The Business Times story published over the weekend placed the issue of safe drinking water on the nation's agenda, and in light of the electricity crisis it's quite right that this receives national attention.

Dead carp in Wonderfontein spruit: pic courtesy Paul Neal (Dream Africa)The Dept of Water Affairs and Forestry calmly assures us that there is no water crisis. But should we believe them based on a government track record of denial or blithe reassurance?

Dept of Safety and Security: Crime? No problem there, just lots of whingeing.
Dept of Health: HIV / Aids? Beetroot, garlic and the african potato to the rescue.
Dept of Minerals and Energy: Electricity? It should all be okay as long as our economic growth stays at 2%?

Reports of 43 percent of DWAF managed dams having safety issues sounds pretty critical to me. Or what do they propose a safe tolerance level is for a water-stressed country? 60%? 80%? 43% sounds bad enough and I'd like to know what is being done to fix the problems especially in light of Peter van Niekerk, chief director of water resources planning at DWAF, commenting, "we have constructed some dams but nothing to the same extent because of much greater use is the opportunity to manage demand." Sounds suspiciously like load shedding rationing to me.

More concerning is the contamination of ground water by radioactive mining waste in the Wonderfonteinspruit area. This is particularly worrying as the issue of uranium contamination... in the area was evident back in the "last year of the 20th Century", to quote Peter Wade, a CSIR scientist in this revealing article published online back in Feb 2003.

It's also noted that the Potchefstroom city council took Durban Roodepoort Deep gold mining company to court over "alleged environmental transgressions" in 2003, but dropped the charges when it was pointed out that 3 other gold producers had operations in the area and so a compromise deal was made. "I am pleased that a way forward has been determined, based on sensible discussion rather than litigation," said the CEO at the time. Obviously the free-market economy has not come to the rescue of the environment since then (DRD's share price however did close 35c weaker to R35.10 at the time...)

I'm absolutely amazed that it took over five years for the National Nuclear Regulator (motto: "for the protection of persons, property and environment") to release a report on what has been happening at Wonderfonteinspruit, surely they are failing in their legal obligations when they are not informing the public of a health threat they have known about for so long. Farmers grow food irrigated from dams in the area, residents of the Khutsong informal settlement fish from the spruit, yet it takes them this length of time to release a report!

Martinus van Schalkwyk, Minister of Environment and Tourism, had this reponse when questioned in parliament: "The Report also raises concerns with regard to the potential impact of the contamination on the public in the Wonderfonteinspruit Catchment Area. However, it appears that additional research is required to reflect the true extent of contamination and its impacts."

Well that's action for you. How many years to wait for the next report? If I lived in Potch or Carltonville I'd be relocating round about now.

You know that by the time an issue has made Carte Blanche there is a serious problem lurking, especially when you read that Carte Blanche's independent testing of leeks grown in the area "contained sixteen times more uranium per kilogram than the daily limit, as suggested by the World Health Organisation, for human consumption"

Aside from uranium contamination, heavy metals cadmium, copper, cobalt and arsenic - by-products of the mining industry - have also accumulated in the spruit's sediment and are at unacceptably high detectable levels in vegetables for human consumption.

Cattle farmers next to the spruit have been warned by the NNR not to let their animals drink the water and some farmers are faced with killing their animals and burning them as there is no market for contaminated meat or milk.

With this level of heel dragging or ineptitude by the NNR I think the real national disaster would be for Eskom to continue pursuing a nuclear programme when the public can't be assured that the National Nuclear Regulator will protect them any more than it's done for the 450 000 or so residents of Khutsong and Potchefstroom.