Municipal management and geo-hydrological aspects of importance in the potable water supply of Lindley

Abstract

When the South African Government in 1998 re-demarcated its 283 municipalities so that they completely cover the country in a “wall-to-wall” manner, their main focus was on growing local economies and maintaining the provision of an increased number of diverse and more complex basic municipal services to new geographical areas consisting of millions of citizens who might previously had been neglected. In most of the instances the newly established and merged municipalities were demarcated according to geographical aspects inherited from the previous political dispensation, historical municipal areas and magisterial district farm names. The fact that these municipal government jurisdictions for the purpose of improving co-operative municipal- and integrated water resources management (IWRM), in most instances do not correspond with environmental and physical land features such as the demarcated surface water (rivers) drainage regions’ boundaries, could lead to the ineffective, inefficient and non-economic municipal management of water, sanitation and environmental services. The aforementioned is a case with reference to water services management in the Free State Province town of Lindley located in the Vals River catchment and the Nketoana Local Municipality’s area of jurisdiction. An extensive literature review, the use and study of geographic tools such as maps, orthophotos and information data bases, as well as two field visits to the area, enabled the researchers to identify the essential geographical, geo-hydrological and municipal management aspects of importance for the potable water service providers and managers in the Lindley municipal area. The researchers argue that effective trans-boundary municipal management through simunye-type co-operative governance and IWRM must be facilitated in the Vals River surface water catchment between the respective local- and district municipalities for the benefit of the Lindley, Arlington, Steynsrus and Kroonstad communities.