Everyone remembers Dr Anthony Turton, who was famously fired from his job at the CSIR supposedly for exposing how polluted our water is. The truth is even more alarming: Turton has exposed real dangers in our drinking water. Here is a letter from Dr Turton to the NBU Water Committee:
For an insight into my own work into heavy metals that was not allowed to happen, please see: My documents
It was this work that ended my career at the CSIR and not the keynote paper (which was used to camoflage the truth).
While I have you online, can I please send you the Water Utilities Corporation EIA for circulation via your network. Note that Mariette and I spoke to Freek Robinson last week and after that the public participation phase was extended until Tuesday 15 July. Please note that the EIA is about the positioning of pipes, and NOT about whether the 11 million consumers of Rand Water products are willing to be asked to pay for the cost of remediation of water that is radioactive and laced with heavy metals.
Please mobilize your network so they can know about this EIA and urge them to participate via the formal channel (Golder Associates Vanessa Viljoen vviljoen@golder.co.za) as only formal written submissions will be considered.
There are four issues that this EIA raises:
1) The polluter pays principle is being neatly bypassed because the consuming public is being asked to pick up the bill. The mining industry has a long history of externalizing their costs and this is another example (see Externalisation of Mining Costs)
2) 11 million consumers are being locked into a solution with no broad-based consultation so the public has no choice and will be forced to drink this effluent as part of the domestic water.
3) Seismicity is possible when large volumes of water are channeled through the Central Basin void from the Western Basin, but no allowance is being made for a study of the effect of seismicity. This potentially places land owners in Johannesburg at risk as buildings could be damaded by earth tremors and it is not clear if the insurance industry will cover this.
4) It is unclear if the technology being used will remove 100% of the readioactivity and heavy metals 100% of the time.