Green Hills, Blue Cities

The main water source for Grahamstown is the Gariep Dam

via the Glen Melville Reservoir, which receives water via an

inter-basin transfer from the Orange River. The other water

sources are Settler’s Dam, Howison’s Poort Dam, and the

smaller Jamieson and Milner dams. Other than Glen Melville,

all the dams capture runoff from local streams, all of which

cease to flow during most dry seasons.

HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF GRAHAMSTOWN’S

WATER SUPPLY

The water sources for Grahamstown in the early 1800s were

the courses that run into the town from the hills to the south.

Small dams diverted the water into furrows and from these each

household drew its share according to a timetable (from Maki

and Mullins 2007, Hunt 1976). By 1837 the water supply was

already inadequate and Maki and Mullins (2007) quote from

Hunt (1976) that “Citizens constructed wells in likely places,

but the less fortunate had either to beg for a kettle or draw off at

the dead of night.” By the 1850s there was an obvious need for

water storage to supply the growing population, and following

a severe drought in 1858, the council voted funds to build the

first municipal reservoir – Grey Dam. Throughout subsequent

decades, further and larger dams were built to increase the

city’s water supply.

Until the 1990s all the dams were designed to exploit the

limited and unreliable supplies from local rivers in the

Bloukrans, New Year’s and Kariega catchments. In the 1970s

a major inter-basin transfer was constructed from the Gariep

Dam on the Orange River, via an 83-km pipeline and canal

system into Grassridge Dam on the Great Brak tributary

of the Great Fish River. The Great Fish River is naturally

seasonal, with flow ceasing in July and August of most years

(O’Keeffe and de Moor 1988). The Fish River scheme was

originally designed to provide a constant flow of water for year

round irrigation in the middle Fish River catchment. With the

increasing water shortages of the 1980s, culminating in the

worst drought on record in 1991, the Grahamstown Council

took advantage of the transferred water by constructing a

diversion and storage dam for urban supply. Some of the

Orange River water is diverted from the Great Fish via a weir

upstream of Fort Brown (Hermanuskraal) through a tunnel

into the Glen Melville Dam on the Ecca River, close to the

bottom of the Ecca Pass. Two-thirds of Grahamstown’s water

demands are met from Glen Melville.

Figure 7:

While the white population were the majority in the

early period of Grahamstown, they were outnumbered around

1920. Historically, the non-white population did not pay for

water and sanitation services, and this became a problem when

this demographic group became the clear majority.

Non-white population

White population

Historical population trend,

Grahamstown 1840-1980

Thousands people

Source: Maki, H., Mullins, L., Water in Grahamstown,

Then and Now – a history

of Grahamstown’s water supply from the beginning

, 2007, unpublished document.

1840 1860 1880

1920 1940 1960

1900

1980

The higher figure matches projections by Maki and Mullins

(2007), who estimated the city’s population to reach 125 000 in

the ‘’2000s”. The city is estimated to use 3693.2 megalitres of

water per year (Makana 2007).

GENERAL WATER SUPPLY CHARACTERISTICS

Grahamstown is located in a dry area, with a mean annual

rainfall of 680 mm, and is subject to frequent droughts. The

wettest months are February and November, with a dry season

lasting from April to September.