11 Counting Down to Day Zero: Exploring Community-Based Water Management …
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Municipality, and Overberg District Municipality. In Cape Winelands District Municipality, for example, there was stiff competition for water resources between community residents and farmers mostly involved in horticulture. An official from Cape
Winelands District Municipality lamented;
We were inundated with reports and cases of conflict over access and use of water involving
residents and farmers that are into grape farming and citrus farming. Some farmers resorted
to the dripping irrigation system but other could not. Out Drought Monitoring Committee
met a lot of conflicts cases handled by Water User Associations in the district municipality.
For example when the Misverstand Dam was almost drying up, and water was released
from the Berg River Dam, farmers clashed with riverine communities when they disobeyed
the Government’s instruction not to pump water for irrigation. Likewise, farmers themselves sometimes had disagreements as some violated set rules for abstracting scarce water
from the canal networks, pipelines and irrigation schemes in Stellenbosch Farms, Touws
River, Robertson, Paarl, Ceres, Wellington, etc. A number of conflicts emanated from failure
to adjust to the reality of rationed water whereas at times it was just a manifestation of
retrogressive community attitudes driven by just being selfish and inconsiderate.
It may be understandable why disagreements ensued across communities over
the implementation of community-based water management strategies. There was
tension emanating from the heavy losses incurred by the farmers as their crops
succumbed to water stress. There were estimates that by July 2018, Western Cape
Province recorded an economic loss of R5.9 billion in agriculture, shedding off 30 000
jobs in the process while its agricultural exports were reduced to 20% (Chambers
2018).
In a trend that may be explained by the existence of limited community-rooted
conflict resolution mechanisms or dispute management systems, most respondents
from predominantly urban municipalities (90%) reported conflicts in the implementation of community-based water management strategies. A respondent from the City
of Cape Town stated;
Conflicts erupted most at water collection points in townships. Residents could simply not
agree on relatively smaller issues relating to observing norms on queuing for water, having too
many water containers per person and theft of water in other people’s properties. For instance,
almost every day there would be fist fights at Newlands Spring [along Kildare/Springs Ways].
And SAPS [South Africa Police Services] would be called to restore order and normalcy.
This is despite the fact that residents had their own residents community representatives
mandated with the same function.
There were also challenges relating to deficiencies of technical capacity, organizational capacity as well as financial capacity on the part of communities to sustain
their community-based water management strategies. In most of the responses (75%),
failure of communities to maintain their own water supply infrastructure and successfully mobilize resources for the repair of such was a serious concern. A respondent
from the Western Cape Provincial Government avers;
Most community-initiatives were around installing hand pumps, boreholes, wells, irrigation
canals, water ponds and community tanks. In some cases the municipalities would install
these and leave them for communities to use and manage by themselves. First, most communities, especially those in rural areas such as Friemersheim, Ebenezer, Haarlem, Genadendal,
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Municipality, and Overberg District Municipality. In Cape Winelands District Municipality, for example, there was stiff competition for water resources between community residents and farmers mostly involved in horticulture. An official from Cape
Winelands District Municipality lamented;
We were inundated with reports and cases of conflict over access and use of water involving
residents and farmers that are into grape farming and citrus farming. Some farmers resorted
to the dripping irrigation system but other could not. Out Drought Monitoring Committee
met a lot of conflicts cases handled by Water User Associations in the district municipality.
For example when the Misverstand Dam was almost drying up, and water was released
from the Berg River Dam, farmers clashed with riverine communities when they disobeyed
the Government’s instruction not to pump water for irrigation. Likewise, farmers themselves sometimes had disagreements as some violated set rules for abstracting scarce water
from the canal networks, pipelines and irrigation schemes in Stellenbosch Farms, Touws
River, Robertson, Paarl, Ceres, Wellington, etc. A number of conflicts emanated from failure
to adjust to the reality of rationed water whereas at times it was just a manifestation of
retrogressive community attitudes driven by just being selfish and inconsiderate.
It may be understandable why disagreements ensued across communities over
the implementation of community-based water management strategies. There was
tension emanating from the heavy losses incurred by the farmers as their crops
succumbed to water stress. There were estimates that by July 2018, Western Cape
Province recorded an economic loss of R5.9 billion in agriculture, shedding off 30 000
jobs in the process while its agricultural exports were reduced to 20% (Chambers
2018).
In a trend that may be explained by the existence of limited community-rooted
conflict resolution mechanisms or dispute management systems, most respondents
from predominantly urban municipalities (90%) reported conflicts in the implementation of community-based water management strategies. A respondent from the City
of Cape Town stated;
Conflicts erupted most at water collection points in townships. Residents could simply not
agree on relatively smaller issues relating to observing norms on queuing for water, having too
many water containers per person and theft of water in other people’s properties. For instance,
almost every day there would be fist fights at Newlands Spring [along Kildare/Springs Ways].
And SAPS [South Africa Police Services] would be called to restore order and normalcy.
This is despite the fact that residents had their own residents community representatives
mandated with the same function.
There were also challenges relating to deficiencies of technical capacity, organizational capacity as well as financial capacity on the part of communities to sustain
their community-based water management strategies. In most of the responses (75%),
failure of communities to maintain their own water supply infrastructure and successfully mobilize resources for the repair of such was a serious concern. A respondent
from the Western Cape Provincial Government avers;
Most community-initiatives were around installing hand pumps, boreholes, wells, irrigation
canals, water ponds and community tanks. In some cases the municipalities would install
these and leave them for communities to use and manage by themselves. First, most communities, especially those in rural areas such as Friemersheim, Ebenezer, Haarlem, Genadendal,