Cheaper to clean up the rivers

Plans to raise Hazelmere Dam to increase storage and now a proposal to establish a desalination plant in La Mercy refer. Both are exorbitantly costly but the real issue is the impoverished state of all our rivers that are now sewers and their catchments are so degraded that they are less capable of attenuating water from our short wet season.
Furthermore the hypersaline effluent from a desalination plant has the potential of polluting the inshore marine environment. Umgeni Water and Eskom are a toxic mix in allowing our rare water resources to get this critical. It would be a lot cheaper and more expedient to clear up our rivers of polluters and illegal sand mining operations and rehabilitate the vitally important catchment wetlands.
PAUL DUTTON
Salt Rock