The quality of drinking water across South African municipalities has deteriorated so much so that the 2023 Blue Drop Watch Report has indicated that the drinking water produced from some municipal water treatment systems during the 2021/2022 municipal financial year did not meet the minimum SANS 241 standard and could have posed a potential health risk to consumers.
In terms of the Water Services Act, when the tests carried out by a municipality indicate that the water supplied poses a health risk, the municipality must inform its consumers and residents of such.
“The public can safely consume water from their taps if their municipalities indicate that the water being provided is being tested and meets the requirements of SANS 241. Municipalities are responsible by law to inform affected constituencies as soon as there is any change in quality,” the department confirmed.
However, it is unclear if all affected municipalities did inform its residents and consumers of such.
The results were revealed by Water and Sanitation minister Senzo Mchunu at the release of the Interim Blue, Green, and No Drop Watch Reports on Tuesday.
A total of 151 Water Supply Systems (WSS) were inspected, and the findings offer a representative overview of systems owned and operated by 140 municipalities and 26 water boards and bulk water service providers.
Out of 151 WSS, 128 (85%) were found to be in an “average, good, and excellent” condition, whilst 23 (15%) were found to be in “poor and critical” condition.
The best overall performing water supply systems were found in Gauteng, followed by the Western Cape and Eastern Cape.
WSSs in poor and critical state were located in the Free State, Limpopo, Northern Cape, and North West.
The report indicated that the costs needed to restore and refurbish dysfunctional systems amount to almost R1.5 billion, with the bulk of the investment needed is for Free State and KwaZulu-Natal.
Drinking water quality analyses have indicated that only 38% and 11% of systems achieved excellent and good microbiological quality, respectively, while the balance of 51% had poor to bad microbiological water quality status.
Chemical compliance analyses showed that 16% and 14% had excellent and good water quality, respectively, while the vast majority of plants failed to achieve chemical compliance at 71%.
In terms of the condition of water treatment infrastructure, 3% of the sampled systems were found to be in a critical infrastructural condition, 12% were found to be in a poor infrastructural condition, 49% were found to be average, 31% in a good infrastructural condition, and 5% in an excellent infrastructural condition.
In the 2012 Blue Drop report, only 10% of municipalities had bad or poor microbiological water quality, as opposed to 50% in this sample. This indicates that there has been a deterioration in drinking water quality since the last blue drop report was done, the Minister said.
The 2022 full Green Drop report identified 334 wastewater systems in a critical condition in 90 municipalities across South Africa. Following the release of that report last year, Mchunu said the Department issued non-compliance notices to all those municipalities, requesting the municipalities to submit corrective action plans to address the shortcomings identified in the report.
At the time, only 168 municipalities submitted corrective plans, with 43 requesting the department’s support to develop corrective plans.
Almost a year later, and only 34 of the 168 plans submitted to the department were being implemented, with the balance still in planning phases or no progress reported, the department stated.
For those municipalities that did not submit corrective action plans, the department issued directives in terms of the National Water Act compelling them to submit such plans.
However, some situations required more drastic intervention as Director-General of DWS, Dr Sean Phillips, confirmed that criminal charges have been laid against at least seven of the municipalities which have not submitted corrective action plans.
The full report can be found here.
kailene.pillay@inl.co.za
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