The many sparkling
swimming pools
throughout South
Africa are testament
that it is relatively
easy to purify water.
Assessing the cost of
quality water
Any householder (or municipality) can manage water
quality – but can they afford it?
By Mike Muller
L
ook out the window next time you land
at OR Tambo International Airport in
Johannesburg, and you will see an
interesting sample of backyard swimming
pools. From these, you learn two things.
First, many ordinary householders are
perfectly capable of keeping their pool
water bright and blue. Second, when
economic times are tough, the ratio of deep
green pools to bright blue ones goes up.
This tells us that, while the
management of water quality is relatively
simple (any householder can do it), it
is also influenced by economics. That
should come as little surprise. But it tells
us something about the larger problem
facing South Africa as an increasing
number of municipalities fail to provide
safe and reliable water supplies.
South Africans used to be able to
boast that our drinking water quality was
among the best in the world. No longer.
While in the big cities you can still
happily drink water from the tap, when
you are in a smaller municipality, you
need to think twice.
Part of the problem is that we no
longer get information on drinking
water safety. The national Department
of Water and Sanitation (DWS) used to
publish this in its Blue Drop reports. But
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it became embarrassing when residents
would use the reports to take action
against municipalities because they
provided evidence of serious failures at
municipal level.
Rather than get the message, the
minister decided to kill the messenger.
Production of the Blue Drop report (and
its accompanying Green Drop report,
which documented the state of sewage
treatment), were quietly abandoned.
Water quality has become a sensitive
political issue. That is a pity, because
poor water quality threatens the health of
many people across the country. And we
are not going to be able to hide.
A couple of years ago, the United
Nations agreed (with South Africa voting
in enthusiastic support) to establish
a new set of Sustainable Development
Goals (SDGs), which they want the world
to achieve by 2030. Among them is a
target to ensure that everyone has water
by 2030. But the target is not just to put
pipes and taps in the ground — which
South Africa did very successfully and is
the reason why we easily achieved the
last set of development goals, namely the
millennium development goals (MDGs).
The new target is more ambitious.
It wants everyone to have access to a
Water Sewage & Effluent January/February 2018
water supply that is safe and reliable.
Since many municipalities fail on both
counts, South Africa drops down the
rankings. Worse, government must now
produce regular progress reports to be
evaluated by external experts.
To regain our reputation as a leader in
the field of water supply, we are going
to have to do something differently.
That takes me back to those swimming
pools. The important lesson from those
is not that it is relatively easy to purify
water. Rather, it is that economics rather
than technical issues often determine
whether the job gets done properly or
not.
It is obvious that, particularly for poor
municipalities, there is a need for simple
and robust quality control methods
that municipalities can afford. Some
decades ago, we were told that the
old colorimeter test for chlorine, using
orthotolidine dye, was no longer going
to be available. This cheap and easy test
(also used in swimming pool test kits)
enabled waterworks operators to check
their water hourly.
Then somebody discovered that
orthotolidine was carcinogenic. It was
— when used in big vats as a clothing
dye you would not want to swim in it.