Country: South Africa

H2OFAIL

Taking matters into their own hands

Koster municipal water treatment works
The municipal water treatment works in Koster, which has since been fixed by the concerned citizens group after they were granted access by the courts.

Widespread water and sanitation failures prompt citizen groups to approach the courts​

H2OFAIL

‘The water is not good at all’

Lettie Mdluli and her grandchild
In the township of Klarinet in Emalahleni, Lettie Mdluli and her grandchild, Palesa Nkabinde, along with six other relatives, survive on grants from the state yet must still pay for the municipal water that she says gives them diarrhea.

How Emalahleni’s contaminated water harms its most vulnerable residents​

H2OFAIL

Communities turned into sewage swamps​

A stream of raw sewage flows from a leak just outside the Standerton wastewater treatment works
A stream of raw sewage flows from a leak just outside the Standerton wastewater treatment works perimeter fence, directly into the Vaal River visible in the background. The Vaal is the source of drinking water for South Africa’s most populous province, Gauteng, which is the country’s economic hub.

South Africa’s waste water crisis is making life unbearable for its residents​

H2OFAIL

Living in a ‘critical state’

Residents of a new informal settlement outside Winburg gather to fill containers with water from a pipe supplied by the municipality
Residents of a new informal settlement outside Winburg gather to fill containers with water from a pipe supplied by the municipality. Sana Ntho, 54, said the water either has to be boiled or disinfected before drinking. With no electricity available, and firewood a scarce commodity, she adds a spoon of bleach to every 20-liter bucket of water.

The price of a South African town’s dirty water

H2OFAIL

A tsunami of human waste

A body of water filled with sewage and garbage debris
A critically failing sewage works in Springbok in the Northern Cape is one of 334 in the country which obtained a Green Drop score of 30% or less. The cause of the failure was not investigated but is typical of broader municipal service failures. Photo by Steve Kretzmann

Rivers and water bodies across South Africa have become too polluted for use, and the government is doing an increasingly poor job of addressing the situation.

H2OFAIL

Child diarrhea cases surge as sewage runs on Cape Town streets

Sewage spills across a busy intersection
Sewage spills such as this one across a busy intersection in Site C, Khayelitsha, Cape Town, have become semi-permanent features in some parts of the city.

Like clockwork, diarrhea among children spikes sharply during Cape Town’s long summer. The city tends to blame the heat and people’s poor hygiene practices, but its own sewage infrastructure may be the real culprit.

H2OFAIL

Poorly treated effluent sends refinery water use skyrocketing

  • Post author By Steve Kretzmann and Raymond Joseph
  • Post date November 10, 2020

Cape Town’s failure to maintain a key wastewater treatment plant cost the city a billion litres of drinking water

CCIJ Round Up: Cape Town’s Top Ten Water Users

A new report follows up with Cape Town’s biggest water users. Raymond Joseph is named the runner up for a prestigious international award. Two CCIJ members receive grants for their water stories.

H2OFAIL

Big business guzzled water as Cape Town’s dam levels plummeted

  • Post author By Steve Kretzmann and Raymond Joseph
  • Post date October 29, 2020

Years after the threat of Day Zero, it turns out that while households were blamed for over-excessive water use, big industrial users were given little more than a slap on the wrist for their significant water consumption

#ProtestReportingProject : Reporting on Protest In Southern Africa Then and Now

Raymond Joseph and Mongie Zulu, despite being from different generations, have a deep drive for reporting on civil unrest in their country.

╳