Our water crisis
O
n our plot we've always had two sources of water: a
municipal supply, which flows into a tank and thence,
via a booster pump, into the house, and a borehole,
albeit a weak one, which pumps into an old portable swimming
pool to supply water for the garden, fields and animals.
For the first 20-odd years of our occupation of the property this
arrangement worked just fine. Visitors comment on the quality
of the water that comes out of the house taps. That's because, I
maintain, the municipal water, which is treated with chlorine by
Erwat, the East Rand's water authority, loses this chlorine during
its spell in our tank, and emerges from the tap clear, sparkling
and taint-free, and thus greatly superior in taste to municipal
water that comes directly out of the mains.
Watering the garden etc with a weak borehole has been a bit of
a challenge but we've become masters at water-wise gardening,
mulching and other water saving interventions such as recycling
our grey water (which, because it is nutrient rich, turns bright
green when exposed to sunlight).
And on the odd occasion that our municipal tank has run dry
(more often than not because of an undetected leak in the pipe
between the tank and the house, or a stupidly left-open tap)
we've been able to temporarily refill the tank with borehole
water (adding a cup of Jik to the tank because I'm none too sure
of the state of cleanliness of the borehole stuff) using a hosepipe
into the tank from a garden tap.
And so I confess to having been a bit smug. I thought I had any
potential water supply problem sorted.
So it's amazing to find how much a real water crisis focuses the
mind…
Lately, you see, our municipality has become less-than-efficient
in ensuring a continuous suppl K