A Telescospe may save our Mutton

The one molecule scientists hope to find on any planet to check for life may very well save much of our water in South Africa.
The announcement which will hopefully be made next month (March or April 2012) to build the SKA (Square Kilometre Array) Telescope will have so many direct benefits to the whole of South Africa. These will include a capital investment of 15 billion in capital expenditure and an annual but escalating budget of 1.5 billion per annum in perpetuity.
This is the most exciting project the Karoo has ever seen. The excitement in anticipation is yet heightened, by the thought that a spin off advantage will benefit the available water and quality thereof in the Karoo basin.
We know that Shell has bought the allocated concession rights to some 90 thousand square kilometres of Karoo land area for the purpose of fracking for shale gas, but has not as yet succeeded in gaining permission to drill even a few pilot holes to ascertain whether there is viable gas down there. This fracking process involves drilling 4500 metres into the earth (three and a half kilometres below sea level). Soon into a single drilling process these massive drill bits (as big as a coffee table) bore into and through the aquifer presently used by farmers to feed their livestock. This aquifer is mostly some 80 m to 200 metres below the surface which used to be considered deep before the frackers came along. If fracking goes ahead the number of holes to be drilled is estimated at 7500 in total in a checkerboard pattern every four kilometres apart in each direction. South Africa has no police to watch the frackers do their nefarious activities, so we could speculate on the likelihood that one in a hundred drill holes will provide a leak of lethal drilling and fracking cocktail of fluids into the aquifer, and all of the drilled linings will eventually break down. Karoo water will be useless forever, forcing South Africans to import most if not all of our mutton needs. South Africa is already a net importer of food.
Once the abandoned mines in the Mid Rand (to add to the East and West Rand) start decanting AMD (Acid Mine Drainage) into the Vaal River sometime next year, this will render the Vaal River downstream to the Bloemhof and Vaal Harts areas useless. The abandoned mines on the East and West Rand areas already send their AMD decant into the Vaal and Limpopo rivers. Finally seeing as how 98% of all river water in South Africa is extracted, we need to admit that as far as water is concerned we are damned to extinction. Damage to the aquifer in the Karoo will be the last straw on this proverbial camel’s back.
We must all hope and pray that the announcement to build the SKA telescope goes to South Africa. Hope that it goes our way for all the advantages that are obvious but the hidden benefit is that there will be no fracking within the exclusion zone of at least 120 km radius of which the epicentre is Carnarvon. Bear in mind something which even the applicants to frack were unaware of viz. that there is in existence an exclusion zone centred at Sutherland for the SALT telescope which is outside the new proposed SKA zone. This makes the total exclusion around 200 km. Both Sutherland and Carnarvon are well within the area designated to Shell, but it has been written into law that among other activities that may cause disturbance to the new SKA Telescope, there will not be a single frack within those zones. If the decision to allow Shell to frack is given, a major portion of their concession will be removed from their voracious grasp. Look on SKA ye mighty Shell and tremble.

Jeremy Taylor