Local groups put Pretoria water quality under spotlight

Climate change and growing city populations are increasingly limiting access to water for many in South Africa.

In 2015, areas of KwaZulu-Natal and the Free State were declared disaster areas due to falling dam levels and low rainfall that led to the worst drought these regions have experienced in almost 50 years.

Taps ran dry in Cape Town in 2018 while Pretoria had to issue warnings as fears about impending Day Zero grew earlier this year.

But more than shortages, experts of WaterCAN and Outa initiative say we shouldn’t forget about our water quality.

Rekord previously reported that the Hennops River was undergoing a clean-up after claims that it was the most polluted in the country.

Development Bank of SA also says that water and sanitation in Africa are an “ongoing crisis that needs to be addressed”.

Dr Ferrial Adam, environmental activist and manager of WaterCAN, told Rekord that there are a few more challenges to water security in Pretoria.

One, according to Dr Adam, was “the lack of enforcement to hold people and companies accountable”. She said that if there was better enforcement, then streams would not be used as dumping grounds for toxic and unhealthy substances.

According to two recent water quality reports, Blue Drop and Green Drop, the Tshwane metro received only an average rating for the water quality from its treatment plants. Green Drop named Baviaanspoort, Ryton, Sutherland Ridge and Rooiwal North water treatment plants as high risk.

Blue Drop, on the other hand, marked Pretoria Temba and Onverwacht systems medium risk systems.

Other local plants received low risk allocations but the WaterCAN initiative notes that these systems can be delicate so it is concerned about a lack of reporting on and transparency about local water quality.

Three Pretoria groups will be testing the water in parts of the Hennops streams and rivers from Centurion over the next five months. In addition, as part of WaterCAN’s testing week, a number of volunteers will test tap water in Pretoria and Centurion for pH, alkalinity, hardness, chlorine and E. coli.

Adam said that they know that some places in the Hennops could have high levels of E. coli, as huge plastic pollution as well as other waste are being thrown in.

“So we are also looking at having an environmental observation that can give us a picture of the dumping going on.”

Adam said they were hoping to get the local communities involved. “We are asking people to review the environmental observations – the look, taste or smell of the water – be it from taps in their home, local streams and other water sources.

“We are also asking people to highlight concerns and upload pictures either to Twitter or Google form.

“We want this project to be an ongoing one and hope to get funding so that we can get thousands of [test] kits out to people.”

ALSO READ: Hennops Revival team and volunteers cleans ARC weir

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