Ugu water is safe to drink
Even the though the water looks dirty, Ugu has assured consumers it is safe to drink.
SOME South Coasters have been getting brown water coming out of their taps, but Ugu municipality has assured residents that its water meets the South African National Standard.
Ugu spokesman Sipho Khuzwayo said the municipality is aware of this problem.
“The municipality’s water services has detected a colour problem in the water body supplying areas from Hibberdene to high lying areas of Southbroom and inland areas such as Bhobhoyi, Murchison, Gamalakhe and Nyandezulu,” said Mr Khuzwayo.
He explained that the colour problem has been attributed to the change of colour in the Mzimkhulu River owing to the high flows received on the weekend of November 15 and 16.
“The turbid water from the high flows concentrated at the off-channel storage dam rendering the treatment process temporarily malfunctional. Due to this some areas went without water and some received dirty water,” he said.
With its immediate response teams, Ugu resolved the challenge and brought the turbidity levels to a manageable state.
“The water produced is within the South African National Standards. Therefore water produced during the affected period is known to be drinkable and in satisfactory condition,” assured Mr Khuzwayo.
He added that an aggressive scouring programme in all the areas has been formulated to flush out the systems that are reported to have yellow/brown coloured water.
“With the dam shutdown, settling is expected to suffice in the next seven days and should this problem persist, consumers are urged to report to the municipality,” he said.
“The municipality apologises to all its customers for this temporary inconvenience, Ugu is doing everything necessary to ensure the normal water colour is restored,” he concluded.
Who’s kidding whom here? Seriously, the brown water problem has been a recurring problem for a while now. And by a while I mean last year. Funny that it is attributed to turbulence in the river. I do wonder whether there was much turbulence during those long months of no rain as the water was brown then too! Besides the brown water has discoloured my kettles and toilet pan. I wonder what it’s doing to my bladder and kidneys.