Almost a month after the launch of the Vaal River Anti-Pollution Forum, the Democratic Alliance (DA) in the Northern Cape is appealing to the Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) to provide a timeline for its plans to address long-standing pollution, including holding river polluters accountable. This is in addition to our previous request to DWS, for the Orange River to be included in the forum.
Our latest call comes after an oversight inspection to the confluence of the Vaal and the Orange River in Douglas, as part of our “Save our Rivers” tour. Following inspections to Warrenton and Douglas, where the Vaal River was visibly polluted, it was refreshing to observe a relatively clean and unaffected stretch of water. This also underscored the urgency with which our river system must be fixed and protected, before more of it becomes contaminated.
The Northern Cape is a ticking time bomb. Already, there are concerns about sewage contamination of the Orange River downstream in the Renosterberg and Thembelihle area, and upstream in Dawid Kruiper and !Kai !Garib, which I will be investigating in weeks to come.
The Northern Cape also has the highest percentage of drinking water systems in the country with poor or critical performance, at 87%, in addition to us having the second highest percentage of Waste Water Treatment Works (WWTW) in a critical state. Given that cholera outbreaks are normally associated with wastewater pollution of water resources, it would be negligent to not take this warning seriously.
The DA will follow-up in writing with Deputy Minister, Sello Seitlholo, to establish how far the process is of creating a database with the names of rivers polluters and to amplify our call to urgently put the Orange River on the river’s red list as a precaution now, to avoid an extended Cholera crisis in the future.