Pages

20120308

Google censors S.A. water-pollution

The horrific water-pollution in the Hartbeespoortdam in South Africa is not visible to South African google-earth users:

South Africa’s once so pristine fresh-water streams have become so dangerously polluted that many people now are dying of water-borne diseases and large international food-chains refuse to buy local produce irrigated with water from the Hartbeespoortdam – which provides 12-million people with reticulated drinking water in South Africa’s economic heartland.

Today, the Water Research Council announced a ‘comprehensive water research study’ to update its 2005 database . Research manager Wandile Nomquphu said ‘the definition of such requirements has become urgent, particularly in light of declining operational rain and streamflow gauges”.  He also admitted that there were ‘prevailing monitoring gaps” – and these ‘’ are increasing uncertainty and undermining decision-making.’ That’s government-speak which could be briefly translated to ‘we don’t know much about our own water pollution because things are breaking down and we haven’t been monitoring anything on a centralised database since 2005…

Picture 1 below: a complete Google picture of the Hartbeespoort dam– which provides drinking water to 12-million residents in Gauteng province. The site where most of the pollution is entering the dam from the Vaal river is indicated with a red arrow at bottom right.

.HARTBEESPOORT DAM 1 POLLUTION HIDDEN BY GOOGLE

The first serious warnings of water-pollution emerged  in SA on December 6 2008, when the courageous Dr Anthony Turton, at that time the country’s top water-research scientist at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, CSIR, quit after trying to release his hard-hitting scientific paper he had been asked to divulge at an international clean-water conference in SA.

SA faces socio-economic collapse from heavily-polluted fresh-water resources:

He warned that ‘South Africa was facing very rapid socio-economic collapse due to the heavily polluted South African fresh-water resources.” He warned that its very scarce  rivers and streams were becoming increasingly clogged and difficult to clean because of the mountains of mostly plastic and chemical waste constantly being dumped into them – and even worse, that  the water was becoming so polluted with human faeces that the annual rainfall was unable to wash it all away. Semi-arid South Africa ‘s less than 450mm annual rainfall is not enough to clean up the mess.

“ Less than 450mm annual rainfall cannot clean up this mess “

In many much wetter countries than SA, the 'dilution factor' can wash many pollutants from the water -- if no fresh pollutants are added any longer. In South Africa, the continuous streams of chemical and faecal waste are being dumped at such high levels in its open-water supplies that it cannot get cleaned up by the annual rainfall, Turton warned.  His banned report can be found on: http://blat.co.za/KeynoteAddressCSIR2008.pdf 

BELOW: Picture 2 DETAIL:  Zoom to the red arrow, and the green pollution goop (as seen from the ground on pic3 and 4 (scroll down)  cannot be seen by South African Google Earth users.

http://www.earth.google.com/

HARTBEESPOORT DAM POLLUTION HIDDEN GOOGLE VIEW 2 MAR62012

Google also placed their logo watermark right across the 'layer' they placed across the dam to hide the green pollution.  BELOW IS WHAT THE HARTBEESPOORT DAM’s POLLUTION LOOKED LIKE IN MARCH 2012 – AND THE TRUTH WHICH GOOGLE IS HIDING:

 hartbeespoort POLLUTION VAAL RIVIER STANDERTON SA FEB 26 2012

IMG_2092

Background – water pollution problems started in South Africa under the ANC regime and the main cause was its firing of 9,000 well-trained white water-engineers under its black-economic-empowerment job-restriction programme:

Dangerous water pollution in South Africa

In March 2011, the Dutch government announced that they would provide a R200million grant to ‘improve the water-quality for some 800,000 black squatters in Durban, KwaZulu, Natal.” In May 2009, SA health authorities warned that ‘ the country has such dangerously polluted surface water that many thousands of people are routinely falling ill and dying of water-borne diseases such as cholera’. The Dutch donation was in response to the high death-rate of newborns due to water-pollution.

By November 2011, only 28 of the original 232 municipal sewerage plants still worked properly:

Turton warned in 2008 that this ‘overwhelming’ faecal pollution of the country’s preciously sparse fresh-water supplies – above and belowground, even in deep acquifers -- was mainly due to the near-total collapse of (at that point) 181 of the country's 232 municipal waste-water purification plants, all sited along the countrys network of rivers and dams.

By November 2011, only 28 of these municipal plants were still in working order. Municipal purification plants therefore are  pouring thousands of tons of unfiltered, untreated human- and chemical waste directly into the country's fresh-water streams and rivers, he warned. In 2008 he warned that many taxpayers countrywide were often complaining of alling ill and dying from drinking the municipal water, he warned.

9,000 skilled, educated municipal sewerage plant engineers were forced to quit because they were white men:

And while Turton didn’t write this fact --  other research published on Sept 9 2008, by top investigative journalist Louise Flanagan of The Star newspaper, also showed that the water treatment plants across the country were so badly run by unqualified personnel.

Cartoon Manual designed for sewage-plant operators who could barely write…

The black replacements for those 9,000 qualified white water-engineers were so uneducated that the Water Research Commission had to create a cartoon-like manual to teach sewage-plant operators with SYMBOLS instead of in writing, showing them how to carry out tests to establish clean-water safety levels…

An official from the WRC said that all the 181 water-reticulation plants they had surveyed in 2009 ‘were being run by people with very low educational standards’  -- that in fact,  ‘some could barely read”. That’s why they created their cartoon-manual – and their survey also found that none of these new sewage-plant operators had any engineering skills.

  • White engineers barred from jobs:
  • This deadly health danger was brought about mainly by the fact that more than 9,000 municipal posts have fallen vacant after some 80% of the country's qualified engineers have emigrated since 1994 -- these 'paler-skinned' South African male citizens lost their jobs only due to the ANC government's black-economic empowerment laws. 

Turton, as the top water-scientist at the Council for Science and Industrial Research,  has since  resigned.  Read reports here and here:  Turton resignation: http://www.news24.com/Beeld/Suid-Afrika/0,,3-975_2434440,00.html 

A month after his resignation, the parliamentary joint working group meeting dealing with the problem, called on the ANC-regime to declare a water emergency. They refused to do is. The rot has continued ever since.

Woolworths: high ecoli-levels on fresh produce from crops irrigated from Hartbeespoort dam water:

On March 10 2010, warnings were issued by the Transvaal Agricultural Union that the dangerously polluted Grootvlei gold-mines’ waste-water were flooding the acquifers and streams in the economic heartland of South Africa: the black-owned mine’s water pumps were failing to keep the radio-active, highly acid water inside its sludge-dams.

On Oct 19 2010 the Woolworths’ food-giant warned of the high e-coli levels they tested on fresh food they bought from produce-farmers irrigating from the polluted Hartbeespoort dam water. They announced that they would no longer buy food from those farms. On March 10 2010, warnings were issued by the Transvaal Agricultural Union that the dangerously polluted Grootvlei gold-mines’ waste-water were flooding the acquifers and streams in the economic heartland of South Africa: the black-owned mine’s water pumps were failing to keep the radio-active, highly acid water inside its sludge-dams. 

In March 2011, the Dutch government announced that they would provide a R200million grant to ‘improve the water-quality for some 800,000 black squatters in Durban, KwaZulu, Natal. In May 2009, health authorities warned that South Africa has such dangerously polluted surface water that many thousands of people are routinely falling ill and dying of water-borne diseases such as cholera.  On Oct 19 2010 the Woolworths’ food-giant warned of the high e-coli levels they tested on fresh food they bought from produce-farmers irrigating the products with the polluted Hartbeespoort dam water. They announced that they would no longer buy food from those farms.  Censorbugbear reports...: Rivers of human shit are killing off ...

details on:

Water Research Council’s research manager Wandile Nomquphu announces Rmulti-million plan to update database: not done since 2005:

http://www.polity.org.za/article/big-water-resources-study-to-get-under-way-in-april-2012-03-07

Hartbeespoort water-officials use guerilla tactics…

22 Oct 2010 Hartbeespoort ANC-water-engineers used guerilla tactics to keep journalists and scientists from testing the water.

Declare a national emergency over water-pollution crisis!

Censorbugbear reports...: WHO wants water-quality reports from South Africa

Ministers charged over water-pollution

Durban and Johannesburg: water water everywhere… radioactive, filthy

Woolworths food-giant warns of high e-coli levels on fresh food irrigated by polluted Hartbeespoort dam water: ..: News Oct 19 2010

Benoni, Nigel, Springs face permanent water-pollution from radioactive, highly acid gold mine waste water

Dutch donate R200m to clean Durbs water