The case of the city of Flint in the state
of Michigan, US, provides, not only
interesting reading, but also a few
lessons for South Africa.
Flint is the birthplace of the American
automotive giant, General Motors,
and had at its peak a population of
200 000 people. As the US motor
industry declined, the economy of
Flint deteriorated, and unemployment
soared to 45%. An administrator was
appointed by the State of Michigan to
manage the city of Flint’s affairs.
Until 2014, and over a period of 50
years, Flint was supplied with safe
drinking water by the Detroit Water
Company. In 2014, however, the
Many municipalities do not supply DWS with data and
therefore no clear national perspective is available. This
leaves municipal drinking water systems unregulated and
the public in the dark.
Flint was supplied with safe drinking water for 50 years by the Detroit Water Company, but in April 2014, Flint’s water supply
reverted to the Flint River.
www.waterafrica.co.za
Water Sewage & Effluent May/June 2019
11
What happened in Flint?
innovations
Organisation (WHO) and the now
defunct Blue Drop certification system
only regards water is safe if there is a
proper water quality monitoring system
in place as well as a water safety plan.
These systems, based on international
best practice, ensure that water is
always safe to drink and will not be
harmful to humans.
However, this is where a serious
flaw in the South African system has
developed. The Blue Drop regulatory
system for drinking water quality is an
excellent process but has ground to a
halt as the last Blue Drop report was
published way back in 2014. Although,
limited drinking water quality information
is still available on IRIS (Integrated
Regulatory Information System).
A critical shortcoming in IRIS is that
many municipalities do not supply
DWS with data and therefore no clear
national perspective is available. This
leaves municipal drinking water systems
unregulated and the public in the dark.
Fortunately, best practice first world
standards still apply in most major
metropolitan areas – such as water
supplied by Rand Water (Gauteng),
Umgeni Water (Durban) as well as in
Cape Town, which is therefore safe to
drink. This also applies to a number of
secondary cities and some smaller towns.
Currently, it is however not possible for
the regulator (the DWS) to state that
in general all water in South Africa is
safe to drink; the DWS is misleading
South Africans. The World Health
A
spokesperson
for
the
Department of Water and
Sanitation (DWS) issued a
media statement on 13 March
2019 under the headline, ‘SA’s tap water
is safe to drink’. The announcement
was intended to reassure the public
and tourists that tap water is safe for
human consumption.
In the statement, noble words were
used such as ‘Water is life;
therefore, it is a priority
for
government
to
ensure that citizens
and tourists are
served with safe
drinking
water.’
Nothing wrong
with that. Equally
convincing are
the words, ‘The
establishment
of the Blue Drop
programme
is among the
m e a s u r e s
government has
put in place to
ensure that our water
services institutions,
ie. municipalities and
water services providers,
deliver good quality water that
complies with the South African
Drinking Water Quality Standard
(SANS 241).’
Lead seepage into the drinking water in Flint, Michigan, caused a major public health crisis and an outcry by the public and prompted
President Obama to declare a federal state of emergency.