AfriForum impressed by improvements in water quality
AfriForum has released its blue and green drop reports for this year‚ and their findings show that improvements have been made regarding the quality of South Africa's water infrastructure.
The civil rights organisation tested the drinking water quality in 132 towns across the country and found that only five municipalities did not comply with quality standards.
This‚ AfriForum's head of environmental affairs Julius Kleynhans said‚ was a marked improvement over last year when there were 11 noncompliant municipalities.
The five are: Molento, in the Eastern Cape; Stella, in the North West; Vryheid, in KwaZulu-Natal; Coligny, in the North West; and Tarkastad, in the Eastern Cape.
These communities were informed by AfriForum not to drink the water and the municipalities were put on notice.
Follow-up samples indicated that the water was clean.
The tests were made in towns where AfriForum had a presence‚ said Kleynhans.
“It is incredible to see organised communities taking responsibility and standing up for their rights and monitoring the quality of the water provided by their municipalities‚” said Kleynhans.
He said that his organisation had approached municipalities that had poor quality drinking water and through the threat of legal action had seen water quality being improved within 24 hours.
AfriForum found that Blomhof in the North West‚ which last year was where three babies died from drinking contaminated water‚ now had clean water.
AfriForum's green drop report‚ which tested water at sewage plants‚ had results that were less positive.
Kleynhans said they tested 58 sewage water systems‚ of which 26 did not comply with quality standards. He said that most municipalities denied them access to sample the waste water.
“However‚ we have seen significant improvement in access control to these sites‚ and 15 sewage systems have improved dramatically‚ complying with quality standards on the dates tested‚” Kleynhans said.
The province to show the best improvement over last year was Limpopo; the worst performer was the Free State.
Comments
Press Office
Announcements
What's On
Subscribe to improve your user experience...
Option 1 (equivalent of R125 a month):
Receive a weekly copy of Creamer Media's Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine
(print copy for those in South Africa and e-magazine for those outside of South Africa)
Receive daily email newsletters
Access to full search results
Access archive of magazine back copies
Access to Projects in Progress
Access to ONE Research Report of your choice in PDF format
Option 2 (equivalent of R375 a month):
All benefits from Option 1
PLUS
Access to Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa for ALL Research Reports, in PDF format, on various industrial and mining sectors
including Electricity; Water; Energy Transition; Hydrogen; Roads, Rail and Ports; Coal; Gold; Platinum; Battery Metals; etc.
Already a subscriber?
Forgotten your password?
Receive weekly copy of Creamer Media's Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine (print copy for those in South Africa and e-magazine for those outside of South Africa)
➕
Recieve daily email newsletters
➕
Access to full search results
➕
Access archive of magazine back copies
➕
Access to Projects in Progress
➕
Access to ONE Research Report of your choice in PDF format
RESEARCH CHANNEL AFRICA
R4500 (equivalent of R375 a month)
SUBSCRIBEAll benefits from Option 1
➕
Access to Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa for ALL Research Reports on various industrial and mining sectors, in PDF format, including on:
Electricity
➕
Water
➕
Energy Transition
➕
Hydrogen
➕
Roads, Rail and Ports
➕
Coal
➕
Gold
➕
Platinum
➕
Battery Metals
➕
etc.
Receive all benefits from Option 1 or Option 2 delivered to numerous people at your company
➕
Multiple User names and Passwords for simultaneous log-ins
➕
Intranet integration access to all in your organisation