Mpumalanga water crisis: Health and sanitation concerns as millions go down the drain

With over half of its water supply infrastructure old and crumbling, Mpumalanga is losing millions of litres of fresh drinking water, while municipalities fail to meet their residents’ demand for clean water.

According to the 2020/2021 Provincial Overview Report on Water and Sanitation Services, this situation has placed a significant strain on water supply and results in high water distribution losses that affects municipalities like Lekwa, eMalahleni, Dr JS Moroka and Thembisile Hani.

The status of water and sanitation services report presented by the Mpumalanga Department of Human Settlements to the national council of provinces noted an acute deficit in terms of water resources, where sources such as the dams have already dried in areas such as in Dr. JS Moroka LM.

According to the report, high distribution water losses was due to aged infrastructure (60% asbestos pipes), and aged infrastructure – especially pipes that were laid between 1920 and 1940 – that can no longer cope with the demand, especially in the fast-growing towns.

Vandalism of the existing infrastructure, including people drilling into pipes during illegal connections have also resulted in excessive water distribution losses, with deficiency in the skills for operations and maintenance of existing infrastructure compounding the problem.

Water loss and deficit

With a 20-million litre water deficit, Dr JS Moroka municipality, which has a daily supply demand of over 60 million litres, is the hardest hit by the state of affairs, with Thembisile Hani municipality’s deficit estimated at 17.1 million litres a day against a demand of 66.60 million litres.

Water security is also a challenge in eMalahleni local municipality, with its current demand of 161,92 million litres eclipsing the available supply of 122.49 million litres a day.

The report advised that the war on leaks programme needs to be resuscitated, as it has previously assisted in dealing leakages.

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According to the DA in the province, the 2020/21 municipal annual reports further revealed that in Lekwa, the cost of water distribution losses increased to R77 970 922 from R62 642 352 (or 73%) in 2018/19.

In Thembisile Hani, water losses cost the municipality R62.8 million in the 2020/21 financial year, and in eMalahleni unaccountable water loss increased from 15 439 727 kl (kilolitre) in 2019/2020 to 18 217 509 kl in the 2020/21 financial year.

In Govan Mbeki, unaccounted water losses increased from 10 333 627 kl in 2019/2020 to 11 108 036 kl in the 2020/21 financial year.

Health hazard

Mpumalanga has a total of 91 Water Treatment Works (WTWs) – Gert Sibande District has 23 (25%),  Nkangala District has 13 (14%), Ehlanzeni district has 55(61%), but 18 of these were non-compliant.

“The non-compliant WTWs are compromising water quality which is a threat to the Health of communities. This is a clear indication that operations and maintenance is either poor or non-existent,” the report lamented.

These are, however, being given attention through refurbishment and upgrading, with the report indicating that more support was required to upgrade most of the water treatment works in the province.

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The little water that the residents do have is also not entirely safe for drinking, with the 2022 Blue Drop progress report indicating that between January and December 2020, 71% of water supply systems in Mpumalanga did not comply with chemical determinants.

Only 44% of systems achieved microbiological compliance and 29% achieved chemical compliance, which was of serious concern as the majority of supply systems present a potential health risk to consumers.

More than half, or 56%, of water systems did not comply with microbiological determinants, which the reported said indicates microbiological failures which present a serious health risk to the consumers in these supply systems.

A staggering 71% of systems do not comply with chemical determinants, which may present immediate or potential long health risks, depending on whether non-compliance was for acute health determinants or chronic health determinants.

While the percentage of households with access to sanitation increased from 63.7% to 64.4% between 2016 and 2020, the report notes that there was still a huge challenge in the province on access to hygiene and RDP level toilets given the backlog of 482 024 households (35.6%).

The provincial department of human settlement is however implementing new projects to establish Integrated Human Settlement with access to basic services.

• siphom@citizen.co.za