The Blue Drop Report released in 2023 highlights the fact that at least 46% of drinking systems don’t comply with microbiological standards. According to the regulations under the Water Services Act, it is mandatory for a municipality to inform users if it repeatedly finds water quality does not meet basic standards.
“We are not seeing enough boil-water notices to match the situation reflected in the Blue Drop Report. This is illegal and it puts people’s lives at risk,” says Dr Ferrial Adam, pointing out that it is unlikely that the problems of water quality recorded in the report have all been resolved.
“Why are the municipalities not issuing notices warning residents to boil water in unsafe areas?”
According to the process that needs to be followed, every failure (that is presence of E.coli or bacteria in drinking water) must trigger an investigation and another test must be done. In cases where the resample is taken and failure is confirmed, an advisory notice (or boil-water notice) must be publicly issued to alert users to the quality of the drinking water.
WaterCAN has established that 11 municipalities in six provinces are repeat offenders in that they have E.coli failures and should be issuing boil-alert notices. These are water service authorities that had consistent failures and most were repeats in the past three to six months.
The following are the repeat offenders:
- City of Tshwane, Gauteng
- Blue Crane Local Municipality, Eastern Cape
- Alfred Nzo District Municipality, Eastern Cape
- Chris Hani LM, Eastern Cape
- Masilonyana LM, Free State
- Ngwathe LM, Free State
- Thaba Chweu LM, Mpumalanga
- Thembisile Hani LM, Mpumalanga
- Kgetlengrivier LM, North West
- Siyancuma LM, Northern Cape
- Pixley ka Seme DM, Northern Cape
“These are definitely not the only municipalities in the country that have failed water quality tests. It is therefore imperative that municipalities make their monthly tests publicly available. People have the right to know the quality of the water that they are drinking,” says Adam.
There are also challenges in the City of Johannesburg, where there have been isolated cases of communal taps that have shown failures, which were subsequently addressed. In addition, the municipality has faced a shortage of micro-sampling bottles that affected timeous testing. The lack of water has also affected the City’s ability to test water.
While the focus for the past months has been on access to water and maintenance of infrastructure, we cannot lose sight of the water quality challenges. WaterCAN repeats its call for transparent information and for water test results to be made publicly available.
Flint
Shebeen – an unlicensed bar [sha-been] These are unlicensed bars usually found in low-income suburbs located outside of the major towns and cities, more commonly known as ‘the townships’.
redneck giorgio
Van der Merwe is approached by SANRAL one day who want to build a new highway through his donkey farm. Van is really concerned with how his donkeys can get from one side of the farm to the other without having to cross the highway and risk being injured or killed. He is promised that they will build bridges the highway so that his donkeys can cross under the highway. Van agrees and gives them the go-ahead.
The highway is built and a year later the same rep goes to the farm to go see how Van and his donkeys are. He eventually finds Van under one of these bridges chipping away at the roof of the tunnel with a hammer and chisel.
\”Mnr Van de Merwe, what are you doing damaging the highway bridge?\”