Rand Water assures people they use chlorine to disinfect water taken from Vaal River, making it safe to drink
There is no risk of cholera infections related to tap water within Rand Water’s areas of supply, the water utility said.
“There are media reports that indicate that cholera was detected downstream of Rand Water’s abstraction points, ie kilometres away,” it said. “We wish to inform our customers that even if cholera were to be detected around our catchments, Rand Water uses chlorine as a disinfectant, which is able to deal with cholera the same way as it does E. coli. So far, there is no risk of infections related to tap water within Rand Water areas of supply.”
Rand Water provides water to more than 17 million people in municipalities spanning Gauteng, parts of Mpumalanga, the Free State and North West — an area that stretches over 18 000km2.”
Rand Water’s statement came after civil organisations AfriForum and Save Ngwathe said last week that a water sample they had taken from the Vaal River at Parys in the Free State on Tuesday had tested positive for cholera.
By Monday, 23 people had died in cholera-hit Hammanskraal, north of Pretoria, where nearly 230 patients had been treated for diarrhoeal disease since 15 May, while one person had died of cholera in Vredefort in Parys.
AfriForum and Save Ngwathe said the sample that tested positive for cholera was taken about 10m downstream from a manhole that had been pouring sewage into the river for some time.
“It is this very water sample that is contaminated with cholera and E. coli. It is extremely worrying that the withdrawal point for Vredefort’s water is only 1km from the sewage spill. It is precisely in Vredefort where there are also confirmed cases of cholera and where a resident died from this virus.”
The two groups said there are several places where raw sewage flows into the river because of infrastructure that is “burnt out or is simply not available”, load-shedding and because there is no emergency assistance such as generators and emergency pumps.
Safe for consumption
Wisane Mavasa, spokesperson for the department of water and sanitation, said that tap water in the Ngwathe local municipality is safe for consumption.
“Regarding the reports that drinking water in the Ngwathe Local Municipality … may be contaminated by cholera, the department has conducted water quality tests on all the sources of drinking water and can confirm that the analyses indicate that treated water reticulated to taps in the area complies with SANS 241 quality requirements and is therefore suitable for human consumption,” she said. SANS 241 is the framework for drinking-water quality in South Africa.
The point in the Vaal River where AfriForum apparently took a sample of water and found the cholera bacterium, is close to a sewage-spilling manhole that is flowing into the Vaal River, Mavasa said. “It is therefore not surprising that raw [untreated] water from that part of the river tested positive for cholera. However … this does not mean that treated water supplied by the municipality contains cholera.”
Officials from the department have investigated the sewage-spilling manhole and “are in the process of issuing a directive to the municipality to stop the pollution,” she added.
Rooiwal ‘likely source’
Mavasa said while the source of the cholera outbreak in Hammanskraal has yet to be determined, it “is most likely being caused by pollution of water sources in the area” from the City of Tshwane’s Rooiwal wastewater-treatment works, upstream of Hammanskraal, which had not been well maintained and has insufficient capacity to deal with the volume of wastewater entering the works.
The department’s 2022 Green Drop report, which calls for excellent wastewater quality management through incentive-based regulation, indicated the “deteriorating state” of many municipal wastewater-treatment systems, she said.
“This means that many municipalities are discharging effluent from the wastewater-treatment works, which does not meet the specified treatment levels, which in turn is resulting in pollution of the rivers and dams from which municipalities and water boards draw water to treat it before supplying it to communities.”
Gauteng residents, however, “may be assured that they can continue to consume water from their taps as long as their municipalities continue to indicate that the water being provided meets the requirements of SANS 241. The same applies to water supplied by municipalities throughout the country.”
Poor governance, weak management
On Monday, President Cyril Ramaphosa described the deaths of 24 people in Gauteng and the Free State from cholera as “deeply tragic” in his weekly newsletter.
Disease outbreaks, such as the cholera outbreak in Hammanskraal, are made worse in situations of poor governance, weak management and poor maintenance of infrastructure, he said.
“While the original source of the cholera infection has not been located, this waterborne disease is highly transmissible in conditions where there is inadequate access to clean water and sanitation facilities. Unreliable and poor-quality drinking water has been a problem in Hammanskraal for many years.
He cited how, over the years, the department of water and sanitation had issued numerous directives to the City of Tshwane to address pollution from Rooiwal.
“Regrettably, these directives were not acted upon. Consequently, the department initiated legal action to force the city to use its grant from the national government to refurbish and upgrade the wastewater-treatment works.”
‘Full accountability’
While there must be “full accountability” for the failings that have resulted in the Hammanskraal outbreak “at this time … we must stop the spread of cholera and take remedial measures to safeguard human health”.
Generally, water quality in South Africa is of a high standard which, according to the Water Research Commission, “compares well with the best in the world”, he said, noting, however, how poor governance, ineffective management, increasing debt and underspending on public infrastructure like wastewater-treatment plants have contributed to poor water quality.
“Under these circumstances, the fact that many councils underspend on critical infrastructure grants is unacceptable,” he said.
Ramaphosa said it was encouraging that the City of Tshwane and the department of water and sanitation were working together to ensure the various water supply systems met drinking quality standards.
He had asked water and sanitation minister Senzo Mchunu to make recommendations to strengthen the governance, management and regulatory framework for municipal water and sanitation services. This included ensuring that national minimum norms and standards are comprehensive, adequately monitored and adhered to by all water service providers.
Meanwhile, the department’s 2022 Blue Drop progress report found that 34% of water-treatment systems in South Africa rank in the high or critical risk categories for delivering unsafe water, according to epidemiologist Jo Barnes, who said this amounts to one in every three municipal treatment systems.