By Arthi Sanpath
Former CSIR water researcher Dr Anthony Turton is busy with a new project, the Dream Team, to tackle the country's water supply problems.
Earlier this week Turton and his former employer, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), parted ways after a much-publicised disagreement over a paper Turton wrote on the country's water supply.
Turton was prevented from presenting his paper, entitled Three Strategic Water Quality Challenges that Decision-Makers Need to Know About and How the CSIR Should Respond, at a CSIR conference last month.
His paper outlined the critical challenges facing the country's water supply and the negative effect that would have on economic development.
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The CSIR said at the time the presentation had been halt-ed because it differed from the written paper previously circulated.
Turton's paper outlined that a skills shortage, a dependence on coal for energy, excessive organism growth in lakes and dams, toxins, chemicals in the water that could affect a person's hormones (endocrine disrupting chemicals) and metal contamination were some of the problems affecting the country's water supply.
He also said in his paper that because of SA's HIV and Aids rate, the level of anti-retroviral load in the rivers would increase.
"These complex chemical compounds will be entering the human population over time, either through drinking water or via produce that has been irrigated with contaminated water," he wrote.
Although he no longer works for the CSIR, Turton said this had not stopped him from pursuing his passion to solve water issues.
"I have no intention of leaving the water sector," he reiterated on Tuesday.
He said the government and other authorities needed to take the country's water supply issues seriously, and advised that people needed to "think differently" about how these issues could be solved.
"I have put together a team of people, and we are developing a broad strategy at the moment," he said.
This group, named the Dream Team, comprising foreign venture capitalists, engineers and scientists, said Turton, were putting together a strategy to assist science councils, government and municipalities manage the country's water supply.
"We have two constraints as a developing nation: water and energy. It is clear we cannot do things the way we have been doing them, and need to think differently" he explained.
If the situation remained as it was, he said, water problems would remain a barrier to SA's economic development.
"The team would adopt a multi-disciplinary approach to tackling water issues," he said.
Now, however, he was "tired and stressed" from the events of the past few weeks and was taking a holiday to begin work in earnest in the new year.
Many institutions and academics came to Turton's defence after his suspension, labelling the CSIR's actions an attack on academic freedom.
- This article was originally published on page 7 of Daily News on December 10, 2008
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