Access to water has a long racial history in Durban

THE water infrastructure politics of eThekwini, the municipality that includes the city of Durban, have been splashed across the digital pages of South Africa's news outlets in recent years.

- KRISTIN BRIG

They've covered the 2022 floods that damaged kilometres of pipes, water tanker purchases as a response to increasing water scarcity, and the disconnection of residential water storage tanks from municipal pipes to cope with leaky infrastructure. Like other South African municipalities, eThekwini has fallen behind on maintaining its piped water infrastructure and has looked to stopgap solutions. The city’s water politics has a long history. Some of the infrastructure issues can be traced back to the mid-1800s, when it was a British imperial port.

Im a historian with an interest in coastal communities and urban life. As part of my work on water as a public health concern in colonial cities, 1 spent months in the Durban Archives Repository, going through correspondence, reports, business contracts, newspaper clippings and town council minutes. The records revealed how the system of colonial-era water infrastructure worked — and for whom.

The first water technologies in Durban were British-styled wells. Anyone could use them, for free. They brought people of different origins and class together for practical purposes but also created anxiety about social difference.

For colonial officials, the public had to follow British standards or lose access to the infrastructure altogether. They created Durban's first water-policing system, purportedly for better public health and conservation. While wealthier and white people eventually came to rely on piped water, poorer and black (Zulu and Indian) people were excluded. This system formed the basis for the uneven access to water that today’s residents experience. People still depend on private water infrastructure as the municipal system struggles.