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    Running out of water

    Cape Town's water crisis is making world headlines, with the so-called "Day Zero" when Cape Town will be out of water, set for May (having been pushed back by a month). If "day XZero" happ[ens, Cape Toiwn will be the first metropolis to run out of water.

    In a nutshell, the water crisis is a combination of a long drought, and political failure on local, regional and national level which failed to plan or account for massive population growth (since the Western Cape is economically more solid and better-run than most regions of SA, Cape Town is an attractive destination for migration within SA).

    Progessively more stringent water restrictions have been in place for the past year or so. The latest water restriction encourages users, by way of tariffs, to use an average of 50 litres per person per day, which includes your washing, flushing toilers etc. For most South Africans that's daily life. But for Capetonians used to Western standards of living, that's a lifestyle change.

    And most have embraced it enthusiastically, some even quite fanatically. I have a friend who has converted a 2 litre Coke bottle into his shower water supply. Most people collect their grey water and use it to water plants or to flush toilets. People compare water bills to see who has used less water (in our household we used an average of 35 litres per person per day before the latest restrictions; since then we've cut down more). There is a lot of anger at the politicians as well as at those who don't safe water, but also a lot of good humour, and a realisation that water is becoming an increasingly precious resource.

    But there is also a growing realisation that the pols are gaslighting us with their Days Zero and lies about dam levels, and blaming the naughty citizens for using water. My prediction is that there will be no Day Zero. Scarce as water is, the politicians are lying to us; and then they'll hike water prices brutally. The consequences of Day Zero would be terrible for the city and for South Africa in general: for investment, for tourism, for the economy. Desalination plants are opening and new sources of water are suddenly being found.

    #2
    And Cape Town is not the only city facing a water crisis. Mexico City is used to it as it is. Melbourne averted a "Day Zero" it too long ago. And according to this article, cities like Istanbul, Beijing, Singapore, Miami, Tokyo and London (!) are among those most likely to run out of water.

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      #3
      I’ve been meaning to ask you about this.

      The situation is unsurprisingly depressing

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        #4
        It is, and it isn't just yet. There's a lot of Spirit of the Blitz attitude as well, which is a great response. Though there have been reports of scuffles at places where one can fill containers with spring water.... If it comes to Day Zero, manual eater supply would need to be handled carefully.

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          #5
          That angle hasn’t been getting much play over here, where the focus has been more on the apocalyptic and rich people cheating (“just like in LA”) or leaving town

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            #6
            Apocalypse makes the story tastier, of course. And, yeah, I think everybody is a bit worried about Day Zero becoming a reality. But Cape Town is too easy going to panic. Those who are leaving, well, that's great news. The rest of his will catch our grey water, forego daily showers, and wear the dirt on our cars as badges of good citizenship (having said that, when it rained for a few hours last month, I took that as an opportunity to wash my car with the rain).

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              #7
              Like Ursus, I've been meaning to ask but didn't want to start the thread. Friends in Cape Town all seem to be treating it much like you, G-Man. It's generating a little bit of blitz spirit and humour.

              I'm slightly worried about how it reflects on the DA, given that they've been running Cape Town for a while - does having a disaster on the DA's hands entrench ANC rule in the rest of SA just a little bit more deeply?

              I've been hearing that farming communities upstream, like in Grabouw, have been releasing water down to Cape Town's dams. It seems more than a little strange that there was always water available, and nobody thought to mention it.

              This does, a bit, remind me of the California drought, where regulations were brought in for trivial stuff - restaurants weren't allowed to serve tables water unless they asked for it - but the farmers were using 80% of the state's water and were allowed to use literally limitless groundwater at zero cost, plus many had massive historical rights to draw huge amounts of water from the Colorado. The focus was always on the domestic urban users, yet the urban areas really weren't the guilty parties in terms of waste, nor the majority of consumption.

              Meanwhile - how long till you get desalination plants on-stream? We have a newish one that now provides 20% of the water for the city. It's a big step forward, but nothing like enough.

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                #8
                Meanwhile, while I was in Mexico City over the weekend, I read up a bit. This is a fascinating long NYT article about what a mess that city's water supply is in, and how problems date back centuries.

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                  #9
                  A fascinating long piece from California Sunday that focuses on water and much else.

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                    #10
                    Originally posted by San Bernardhinault View Post
                    Like Ursus, I've been meaning to ask but didn't want to start the thread. Friends in Cape Town all seem to be treating it much like you, G-Man. It's generating a little bit of blitz spirit and humour.

                    I'm slightly worried about how it reflects on the DA, given that they've been running Cape Town for a while - does having a disaster on the DA's hands entrench ANC rule in the rest of SA just a little bit more deeply?

                    I've been hearing that farming communities upstream, like in Grabouw, have been releasing water down to Cape Town's dams. It seems more than a little strange that there was always water available, and nobody thought to mention it.
                    Yes, farmers in agricultural have private dams; they offered to release it as a one-time offer. The government promptly called for the nationalisation of private dams. I doubt they bothered to find out whether those dams store rainwater or draw from other sources. If the former, good luck; if the latter, nationalise.

                    The first desalination plant is scheduled to operate next month; more are being built.

                    The water crisis will probably cost the DA in Cape Town, where they've been in power fort 12 years, and possibly in Port Elizabeth (which is even worse affected than we are) where they've led a coalition government for over a year. I doubt the ANC will profit much in the Western Cape though: the regional structure there is hopeless and divided, and national government has its share in the crisis.

                    The rest of the country is preoccupied with Zuma's will-he-won't-he leave saga. Other than the water crisis and the DA's slavish devotion to property developers, it has run the Western Cape and Cape Town competently. But the rest of SA will look more to the DA's performance in Johannesburg and Pretoria, which they run in coalitions. Jo'burg is not going awfully well, though also not worse than under the ANC. And, of course, more than water, it'll come down to personality. If voters realise that DA leader Mmusi Maimane is a clueless charlatan, and trust Cyril Ramaphosa to reform the ANC frtom Zma's disastrous reign, then the DA will get a drubbing in 2019; no matter whether Cape Town will have water.

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                      #11
                      Ankara pretty much ran out of water six or so years ago in the summer. Friends told me that the water in the pipes was brown.

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                        #12
                        That's a great read. Mark Arax's book "West of the West" is also great stuff, and this could well belong in it. He seems to have a proper deep understanding of California.

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                          #13
                          That has been in my reading pile for more than a year

                          Will need to move it up
                          Last edited by ursus arctos; 13-02-2018, 12:20.

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                            #14
                            The problem with desalination plants is what to do with the salt once you've got it out. In the middle east they've been dumping it back in the sea, creating salt levels so high that in some areas it's killed off all the marine life. The other problem with these plants is they require huge amounts of energy to keep them going. As for London, you can include the whole of Essex with that as well. The county has the lowest rainfall in the British Isles, yet they're building thousands and thousands of new houses all the time and the water has to come from somewhere. They've plenty of boreholes dug, plus they've extended Abberton reservoir and there is a (small) desalination plant somewhere down near Tilbury, but the demands just keep coming. I often wonder if water could the thing that eventually deflates London and forces people to live and work elsewhere.

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                              #15
                              London at least theoretically has some relatively easy solutions (compared to finding more groundwater/desalination) in that it wastes so much water in the pipes at the moment. Fixing that would add 20% to the water supply.

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                                #16
                                That's not that easy. About 20% leaks is the level where repairing them costs more than you save. I think it's only much lower in places like Germany who had to nearly completely rebuild much of their water infrastructure and then maintained it, like a fucking sensible, farsighted responsible country.

                                In ireland the figure is nearly 50%, it is severely limiting the number of houses we can build, but we don't need water charges oh no....

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                                  #17
                                  Originally posted by Paul S View Post
                                  The problem with desalination plants is what to do with the salt once you've got it out. In the middle east they've been dumping it back in the sea, creating salt levels so high that in some areas it's killed off all the marine life. The other problem with these plants is they require huge amounts of energy to keep them going.
                                  Indeed, desalination seems like a sticking plaster at best given that the energy required for the process actually amplifies the problem that it's supposed to solve.

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                                    #18
                                    Originally posted by The Awesome Berbaslug!!! View Post
                                    That's not that easy. About 20% leaks is the level where repairing them costs more than you save. I think it's only much lower in places like Germany who had to nearly completely rebuild much of their water infrastructure and then maintained it, like a fucking sensible, farsighted responsible country.

                                    In ireland the figure is nearly 50%, it is severely limiting the number of houses we can build, but we don't need water charges oh no....
                                    I'm just talking about bringing it up to the national average. Thames is twice as bad.

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                                      #19
                                      Originally posted by Paul S View Post
                                      The problem with desalination plants is what to do with the salt once you've got it out. In the middle east they've been dumping it back in the sea, creating salt levels so high that in some areas it's killed off all the marine life. The other problem with these plants is they require huge amounts of energy to keep them going.
                                      Well, yes and no.

                                      Getting rid of the salt is a problem for the Gulf States, because they're on the Persian Gulf. A shallow body of water with very low water flow. Off the coast of Cape Town or Southern California, you have a rapid drop off into deeper ocean, and you have strong currents from major oceans running close to the shore, which should flush out the salinity very quickly.

                                      In terms of energy, it's getting less expensive as membrane materials get better. They are beginning to develop (not commercially yet, but looks like it's coming) graphene membranes which will be a single molecule width, making the energy requirements much lower and potentially possible using mostly tides and gravity. But - more importantly - most places that need desalination plants are in locations where solar power is not in particularly short supply, and should be able to generate their own power to run the plants.

                                      In terms of direct costs, and energy costs, water from our local desalination plant runs about the same as bringing water in from Northern California. It's obviously better to have good water from local rainfall in our reservoirs, but that's utterly unreliable.

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                                        #20
                                        Cape Town pushes the so-called "Day Zero" further back, now to June. And it's raining right now. And Jacob Zuma's presidency is nearing its end. Happy days!

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                                          #21
                                          The Super Rugby season kicked off in Cape Town at the weekend. Lots of running onto the field with water bottles, so unless they were filled with vodka and tonic, it looks like the crisis can now be safely forgotten about until it's time to say that something should be done, again.

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                                            #22
                                            It's very possibly water sourced from off-grid supplies (natural springs or imported from regions unaffected by the drought). We have 60 litres of drinking water in containers and bottles in case the worst comes to pass.

                                            Most of Cape Town is acutely aware of the crisis; it dominates the general discourse (that and our fucked-up commuter system) and affects our lives. You can be assured that this crisis is not safely forgotten.

                                            It takes on crazy dimensions. Our local beach-side tavern now serves all drinks in plastic cups to save on washing up water. Great thing wanting to want to save water, but adding to ecological problems by increasing the use of disposable plastic is a bit fucked up, especially in a country where recycling is still not a norm.

                                            Meanwhile new President Cyril Ramaphosa has declared the Western Cape and other drought-hit regions disaster areas, which means that national government will get involved. That'll be fun, since now both the ANC and the DA will want to be the heroes who kept the taps running. I hope it means that there'll be some very close inspection on who has profited from this crisis. As I might have mentioned, I suspect that, besides there being an actual water shortage, there's also a massive scam going on.

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                                              #23
                                              So-called "Day Zero" has been averted. Quite impressively, Capetonians halved their water consumption, so that was a pretty impressive performance by the entitled section of the population (for a quarter of the population who live without water supply in their homes, water shortage is normal way of life). This article explains how the City of Cape Town managed to accomplish what Melbourne and California struggled to do.

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