Grahamst own ’s water has been described as unfit for human consumption. Sound familiar? In fact, this is not a recent pronouncement about our current water situation.
It is a description dating back to the early days of Grahamstown’s existence, according to the speakers at a public lecture on the history of the city’s local water supply on Thursday night at Rhodes University.
Grahamst own ’s water has been described as unfit for human consumption. Sound familiar? In fact, this is not a recent pronouncement about our current water situation.
It is a description dating back to the early days of Grahamstown’s existence, according to the speakers at a public lecture on the history of the city’s local water supply on Thursday night at Rhodes University.
Organised by Rhodes student organisation Galela Amanzi, together with Rhodes University Environmental Committee and the Kowie Catchment Campaign, the lecture was the first in a series of seminars to be held over the course of the next nine weeks.
The lecture, entitled “Water in Grahamstown – Then and Now – a history of Grahamstown’s water supply from the beginning” was presented by Dr Harri Maki from the University of Tampere in Finland and Lorraine Mullins of the Kowie Catchment Campaign.
They were introduced to an audience of students and local residents by Prof Johannes Haarhoff from the University of Johannesburg, who said water is a national concern.
Dr Maki focussed on the period from early settlement up until 1920. He described the evolution of the city’s water supply from furrows in High Street to the installation of iron pipes and the construction of reservoirs.
These developments were not without their problems however. Like many other towns and cities, both here and around the world, there was an initial resistance by councils to invest in such water supply schemes.
Dr Maki structured his discussion of the history, and the problems that arose, around three main issues: the lack of long-term planning; the poor relationship between the council and the water professionals they employ; and financial constraints.
On the first point, he emphasised that the maintenance of water supply infrastructure was the most important factor to consider but that this was typically regarded as low priority by local councils as this period of history was characterised by short term solutions to issues as they arose.
This was exacerbated by the strained relationship between the councils and the succession of engineers and medical health officers they employed.
This inharmonious relationship and lack of continuity in expertise had a compounding negative impact. Furthermore, developments were inevitably hampered by a lack of finance and a stuttering local economy, which influenced planning decisions.
Often cheaper short term solutions were favoured over more expensive longterm options. Mullins concurred with Dr Maki on these points in his overview of Grahamstown’s water up to the present day.
His presentation covered the further development of the water infrastructure, including the building of dams and the gradual expansion of the catchment area as the local population increased.
In his closing remarks, Prof Michael Whisson pointed out that we have reached our limits of expansion and the best way to increase supply is through harvesting rainwater and recycling waste water.
At the same time, it will be necessary also to reduce demand and this can be achieved in a number of ways, such as the installation of waterless toilets. He described such measures as “inescapable matters of urgency”.
