Environmentalists bugger it up again!

I wonder if members of the 'anti-dam lobby' mentioned in the article below could stand up and let themselves be known. They've buggered things up pretty well for Cape Town for six years to come, it seems.

' 'We needed to build more dams a decade ago' Willem Steenkamp January 01 2005 at 02:19PM

Delaying tactics by an anti-dam pressure group more than 10 years ago hindered the construction of urgently needed dams in the Western Cape, partly causing the current desperate shortage of water.

As new draconian water restrictions come into effect in Cape Town on Saturday and desperate water-saving measures are being put in place across the province, officials say this is the worst drought to hit the area in a century.

But had the construction of the giant Skuifraam dam on the Berg River near Franschhoek gone ahead as scheduled in the 1990s, Cape Town would have been getting the first water from the dam right now. Construction of the dam has begun, but it will be five or six years before it supplements the water supply.

More than 10 years ago the City of Cape Town and the department of water affairs identified the urgent need for dams to meet the growing water demand of the expanding city. Several sites were identified.

'There was definitely a lack of political will' But a group of people dubbed the 'anti-dam lobby' put huge pressure on the department of water affairs to prevent the building of a dam on the Palmiet River in the Kogelberg. The Palmiet dam was canned and the area was subsequently declared a world biosphere because of the rich fynbos unique to the area.

After succeeding in preventing the construction of that dam, the lobby then also tried to stop the building of the Skuifraam dam. Here their concerns centred on the ecological impact of such a huge dam on the lower Berg River that supplies water to many farms and is also home to a wide range of bird and plant species.

However, despite objections from the group of environmentalists, then water affairs minister Kader Asmal finally approved the construction of the Berg River dam in the latter part of the 1990s.

But when Ronnie Kasrils replaced Asmal as the new water affairs minister, the anti-dam lobby saw this as a second chance to stop the dam. They pressured Kasrils to prevent the construction of the dam, raising all sorts of environmental concerns on the impact on the lower Berg River.

Their objections largely succeeded in delaying the construction date by several years while a comprehensive environmental impact study was done. Senior city water experts said there had also been a severe lack of commitment by the city fathers to move ahead with the project.

'We can only hope that we have good rains this year' 'There was definitely a lack of political will. Spending money on poor areas took preference and the city itself must carry much of the blame for the slow pace of getting the Berg River project off the ground. For several years, despite warning from water experts, the city fathers dragged their feet, they did just about nothing,' said one source.

Acting regional director of water affairs Gerrit van Zyl admitted that objections had delayed the construction of the dam. Adding to this, he said, the Western Cape was in the grip of one of the worst droughts in 100 years.

'No one could have foreseen that the drought and low rainfall of 2003 would be followed up by another very dry year in 2004.

'We can only hope that we have good rains this year otherwise we will be in dire straits.'

Van Zyl said the department of water affairs was evaluating several other water sources in the Western Cape, and was also keeping a keen eye on desalinisation projects where fresh water is extracted from sea water.

'At the moment it is a costly option. While several mining towns on the West Coast are already using this technology, it remains a very expensive option for bulk water supply.'

Municipalities such as Port Elizabeth and Plettenberg Bay are also running pilot desalinisation projects.

'The City of Cape Town also looked at the technology, but does not have money for further studies as financial assistance in the poor communities is a priority.

'However, we believe somewhere in the future one would have to look at this technology again. At the moment it is simply too costly because of the high energy requirements to make fresh water from seawater, but things could change.'

'Peter H.M. Brooks' < This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it > wrote in message

Oh you Capetonians do bellyache so! What you should've done years ago is follow Durban, and set up a plant to remove the piss and shit from your sewage so you can drink the water. They don't drink it in Durban, but it's apparently perfectly potable. In Windhoek (another place - like Cape Town - which simply can't realistically sustain a prolifligate use of water).

Cape Town plus splashing fountains, sprinklers on the lawn all day, etc. is simply an impossibility. You guys need to get used to accepting your city as it is. Somewhere along the line the water's going to get scarce, no matter how many plant species you drown out to put off the inevitable for a while.

You surely know that the fynbos is a complete floral Kingdom? And that the Cape is the home of the greatest variety of tortoise species on earth? Whether or not you think that that natural heritage is worth anything (and whether or not you can reconcile the notion that it's not worth shit with the notion that it's worth preserving a cultural practice whereby a bunch of humans dress up in Victorian clothing to go and watch some woman shriek hideously on a stage for what seems like hours) there are a growing number of people who think it's civilized to show at least a little bit of respect for the natural world. Ergo, there are likely to be a growing rather than a shrinking number of anti-dam lobbyists. So I'd say the prospects of you guys being able to put off your inevitable meeting with water scarcity and the need for conservation measures are pretty remote. And if that's the reality, then it don't help to whine. Far better to look the facts square in the face and get used to living with them.

I agree that that is another good solution - London has been recycling its sewage for aeons. It's part of the great togetherness you feel there, to know, when on the tube that you've had such intimate contact with everybody you see. > Nuclear power is another good, and cheap, option for desalination - at the moment waste water from Koeberg just goes back into the sea, this is a great waste, another couple of nuclear power stations should sort the matter out completely without any dams to speak of. > Yes, I am aware of that. With the dam being built five years ago, or in six years time, the situation vis a vis these questions would alter not one iota. This has now been convincinly demonstrated by experts in the field. > I agree that it doesn't help to whine. The only reason for conserving anything on the planet is that we find it useful for some reason - the environmentalists find that it salves their conscience and helps feed their self-righteousness to whinge about dams. In this particular case they are proven wrong, and dangerous and economically disruptive.

We are getting used to living with them - it is irritating that a bunch of bunnygrub noshing space-cadets have been smug about cocking it up for everybody instead of having been given their marching orders as time-wasting pains in the arse ten years ago.

There we are, though, I am aware that Cape Town does attract more than its fair share of bunnygrub noshing space-cadets - nice places seem to, there was a surfeit of the tribe in Bristol and too many in Melbourne and Sydney as well.

You Gautengies and other Northerners are lucky that the hey-wow aren't so attracted to that part of the world.

Agreed. You screw up the fynbos and the rest of us are going to come over there, kick you in the balls, and toss you off Cape Point. Do you have a clue what a world wonder the flora of Cape Town is? Any flower shop anywhere in the world...90% is indigenous. Don't you dare screw up paradise!

WTF? You mean you don't already recycle your water? Idiots. God already distills your piss and returns it back to you in the form of rain. Its simple engineering to clean up shit and piss and make it drinkworthy.

Aside: IMHO, the world's most sicko city is Phoenix. You fly in over the mountains, across the desert and land in the world's biggest...golf course. Every inch of the city continually over-watered, and all the water canaled in from hundreds of miles away. I love golf, but the city is just the wrong thing in the wrong place.

The test for dams has always been who benefits and who pays.The flooded people usually lose.If you object to having your land flooded they call you an environmenalist.If you get the benefit and someone else pays then the social and environmental arguements go out the window. . Get real please .It is fine to object to a dam if after a cost benefit analysis and an environmental impact assessment it is found that a dam should not be built.

Now there's something I can't understand these greenies getting so het up about. Cleanest, most enviromentally friendly source of real power available (if you consider that a hydro-electric plant involves a destructive dam), and they fight it furiously. I suspect it's because the average activist thinks that a nuclear power station is a bomb, and refuses to be dissuaded of this irrational fear.

'Only' is a big word. Is our convenience demonstrably and incontrovertibly all that matters in this world, and all that should matter to us? Isn't this a question of values? There's no final arbiter in the matter of what should matter. It really depends quite arbitrarily on what we choose to value. And I suppose what we value then has 'usefulness'. Or utility.

Precisely my point. Things are considered 'worth conserving' only if they fit into the values de jour. That's what I meant by 'useful for some reason' - to me conserving the lawn and plants in my garden is important, I'm all for the fynbos being preserved too, I'm quite keen on Proteas though the general scrub doesn't excite me much. These are just my views though - I'd rather people who knew much more than me about these things worked it out and said, as they did ten years ago, a dam is needed here, it's tough shit for some fynbos that lives here, but the general fynbos ecosystem will be fine. Then they should have build the dam. Letting a bunch of know-nothing bunnygrub noshers hold it up for ten years was feeble.

Jeremy Bentham had a very sensible view of utility - it ought to be taught at school, particularly to potential space-cadets.

You always neglect who benefits and who pays. Since you think that your values are more important than the ones who pay then the ones that pay are of no consequence. People who oppose are not greenies. There is no such thing. Bunnygrup noshers is really a stupid thing to call someone who you disagree with.You are an environmentalist unless you live on another planet.Learn all the issues on both sides of an issue and you will find that environmental issues are very complex and if you are honest you will find yourself changing your mind with each new piece of evidence until you have as many facts at your disposal so that you can make an informed decision.Then you will find when you announce your decision that people call you greenies,bunnygrub noshers,capitalists,nazis,communists,conservatives and all the other things that shows that their knowledge extends to name calling only.