former Department of Water Affairs
in the 1990s. However, it was not pursued as there had been
other conventional options for increasing water supplies in
the 90s.
“But now we’ve run out of places to build dams. There are
no more catchments we can dam up. The potential impact
of Cape Town running out of water is devastating.”
Droughts were part of the past and of the future of the city
because rainfall was highly variable. There would be times
when the city would need extra water supplies on a big scale.
“How often will Cape Town need an additional large-scale
water supply? There is a 61% chance that we will need extra