Photo by: Duane Daws
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.