Poor rain and low dam levels are to blame for the ongoing water cuts and the nasty tasting water residents have to cope with.
The only people smiling are those who bottle prepared water.
In a technical explanation to the crisis, Hannelie Hickley, Senior Manager: Operations and Laboratory Services with uThukela Water, the bulk water suppliers, told the Courier:
“Turbidity (Turbidity is a measure of how clear the water is. High turbidity means that there are a lot of particles suspended in the water and light cannot get through. Low turbidity means that there are fewer particles in the water and it is more clear)
readings above 1 NTU’s were detected in the reticulation points in Dundee and Glencoe. This only has a aesthetic non-conformance not a health non compliance.
“This is due to the surges that occurs in the reticulation system due to the flow restriction and low reservoir levels at times.
“What was also detected was that the raw water supply from Donald McHardy is brown, has a foul smell, muddy, earthy taste. Activated carbon are being dosed at the plant to assist with this.
“But no health non conformance has been detected in any of the samples up to last week. Unless this morning’s samples indicated some non-conformance, then you will be inform immediately.
“We don’t have much of an option, if we don’t use Donald McHardy supply, then we lose at least 2 Megs of raw water a day. This water assist us with supplementing the Tayside supply as daily power outages of at least 2 hours are being experienced. Then the supply from Tayside drops to as low as 9.8 Megs/day.
“Raw water samples of Donald McHardy, Verdruk and Tom Worthington will be collected and tested.
“The dam levels are low, it is oxygen depleted water with high organic matter that is left in the dams. We need urgently lots of rain to increase the local dam levels.”
