Water, Sewage & Effluent March April 2019 | Page 27

innovations
As part of the City of Cape Town’s groundwater exploration, it was discovered that Prince
Albert, situated in the Cape Fold Belt, has major faults that are expected to continue
below ground. Considering accessibility for the drilling rig, several drilling sites could
be proposed.
wastewater reuse, and the notion of
a sponge city, which captures and
manages its stormwater. Singapore is a
leader in all these fields. We also talked
about the importance of (and limits to)
obvious measures like promoting water
conservation, reducing system losses,
and technical innovations like low-flush
— or even no-flush — toilets.
The Australians acknowledged that
desalination was hugely expensive.
But, although their plants are mostly not
being used and expensive to maintain,
the plants are there if needed in future
droughts. The colleague from Spain told
us that Barcelona’s crisis — which had
seen water imported by ship to stop the
city running dry — was largely political
but they, too, had desalination plants —
just in case.
In Brazil, politics also had delayed the
expansion of Sao Paulo’s water supply.
Now that it was resolved, the main
challenge was to reduce the pollution
that was making it difficult to use the
water they had. Most relevant perhaps
to Cape Town’s recent crisis was the
experience of Southern California,
basically a desert with lots of people,
where underground water is being
used to provide water security. They
have long reused their wastewater
— and want people to keep flushing
their toilets so that the quantity and
the quality of the waste is reasonably
constant.
As we talked, it became clear that a
key to future water security for Cape
Town’s citizens lies under their feet.
One of the more important lessons
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