Kirkwood burning: Happy oranges and unhappy people in the Sundays River Valley. How can this be hopeful? Jai Clifford Holmes, with Phumlani Mbulawa and.

Kirkwood burning: Happy oranges and unhappy people in the

Sundays River Valley. How can this be hopeful?

Jai Clifford Holmes,with Phumlani Mbulawa and

Nokwanele Mzamo

Practising IWRM: Towards a New Paradigm Water DialogueJohannesburg13/11/2014

jai.clifford.holmes@gmail.com

23rd September 2014: service delivery protests

Historical perspective

‘Turnaround’

• 51 000 people living in14 000 households

• ± 47% of the population on a household

income of <R1000 per month• Unemployment

estimates to be as high as 44%

Sundays River Valley Municipality

• Economic drivers: elephants (eco-tourism) and oranges (citrus industry).

Local water authorities in the SRV:

WUA

constitutionLower Sundays River Water User Association

Farms Rural commercial

users

SRVM

SRVM water service authority &

water service provider

Urbancommercial

users

Urban domestic

users

raw water

raw water

potable water

Perspective 1: Nokwanele Mzamo (on behalf of farming and residents)

Perspective 2: Phumlani Mbulawa(on behalf of the SRVM technical directorate)

Causal loop diagram

DELAY

Causal loop diagram

DELAY

Causal loop diagram

DELAY

Causal loop diagram

DELAY

Causal loop diagram

DELAY

Causal loop diagram

DELAY

Causal loop diagram

DELAY

Causal loop diagram

DELAY

DELAY

Interconnected ‘modes of failures’

DELAY

DELAY

WUA

constitutionLower Sundays River Water User Association

Farms Rural commercial

users

SRVM

SRVM water service authority &

water service provider

Urbancommercial

users

Urban domestic

users

raw water

raw water

potable water

Institutional gaps:

1

2

“We don’t know the Water Services Act...”(L-WUA officials in 2012)

Kirkwood water supply scheme issues:

Bulk water supply in the Kirkwood water supply system:

• Persistent water shortages over weekends and particularly during the winter maintenance period

Kirkwood

Aquapark

Bergsig

Moses Mabida

Emsen-geni

WTW

Kirkwood water supply zones:

Water Services Act (1997) + Norms and Standards (2002):

Water Services ActSection 5:

If the water services provided by a water services institution are unable to meet the requirements of all its existing consumers, it must give preference to the provision of basic water supply and basic sanitation to them (RSA, 1997: 14).

Norms and Standards (2002)Norm 4:

Norm 4. Interruption in the Provision of Water Services:

(a) at least 10 litres of potable water per person per day;

• Service delivery challenges in the SRVM demonstrate interconnected ‘modes of failures’ of local government

• A business and farming community proposal: 5-10c levy per export carton citrus

• Emergency measures as intervention ‘triggers’ (provision of emergency water and water

restrictions)

Conclusion

• But: lack of coherent intervention strategy (DWS) • Value of systemic, engaged and extended

research

Funders:

Keystakeholders:

University departments

& institutes:

Acknowledgments:

Faculty of Technology, Policy & Management

Historical narratives of water in the SRV

Dispossession and re-location: “We have no waggons to load our articles… that place have no water and firewood… and there is no road… even the doctors hardly go there. It has no veld for our goats and cows…”

(Letter to the Secretary for Native Affairs, 1959)

Commercial irrigators: The story of the SRV is about “the transformation of a Karoo thunderstorm into an orange destined for the tables of London”(Meiring, 1959)