THE eThekwini Municipality has begun weekly joint sampling of beach water with independent laboratories.
According to City spokesperson Gugu Sisilana, this is to enable credible comparison of test results in the interests of transparency and public safety.
“Until recently, eThekwini Municipality and independent laboratories have not been sampling jointly, leading to different beach-water results. This led to confusion among the public regarding the results. On October 5, eThekwini Municipality jointly sampled with Adopt-A-River, a non-profit organisation whose samples are tested by an independent laboratory, Talbot,” she said.
Joint sampling is done at Point Beach, uShaka, South Beach, North Beach, Battery Beach, Country Club, the river at Kingfisher Canoe Club, the river at Riverside and the river below the Northern Wastewater Treatment Works.
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Head of the Water and Sanitation Unit Ednick Msweli said joint sampling with Adopt-a-River will be done for the next few months.
“Our intention is to compare the results but also to educate the public about the processes of water testing because there’s often a misunderstanding when the public compares results by the City with those of independent organisations.
“If the same sample has not been taken at the same place and at the same time, it is inevitable that the results won’t be the same, hence the joint sampling. This is because environmental conditions change all the time, therefore results will fluctuate if they are taken on different occasions,” said Msweli.
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