Welcome water for Adelaide

On the south bank of the Adelaide Dam, framed against the parched landscape and looking down at a patch of water in the middle of an expanse of cracked mud, was the bizarre silhouette of a man with a fishing rod.

Pieter Fredericks, 65, said he was going to fish for barbel.

“They are still there. They live in the mud,” he said.

His companion, Jan Soetlank, 73, said the water situation was desperate.

“But we were born here. It is going to be alright. We need more of these boreholes that they are drilling,” Soetlank said.

As he was talking, water fountained out of a borehole being sunk at the base of the dam by JP Landman Drilling Services under the auspices of Gift of the Givers.

Foreman Mgiyakhe Mofokeng, 27, said they would go down 100-120m to find the optimum pressure point before installing gear to secure and harvest the water.

“We have already drilled five boreholes around Adelaide that are producing,” he said.

“Our yield specialists will now visit to check what is the best amount to take out to make sure it is sustainable for the groundwater in the area.”

Residents in parts of Adelaide have not had water for six months, and the Koonap River and springs that have flowed for generations have dried up.

Teacher Zeenat Gangat said besides drilling the boreholes, Gift of the Givers was bringing water to schools and clinics, and filling up troughs for wandering animals to drink.

“Despite this amazing aid, things are still very serious.

“At my Adelaide Junior Secondary School in Bezuidenhoutville, we have not had proper schooling the whole term because we need water for the kids to drink and for them to flush the toilets.

“There is a very real fear that disease might break out,” Gangat said.

Ratepayers’ association committee member Dave Knoesen said he had applied to the Amathole District Municipality for water quality test results, with no success.

“The water is black, sticky and filled with silt at times, but requests on this and other water matters have been ignored.”

Parts of the township of Bezuidenhoutville had been without water for six months.

“The boreholes are just temporary solutions and some are already drying up.

“Why wasn’t the Foxwood built years ago?” he asked of the Foxwood Dam that was first mooted in 1953.

“Drastic intervention is needed into how Amathole is managing our water.”

Town councillor and donations joint co-ordinator Jean Lombard said donations in the form of trucks piled with bottled water and brimful tanker trucks had poured in from around the province from businesses, schools, churches, organisations and individuals.

Infections control nurse Joy Ncezane said at the gleaming little Adelaide Provincial Hospital that, in her view, the situation was under control.

“We are carefully watching but we have seen no diarrhoea or other waterborne disease.

“Here at the hospital we have a system of tanks supplied by the municipal system and we have never run out.

“We have queried with the district municipality to check the quality of the water and have been assured it is fine.”

Gift of the Givers co-ordinator Ali Sablay said the organisation had brought in four superlink trucks with 170 bales of stock feed on Monday.

“The animals around town had been eating cardboard boxes they were so starved.

“It was great to see the unity between black and white farmers when we did the drop-off.”

Midgley Hotel holding on - just

Adelaide’s 161-year-old Midgley’s Hotel is still going strong – just.

Proprietor Vivien Muir said the borehole tank had dried up and she now relied on the uncertain municipal supply, supported by a system of tanks and a pressure pump, which she had invested in at considerable expense.

“Guests are not happy about the possibility of the water running out completely and them not being able to flush the loo or have a shower, so it has affected business badly,” Muir said.

Combined with this stress, Adelaide water was among the most expensive in the Eastern Cape, and even when the system was down, air moving through the pipes turned the meter over and racked up inaccurate fees, she said.

Nandipha Helesi, who is part of a four-month labour department animal and plant production course that is under way at Midgley’s, said the aim was for graduate students to be placed on farms in the area.

“But with this water situation, I don’t know what is going to happen now,” Helesi said.