CAPE TOWN (Reuters) – South Africa will increasingly use desalinated seawater to meet growing demand for drinking water in coastal towns facing the worst drought in 150 years, the country’s water minister said on Thursday.

South Africa is a water-scarce country with an average rainfall of 450 millimetres — compared to a world average of 860 mm — and conditions are expected to worsen as a result of global climate warming.

“South Africa has a boundary consisting of approximately 3,000 kilometres of sea water, and this water is presently unusable because of its high salt content,” Water Affairs Minister Buyelwa Sonjica said in her budget vote speech on Thursday.

“We therefore made a decision to press ahead with unconventional water treatment, in this case desalination, largely because of the unavailability of river water due to drought,” she said.

Popular tourist coastal towns Plettenberg Bay, Knysna, George and Mossel Bay are facing severe water shortages due to prolonged drought in the southern Cape region.

These towns have turned to purifying seawater, as well as treating so-called grey water — waste water generated from domestic activities like laundry and bathing — to help meet their drinking needs.

Cape Town is also eyeing the option of desalinating water.

“Desalination has become the preferred purification option in terms of both the cost benefit and the flexibility of application,” Sonjica said.

However, she said the government needed to exercise caution in extending its desalination programme because of possible negative effects to the environment.

“There is ample scientific evidence that the impact of the effluents from the desalination plants on the seawater environment increase the seawater temperature, salinity, water current and turbidity,” said Sonjica.

Desalination is big business in the desert conditions of some Middle East countries, where it is a major supplier of clean drinking water to economic hubs such as Dubai.

The following chart shows a comparison of water prices across a broad spectrum of countries. The price of water in South Africa continues to be low as compared to most major industrial countries. The price of water in South Africa is almost the third of the price in Germany. But when we realise that there are no more dams to be dammed and that there are almost no working estuaries left in South Africa we know water in South Africa is at a tipping point. This from a point of supply and quality. The variable here is price. We have all witnessed what has happened to South African electricity pices in the past couple of years. We think the price of Water is something that won’t stay stable for too long.

Think of the climate in South Africa – we have less water per capita than Namibia and Botswana. The variable in the equation, PRICE, is bound to increase for South African’s relative to world prices. And what if global warming cause world prices of water to rise?

Sewage as well as animal blood and offcuts are apparently being dumped into the Vaal River, The Weekender reported on Saturday.

An abbatoir in Frankfort was pumping animal blood and offcuts into its evaporation dam which was in turn seeping into the Vaal River, Freedom Front Plus Mafube municipality councillor Peter van der Westhuizen said.

“We saw a large area of red in the water.

“We are conducting tests to establish exactly what is causing it”.

A member of the Blue Scorpions Nigel Adams confirmed the dumping of the animal offcuts, saying it had first been noticed during an aerial survey.

Van der Westhuizen also said court orders since 2004 had not managed to get the municipality to repair broken pipes and water purification works which were allegedly causing sewage to ooze over the ground that leads into the Vaal River.

Water scientist and activist Professor Anthony Turton said sewage, in particular, was causing a build-up of blue-green algae containing microcystims which are deadly. Read the full story