Amidst fears of an investment downgrade the Cape Chamber of Commerce and Industry has rejected the City of Cape Town’s argument that desalination is too expensive an option for water supply.
Janine Myburgh, president of the chamber, said desalination on a large scale for coastal cities made sense. The City of Cape Town, however, maintains that investing in large-scale desalination plants would become wasteful spending should good rains come.
Lance Greyling, City of Cape Town director for enterprise and investment, told FTW that because of the severity of the water crisis the city had opted to invest in three small-scale desalination plants – but there was still no firm move towards this on any large scale.
“The augmentation of water in the City is not going to prevent Day Zero but rather provide a buffer against it,” he said. “Cape Town will always be dependent on rain for its water supply. Our entire system has been designed and built this way. We do not foresee the city moving away from rain water as its main supply, but various augmentation schemes will reduce our dependency on rain.”
Myburgh however said the Chamber was of the opinion that a desalination plant would not be a waste of money – regardless of whether it rained or not.
“Agriculture is all about water – and with more water available we could have more agriculture, more jobs and more export earnings. The farmers along the Orange River prove this year after year. We can do it in the Western Cape too. More water means more land can be cultivated and that will be good for the whole economy,” she said.
