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Waste litters the Jukskei as it runs through the Alexandra Township, a few miles from its source. 

Waste litters the Jukskei as it runs through the Alexandra Township, a few miles from its source. 

Photographer: Gulshan Khan/AFP via Getty Images

CityLab
+ Green

How Johannesburg’s Dirty Little River Could Help Ease Water Woes

The Jukskei River starts as a trickle near an auto shop and a liquor store. Then it picks up trash and E. coli. Cleaning it is a tall but necessary task if South Africa’s largest city wants to shore up its water security.

Joe Walsh

New York has the Hudson River, Paris the Seine, Cairo the Nile. Johannesburg has the Jukskei River — a meter-wide trickle that emerges from underground in the city’s business district near an auto-repair shop and a liquor store. 

The Jukskei is strewn with trash and laden with coliform bacteria. It could also provide an unlikely boost to the water security of South Africa’s largest city.