WATER
THE GOOD, BAD AND UGLY
in South Africa’s water compliance The recent publishing of the Blue and Green Drop reports is a significant step forward in disclosing the water and sanitation crisis our country finds itself in after nearly a decade of silence about a slow onset disaster we in the water sector all know too well is unfolding. BY BENOIT LE ROY*
An opinion piece from the SA Water Chamber CEO
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hat the No Drop report is not published is still a concern as this is about the non-revenue water (NRW), which is reportedly at a staggering national average of 41% with physical losses at around 37%. As a country, we cannot afford to augment our water supplies into a leaking system, so this aspect is as important as the water quality and wastewater qualities focused upon in the Blue and Green Drop programmes. We need to understand what brought us to this crossroad, without dwelling on the negative, to identify and understand the root causes and then embark on the remedial actions required. This crisis is no different to the Eskom one, this article was written during ongoing load shedding, although it’s far more serious as there are no substitutes for water while energy has a plethora of options from generators to candles, wood/biomass, paraffin lamps, rechargeable appliances, gas and the list goes on without omitting renewables that are out of the reach of most of our population, unnecessarily so. Firstly, the Blue Drop deals with potable water systems (from the production systems to the bulk delivery pipelines and distribution networks). These are three different and distinctive systems where generally: • Potable water production is produced by water boards directly under national government’s control as the single shareholder and water service authorities (WSA) under district municipality control, which is local government. These systems produce the water in bulk and disinfect before conveying in bulk to their clients that are generally industry, Eskom and municipalities. Mostly, the water board water quality is of an acceptable standard with district municipalities not so. • Bulk conveyance systems generally boost pressure and
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disinfection so that the residual chlorine is compliant at the client’s reservoir. • The client, typically a municipality, then distributes the compliant water to their clients via hundreds to thousands of kilometres of pipelines, pump stations and reservoirs. These municipal systems also require disinfection and pressure boosting to ensure sufficient volume at the delivery points with adequate chlorine residuals. Only 40% of the potable water delivery systems achieved micro-biological compliance to SANS 241. This indicates that there is inadequate disinfection by municipalities. Irrespective of the production origin, it is the water service provider’s mandate to ensure that there is adequate disinfection in their delivery system to comply to microbiological standards. Secondly, the Green Drop deals with the wastewater from municipality, state-owned enterprises, industry and Public Works where around 90% are municipal owned and operated. A mere 2% of these wastewater systems achieved Green Drop status, which means that 98% did not comply, which is a complete system failure. The non-municipal systems achieved 83% of their systems scoring above 50%, admittedly a low bar. In both Blue and Green Drop cases the obvious non-compliance is firmly in the mandate of local government. This is acknowledged by the Ministry of Water and Sanitation without hesitation with the principal reasons for non-compliance given as: • Non-payment for water • Substandard infrastructure upgrades, extensions and renewals • Non-commissioned newly constructed systems • Failed O&M monitoring • Insufficient skills employed
