'Don't drink the water here' - AfriForum takes municipalities to task

Ellisras in Limpopo and Heilbron and Villiers in the Free State did not adhere to minimum water quality standards during May and June this year.

This is according to the tests conducted by civil rights group AfriForum‚ which examined the quality of drinking water in 156 towns this year.

AfriForum said last year‚ seven out of 132 towns tested did not adhere to quality standards for drinking water.

The seven were: Pretoria West‚ Belfast‚ Lydenburg‚ Piet Retief‚ Witbank‚ Schweizer-Reneke‚ Stella.

AfriForum said by applying pressure on those municipalities‚ it had ensured that they passed the test this year.

AfriForum said tests showed that drinking water at Ellisras had contained E.coli‚ while water in Heilbron and Villiers contained high concentrations of faecal coliforms.

The group said it had warned the communities in these three municipalities not to drink the water.

It said municipalities were placed on terms to immediately address the poor water quality.

Marcus Pawson‚ head of environmental affairs at AfriForum‚ said new tests performed at least seven days after the initial tests had indicated that the water was clean.

Pawson said the municipalities used a number of measures to improve the water quality‚ including flushing out the system.

However‚ AfriForum warned that the quality of sewage systems had deteriorated compared to last year.

AfriForum tested the sewage systems of 88 towns this year and found that 58 did not adhere to set quality standards compared to 26 out of 73 sewage systems tested last year.

The standards determine that there may be no more than 1000 units of E.coli per 100ml of water in treated sewage.

The tests had found that Pretoria West sewage contained 15000 units of E.coli per 100ml of treated sewage.

Cape Town North contained a whopping 50 000 units of E.coli per 100ml of treated sewage.