Hammanskraal cholera outbreak: Water experts say they warned government about the issue

The Gauteng department of health has confirmed the death toll for the cholera outbreak in Hammanskraal in Tshwane has risen to 15 in a week.

Yesterday, members of the Hammanskraal community blocked City of Tshwane mayor Cilliers Brink from entering the Jubilee Hospital.

“My vehicle was attacked and this was extremely unfortunate because while we understand the frustration about the situation, blocking decision-makers from visiting the site and having insight into the problem will not make it better, it will only make it worse,” he said.

Hammanskraal water crisis

The Citizen reported last week that residents of Hammanskraal had resorted to digging wells and making boreholes to procure clean water, despite the municipality providing water tankers, supposedly containing clean water.

While the city was reportedly spending millions on the provision of water via tankers, residents claimed the tankers delivered the same dirty, smelly water with white particles floating in it that ran from their taps.

Watch: Hammanskraal residents chase Tshwane mayor away over cholera outbreak

Pet Malega told The Citizen the water from tankers was not only unsafe for consumption, but also had a strange smell.

“You can smell that is the same water from the taps they tell us to not use,” he said.

Many residents in Hammanskraal were forced to drink unsafe water because they couldn’t afford bottled water.

‘We warned them’

While the City of Tshwane, the Gauteng department of health and the Minister of Water and Sanitation Senzo Mchunu were last Wednesday anxiously awaiting the results from the National Institute for Communicable Diseases about the origins of the cholera outbreak, water experts said they had warned them time and again.

Nonprofit organisation Hennops Revival’s founder Tarryn Johnston said cholera wasn’t new.

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“People have been dying from cholera for a while now,” she said. “After the first cholera death in Benoni about two months ago, I told my workers to stay out of the water.”

Hennops Revival focuses on reviving, restoring and healing the Hennops River in collaboration with the government.

Johnston said her first thought was, where did the water from Benoni go?

“This is not Covid; cholera doesn’t die in your urine. Cholera will continue to live, whether you flush it down the toilet and compete with other ground organisms in groundwater. It’s hectic,” she said.

Johnston said she had announced in March they would not work in the water until further notice.

“Benoni drains to the northern side and it goes to the Hartebeesfontein water treatment works. It discharges into Swartspruit and the Rietvlei, which is the Hennops,” she said.

Johnston said she’s grateful she had made the decision to stay out of the water and stuck with it.

ALSO READ: Diarrhoeal outbreak: Hammanskraal residents warned not to drink tap water

“The bottom line is that there will not be clean water in our taps if there isn’t clean water in our rivers. Water does not just come out of a tap.”

Johnston said we had to look into the city’s chlorine supply and ask if we had enough.

“If there is a supply issue – there is a proper shi* show, a watery one,” she said.

Poor water quality

According to Mchunu, the poor water quality was caused by the failure of Rooiwal wastewater treatment works to meet the desired final effluent quality for discharge to the Apies River which, in turn, flows into the Leeukraal Dam.

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“The wastewater treatment works is situated upstream of Hammanskraal and has affected the Leeukraal Dam, where the Temba water treatment works abstracts water for treatment and distribution.

“This has led to the department instituting a series of enforcement actions (directives] against the city for the city to address the pollution from the Rooiwal wastewater treatment works into the Apies River and Leeukraal Dam,” Mchunu said.

After the city failed to respond to the directives, the department instituted a legal process to obtain a court order to force Tshwane to address the failure of the Rooiwal wastewater treatment works. Mchunu said the legal process is currently underway. The city has opposed the legal action.

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The department has also directed the city to stop supplying water from Temba water treatment plant to Hammanskraal residents, and the city is currently providing potable water to affected communities, who were initially supplied by the Temba water treatment plant, through the deployment of water tankers.

– marizkac@citizen.co.za – Additional reporting Lunga Mzangwe and SAnews.gov.za