The colour, that varies from a yellowish to dark brown, has made it impossible to do simple household chores like laundry and bathing in it is not an option.
Mr Theo van Vuuren, municipal administrator, said the colour of the water is caused by high manganese concentrations in the raw water supply, which the staff at the purification works initially had problems dealing with.
“What became evident is that Witbank Dam has very high levels of manganese and there are definitely sources polluting the dam,” Van Vuuren said.
He said there is an ongoing investigation into where the dam is being polluted from by the high manganese concentrations.
WITBANK NEWS asked their readers if their water has improved.
“If you mean the quality of the water changed for the better? Colour still the same and water is full of rubbish, I work in Rustenburg, and every week I come home the water smells hey, so the standard is still falling short of the grade bar, still more improvement has to happen,” Mr Rudi Martin commented.
Ms Cornelia Mokoena said the colour of the water at her home has improved, “It has, and its no longer dark brown but I still wouldn’t risk drinking it.”
“Yes my water did change it was brown then it turned yellow and now it is clear,” said Ms Lize-Marie Prinsloo, who lives near Bankenveld.
To treat the water and reduce manganese concentration requires a very intensive management process, especially in the dosage of chemicals to reduce the levels. The chlorinators have not been installed at places on the line to make provision for this level of dosage, while filters now became clogged much quicker, leading to more backwash and therefore even reduced volumes being released.
With the high levels of manganese coming in, sedimentation after application of the chemicals takes place often in the reservoirs, creating abnormally high levels of sludge. Power outages lead to a drop in the supply of water and reservoir levels run low, allowing the sludge with high concentrations of manganese to enter the network.
“As we have not sufficient volumes we cannot flush the reservoirs at regular intervals at this stage to get rid of the sludge. The result of all this is that people do experience from time to time discoloured water entering their taps. This varies from day to day and depends on many factors as stated above,” Van Vuuren said.
