Poor quality: 94 out of 144 municipalities in SA supply unsafe water

Two-third of the municipalities in South Africa are supplying unsafe drinking water to their residents. And three-quarters of towns and cities are discharging sewage effluent which has not been treated properly into rivers and oceans.

Of the 144 municipalities in South Africa which treat water for potable supply to at least 22 million people, 94 do not meet the microbiological limit requirements.

Statistics

These statistics were extracted from the department of water and sanitation’s accessible water and sanitation data repository.

In addition, 112 out of 144 (77%) municipalities which treat sewage effluent caused pollution of streams, rivers and oceans due to the discharge of untreated or partially treated sewage.

Since last month, the department’s regulatory dashboard results reflected a massive failure by municipalities in terms of compliance from a microbiological perspective in respect of both drinking water and sewage.

Microbiological standards are defined by the South African Bureau of Standards in the “South African National Standard (Sans) 241” drinking water specification.

All water quality and parameters which complies with the requirements of Sans 241 is deemed to be safe for human consumption.

Expert weighs in

Water resource management specialist Anthony Turton said it was essential that on the microbiological side, water must have zero pathogens.

Although not all microbiological components were pathogenic, Turton said microbiological parameters such as faecal coliform and Escherichia coli were used as indicators of pathogenic microbiological organisms which could cause waterborne diseases.

Effects

The presence of coliform bacteria, specifically E. coli (a type of coliform bacteria), in drinking water would cause diarrhoea, vomiting, cramps, nausea, headaches, fever, fatigue and even death.

“It is bacteria found in the bowel of humans and also in animals,” he said.

Turton said it was for this reason Sans 241 had set limit values for these microbiological parameters, which should be zero in drinking water supplied by municipalities.

According to statistics extracted from department’s results, Gauteng’s compliance rate was at 99% and observed as “excellent”, with its minimum risk parameters at 30%, while the Free State was at 82% – seen as “bad” with its minimum risk parameters 47%.

Politics

Water resources scientist Carin Bosman said “they can’t make those distinctions to say the one is excellent and the other is bad without specifying the criteria on how those distinctions are made”.

“It may be based on politics,” she said.

Bosman said there was a major difference between Gauteng, which acquired most of its water from one independent water board whereas the Free State had two water boards, but with limited budgets in municipalities to properly treat sewage effluent.

Overlapping drinking water and sewage treatment failures were other factors evident in 81 municipalities.

The department’s information on sewage effluent, which is waste water discharged into sewers from industrial or commercial premises, showed that Limpopo was the worst in terms of compliance failure with an overall recording of 22.7%, with Mpumalanga at 38.7 %, Free State at 42.3% and the Eastern Cape at 44.7%.

In Limpopo, one of their worst performing municipalities is the Lephalale local municipality, which sat at 1.89%.

Bosman said if microbiological counts were high, it meant municipalities were not properly disinfecting their sewage.

“They do not properly chlorinate,” she said.

“There is no proper microbiological disinfection because there is no chlorine and there is no chlorine because money is not being allocated from the budget.

“This is a procurement failure and not a failure by the operators of the treatment works.”

Although the following three ranged around 60%, they were the highest in terms of compliance but were still deemed a “poor” level rating. North West was high in terms of microbiological effluent compliance with 65%, Gauteng with 62.8% and Western Cape with 67.7%.

Not up to standard

The department’s chief director for infrastructure operations and maintenance, Leonardo Manus, said general municipal performance in managing and operating wastewater treatment works were not up to standard.

“This is for various reasons and not only because of inadequate disinfection,” he said.

Manus said disinfection was the last treatment unit at a treatment works and if the prior units were not operated as per the operating requirements, then disinfection would not help.

“In fact, over disinfecting inadequately treated water holds a significant risk to the water quality due to the reaction of the disinfectant with organic material in the water.”

He said the department was reviewing standards as well as the infrastructure grants for water services and “exploring amending existing water services legislation to ensure greater accountability towards improvement”.

“Ultimately, improvement is nonnegotiable.” – lungas@citizen.co.za

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