Recommendations
4. Regulation of IPR and DPR
plants should be given specific
attention, and included in the
Blue Drop Programme, as well
as in the Green Drop Programme
(for wastewater treatment plants
supplying reuse plants). u
3. Standards for drinking water
quality from IPR and DPR plants
should be included in the SANS
241 as a separate section for
water reclamation plants for
producing drinking water.
technology
1. The Department of Water and
Sanitation (DWS) should use
the information provided in this
report to adopt and implement
standards for direct and indirect
potable reuse in South Africa as
a high priority.
2. DWS should also assist water
service providers (municipalities
and water boards) to have
access to proficient scheme
and plant managers, and skilled
process controllers, by funding
training programmes for scarce
skills (such as membrane
treatment plant operation).
Effective communication of data
or results is all about building trust
relationships. Data without good
communication is worthless and will
not serve any purpose, should an
incident occur where the health of the
public is at risk.
Professionalism and care! Trust
from the public in drinking water
provision is paramount. Internal lines
should be open, the public happy, and
the critics (newspapers or specialists)
convinced that they can trust the
water service provider to rectify a
situation, should something go wrong.
stakeholders about the true reflection
of water quality in the system.
The most common and widespread
health risk associated with drinking
water is microbial contamination and
therefore the control of microbial
contamination must always be of
primary importance. Ensuring the
chemical safety of water requires
a different approach, as not all the
chemicals specified in most guidelines
and standards for drinking water will
occur in all locations, and if they do
exist, they may be present below
levels of concern. However, the
importance of chemicals in drinking
water should not be underestimated,
and it is therefore imperative that
chemical contaminants be prioritised
so that the most important ones are
included in monitoring programmes.
For the optimisation of the
performance of unit treatment
processes, it is important to note
that the measurement of control
parameters should not aim at
concentrations of zero, but rather an
indication of the removal percentage
or log removal. This is an important
feature of measured parameters,
since it would be impossible to
determine the performance of a
treatment process of the measured
parameter that indicates the
performance of the treatment process
is zero at the inlet of the treatment
unit. When the operational control of a
water reclamation plant is performed
correctly, each of the treatment units
of the plant will operate at its optimal
conditions.
Monitoring a water distribution
system requires advanced and
expensive monitoring systems if it is
to be done automatically, which is the
situation that is strived towards. Even
then, at some point manual samples
will have to be taken to check on the
monitoring syst em and to calibrate the
sensors that are used. Good protocols
will ensure that this can be achieved
in an efficient manner. Community size
should be considered when it comes
to monitoring.
Currently the tendency is to have
a more extensive monitoring system
with larger communities since the
risk is higher. However, monitoring
should be extensive, irrespective
of the number of users. This is a
very important point, as it is often
considered that smaller communities
using IPR or DPR may have a scaled-
down version of a monitoring
programme. For obvious reasons, this
should never be allowed.
Water Sewage & Effluent July/August 2017
11