Another challenge to the environment
is the ongoing practise of ‘trade-
off’ between the developers and
Johannesburg City. Fairall elaborates:
“Urban wetlands have a buffer zone
of 30 metres. Within this space, there
is nothing you can save hydrologically
or environmentally. This land is used
to trade with the developers. It’s not
a statuary limitation, it’s just what the
national, provincial, and municipal
governments agreed on, viz, there must
be a buffer zone between the edge of
the wetlands to the edge of the first
habitation/development,” he says.
It appears that the authorities have
little understanding of the sensitivity
of the wetland environment, randomly
assigning what they see as a safe
distance between a development and
a wetland.
“In an urban environment, it’s
30 metres and in rural areas it’s 50
metres,” Fairall explains. “However,
the moment something is threatened
with extinction, for example our limited
crane population, suddenly the powers
*In Singapore, access to water is
universal, affordable, efficient, and
of high quality. Innovative integrated
water management approaches, such
as the reuse of reclaimed water, the
establishment of protected areas in
urban rainwater catchments, and
the use of estuaries as freshwater
reservoirs have been introduced
along with seawater desalination, to
reduce the country's dependence on
water imported from neighbouring
country, Malaysia. – Wikipedia.
Water Sewage & Effluent September/October 2017
19
Ecological trade-off
that be determined that the cranes
need a 500 metre buffer zone.”
If the authorities were genuinely
aware of the wetland nature, however,
they would also understand that
bullfrogs require a 1 500-metre buffer
zone, at least, but that doesn’t play
out accordingly, while the platanna
requires two kilometres of buffer zone,
which would be unheard of.
It’s not only the authorities that
appear ambivalent about water, but
the public too is guilty. As Fairall
points out, people are seemingly
unaware of (or disinterested in even
understanding) the water cycle, the
part that wetlands play in ecology, or
how they can add to (instead of taking
away from) the environment.
“Regrettably, only when they
realise that everything around them is
dying, will people realise the part they
play in the destruction of wetlands,”
he concludes. u
to importing pumps to bypass the
procurement process. The pumps are
delivered by sea, resulting in a three to
four-month lapse between breakdown
and delivery to the pump station — and
raw sewage pours into the dam during
this time.
implemented six years ago, Fairall
points out. He continues that, owing
to the delay, the future is looking
pretty bleak for water consumers in
the country, and he predicts that we
will “run out of water”, starting in 2018.
Fairall says that there is a profound
lack of management within the
water sector, and it’s not only new
infrastructure that is required, but
also maintenance. “If you use the
vast sewers under Rome and Paris
as examples, these structures are
2 000 years old and still fully functional,
owing to regular maintenance,” he
points out.
In contrast, the top eco estate
at Hartbeespoort Dam, Xanadu, has
serious problems with the wastewater
treatment plant that serves 14 of the
suburbs around Schoemansville. “They
all have pump stations where they
have to pump the effluent uphill to the
Rietvlei wastewater works. While all
pump stations should each have two
pumps, at the height of the present
water problems, in Brits and Malepeng,
not one station was running on two
pumps.” In addition, he says, not one
of the 14 pumps were interchangeable;
they were all varying makes and ages,
defying any type of service etiquette
that determines parts replacement and
so on. Instead, it’s “run until it breaks,”
Fairall comments.
Municipalities are financially broke
and cannot get any form of credit,
he explains, forcing them to resort
Tracks of a Cape clawless otter in the moist
soil of a wetland; an increasingly rare sight.