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Speaker 1: The city's weekly water dashboard on Monday. One of the

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Speaker 1: things that it does is divide the one hundred percent

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Speaker 1: of water which is supplied to residents of Cape Town

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Speaker 1: in their homes and in their businesses into that which

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Speaker 1: comes from the six major dams, from the minor dams

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Speaker 1: I think there are seven of them, and from groundwater,

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Speaker 1: And the most recent figure had ninety six percent of

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Speaker 1: water supply coming from the big dams, one percent from

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Speaker 1: the small dams like Healey Hutchinson, and four percent from groundwater. Now,

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Speaker 1: I presume that that is only the ground water which

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Speaker 1: is channeled through city pipes into homes. It doesn't include

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Speaker 1: the groundwater that comes out of the ground on which

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Speaker 1: a home has been established and into the sort of

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Speaker 1: internal plumbing of that house, as it were. If you

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Speaker 1: were listening to Lester earlier today. This was at around

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty five past six. He spoke to doctor systufikil Any,

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Speaker 1: who's a research at the University of the Western Capes

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Speaker 1: Department of Earth Science, who said that ground water levels

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Speaker 1: are steadily declining. His research tracked water levels between twenty

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Speaker 1: two thousand and seven and twenty twenty four and showed

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Speaker 1: that around eighty percent of monitored bareholes are experiencing declines

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Speaker 1: over that period, in some cases dropping by as much

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Speaker 1: as seventeen meters. And I want to talk again to

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Speaker 1: hydrogeologist doctor Roger Parsons about groundwater, but not about that,

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Speaker 1: although Roger, good afternoon. I do want to ask you,

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Speaker 1: first of all, whether your understanding matches that shared by

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Speaker 1: doctor Figillni earlier today.

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Speaker 2: Hi good Afning, John good Alfne into your listens. Yes,

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Speaker 2: I was made aware of this research yesterday and I've

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Speaker 2: just got a copy of East Easts today, so i

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Speaker 2: haven't read it. It doesn't match my understand so I

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Speaker 2: need to spend a bit of time reading his ceases

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Speaker 2: to understand how it gets to his conclusions.

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Speaker 1: What is your understanding of the sustainability or the decline

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Speaker 1: or stability or seasonal increases seasonal decreases of the groundwater

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Speaker 1: resource around Cape Town.

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Speaker 2: So, John, there's a continual seasonal fluctuation in winter, the

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Speaker 2: water level rises, the groundwater level rises in response to recharge,

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Speaker 2: and then it slowly drops again in some and there's

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Speaker 2: this this ongoing cycle, and that's very well established. But

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Speaker 2: from the work that I've been doing in the monitoring

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Speaker 2: aroun'm doing. I'm not seeing this decline that that there

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Speaker 2: a search talks about.

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Speaker 1: Okay, but that would not be you saying there's nothing

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Speaker 1: to worry about. Use as much as you can extract.

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Speaker 2: No, we never say that. It's even though groundbleed is

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Speaker 2: a renewable resource, it's got limitations. It has to be

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Speaker 2: banished for the If you take out more than is recharged,

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Speaker 2: you will see a decline. But I don't believe that

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Speaker 2: the cape less Ecofie is in that condition at the moment.

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Speaker 1: Okay, Then let's get to what you're saying in a

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Speaker 1: recent op ed on The Daily Maverick that you suggest

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Speaker 1: that there are people going around saying, pay me x

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Speaker 1: amount for this particular technique or this particular device, and

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Speaker 1: it will tell you, for the negligible amount of a

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Speaker 1: couple of thousand rand, whether you have exploitable groundwater in

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Speaker 1: the area that you want to turn at least part

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Speaker 1: of your ward consumption to groundwater in You're saying.

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Speaker 2: Beware, that's exactly what I'm saying. So the people running

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Speaker 2: around with these instruments called groundwater detectors, and they're doing

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Speaker 2: these these servers, and you a few thousand or four thousand,

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Speaker 2: whatever you paid to have then done. And the reason

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Speaker 2: I wrote that article is because I've had a whole

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Speaker 2: lot of reports come across my desk over the last

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Speaker 2: couple of months, and there is no geophysical instrument that

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Speaker 2: can find water or can find groundwater. Geophysical instruments help

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Speaker 2: us understand what's going on below the surface, but they

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Speaker 2: don't find They don't find water.

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Speaker 3: So Roger, it almost goes without saying that I'm not

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Speaker 3: a geophysicist, but you say that these instruments tell you

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Speaker 3: what's happening under the ground, then surely they can tell

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Speaker 3: you whether there's water moving under the ground or not.

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Speaker 2: No, they can't. So there are these are things like

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Speaker 2: the resistivity of the rock or the magnetic signature of

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Speaker 2: the rock, but they and from that we try and

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Speaker 2: understand what the geology is like in the subsurface. But

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Speaker 2: they don't find water.

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Speaker 1: They don't hint at a water signature. They are completely

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Speaker 1: agnostic on the question of the presence or absence of

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Speaker 1: exploitable groundwater.

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Speaker 2: That is absolutely correct.

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Speaker 1: And yet because people don't want the expense of getting

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Speaker 1: a drilling operation, don't want to pay for a drilling operation,

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Speaker 1: would that be the only sure way of finding art

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Speaker 1: is to have a considerably more expensive drilling operation done.

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Speaker 2: Yes, so the only way you can ever be sure

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Speaker 2: is by doing the dream. But we use geophysics in

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Speaker 2: our work to to understand or try and work out

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Speaker 2: what's happening in the subsurface, and then from that we

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Speaker 2: can deduce whether the chances of finding groundwater are good

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Speaker 2: or not so good. So it's just a tool that

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Speaker 2: we have available to us to help us do our job.

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Speaker 2: And we would do the gear physics and then calibrated

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Speaker 2: with the dream.

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Speaker 1: And is there any evidence I mean that the market

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Speaker 1: has been flooded unintentional and not very good pun but

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Speaker 1: is there an indication that these devices are being sort

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Speaker 1: of fairly aggressively marketed on I don't know, scool TMU

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Speaker 1: type websites. Buy this and for one eight hundred rund

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Speaker 1: you will know whether you have groundwater kind of marketing.

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Speaker 2: So from what I understand, you can buy these instruments

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Speaker 2: of the internet quite easily and quite cheaply. And then

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Speaker 2: what's happening is people who aren't skilled in hydrogeology or

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Speaker 2: geophysics are then using them and doing these service and

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Speaker 2: providing a service which they're really aren't qualified to do

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Speaker 2: and which they are not doing.

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Speaker 1: I suspect that one of the counters to that, and

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Speaker 1: it's certainly not a counter I would make, is that

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Speaker 1: you're just trying to protect your income. You saying only

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Speaker 1: I can do it, They with that much cheaper approach can't.

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Speaker 1: So don't go with them. You're protecting your turf.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's a v the argument. But we are scientists,

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Speaker 2: and we we trained in these in these things, and

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Speaker 2: we gain experience in them, whereas this is a new

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Speaker 2: machine that's come out the reality of physicists. Those my

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Speaker 2: colleagues at at VITS and at the Free State University

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Speaker 2: are challenging the v basis of what these machines are,

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Speaker 2: are made and how they operate. So, you know, our

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Speaker 2: business has forever being at odds with water diviners. Ones

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Speaker 2: a scientific approach, one's a belief system. I suppose, uh all,

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Speaker 2: I'm all I'm saying, is is you going to go

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Speaker 2: down this go down with your with your eyes open,

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Speaker 2: do your ute diligence, chick the service, check the people

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Speaker 2: that are giving the service, and then spend your money

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Speaker 2: as you will.

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Speaker 1: I think it was as we were getting to the

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Speaker 1: worst of the day, Zero Roger that I spoke to

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Speaker 1: a water diviner on the radio, and I and I

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Speaker 1: was skeptical, and I remain skeptical of people who use,

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Speaker 1: you know, sort of catapult shaped bits of wood or

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Speaker 1: metal or whatever the case may be, darling rods and

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Speaker 1: so on. And I was amazed at the number of

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Speaker 1: people who had grown up on farms, or had family

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Speaker 1: with farms, or in some way connected to agricultural space

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Speaker 1: where water is needed, who told me with absolute conviction

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Speaker 1: that yes, there are some snake oil salesmen when it

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Speaker 1: comes to water divination, but there are people who have

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Speaker 1: the gift.

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Speaker 2: You know. I used to get into a whole lot

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Speaker 2: of trouble when I was younger to try and debate

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Speaker 2: these things. The only thing that I can tell you is,

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Speaker 2: whenever they've been tested in a scientific way, there's never

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Speaker 2: been any proof that it works. There's no scientific basis

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Speaker 2: for what they're doing. So I've got just stage in

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Speaker 2: my career now that I don't have these debates. If

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Speaker 2: whenever I'm at a dinner party and somebody asks me,

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Speaker 2: you know, Roger, what are you doing, it goes down

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Speaker 2: the route of the water Diviner, and I just I've

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Speaker 2: learned to quietly extract myself.

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Speaker 1: Okay, well, let's allow you to quietly extract yourself from

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Speaker 1: this discussion. Doctor Roger Parsisons on the line to us

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Speaker 1: from Betty's Bay, and he is a professional hydrogeologist,