Organisations in Dullstroom denied on Monday that there is something wrong with the water quality in the popular Mpumalanga resort town.
”We would like to assure the public that the quality of water in Dullstroom has never been in question,” the organisations said in a joint statement.
The statement — from the Dullstroom Ratepayers’ Association, Dullstroom Chamber of Commerce and Tourism, South African Leisure and Tourism Association and Emakhazeni municipality — comes after the Democratic Alliance raised concerns about sewage flowing into a trout dam in the town.
DA provincial chief whip Anthony Benadie said that during a visit to the town last week he saw ”human waste material” flowing into the dam.
He said he was told the flow was periodic and it appeared to depend on how full the sewage system was.
”It hasn’t been flowing just for a day.”
The organisations said they cannot deny that effluent spills have occurred in the past.
”However, these were isolated incidents, rather than the norm.”
The South African Press Association was supplied with recent independent analyses that show the water has not been contaminated by effluent.
The organisations said problems with the water in the town relate to supply.
However, they denied a newspaper report that the town was without water over the weekend.
”The statement that Dullstroom was without water this weekend is entirely untrue. The supply problem had been sorted out by Friday afternoon.
”To say the local municipality is ignoring the problem is incorrect. In fact, the technical manager, Mr J Engelbrecht, spent every day last week in Dullstroom.”
They said the supply problems are being attended to by both the municipality and the consulting engineers.
There is great concern in South Africa at the moment about contaminated water due to the typhoid outbreak in Delmas, also in Mpumalanga.
Since August 22, four people have died and hundreds have fallen ill due to the outbreak.
The organisations said water is independently tested in Dullstroom on a monthly basis.
Benadie said he will take members of the Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday to the dam where he saw the sewage. — Sapa