The Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality’s potable water supply is safe for human consumption as we consistently add more chlorine to kill bacteria, e.coli and cholera amongst others, but it comes with the risk of affecting the chemical composition of our water.
Barry Martin, Senior Director: Water and Sanitation, said this at a visit to the main supply dam of the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality, Impofu, this morning.
“The Bromodichloromethane levels go up when you add more chlorine. However, we are erring on the side of caution to ensure that we do not have any outbreaks of waterborne diseases and that our water is safe for human consumption.
“We advised our consumers before that if they have compromised immune systems, to boil or filter municipal water as an added precaution. However, our water is safe to drink.
“Our consumers in the Western and Central parts of the Metro receive a mixture of water from different sources.
“We are abstracting water from the Gariep Dam, which is a hard water, the water from the West is a soft type of water and we also add water from the Kouga/Loerie system and boreholes to our distribution system.
“We therefore added higher levels of chlorine for the last year or so, to ensure that the water is safe. The newspaper headline that you saw today, concentrates on a small number of chemical elements that we are addressing. We monitor our water quality continually at more than 70 locations. The higher Bromodichloromethane levels were picked up at a handful of them.
“Our focus is on overall compliance and not the small number of chemical compositions highlighted by the newspaper, to ensure that our water supply is safe to drink.
“We recently spent R2 million to upgrade our plant at Loerie to automatically add chlorine dioxide to the treated water. Our initial trials show that the Bromodichloromethane levels are at about 10% above the SANS 241 standard and we are working towards bringing this percentage down,” Martin said.
The oversight visit by Executive Mayor Gary van Niekerk coincided with a rain shower at the Impofu dam, located in the Humansdorp area.
Asked if the shower is sufficient to bring relief, Mayor Van Niekerk, said it is welcome, but not nearly enough to make a meaningful impact.
“Any rain is welcome, especially higher up in our catchment area, closer to Kareedouw and Joubertina. This rain will help to saturate the ground and if we get more rain, it could lead to a more meaningful inflow into our dams.
“The purpose of our visit here today is to encourage residents to continue water conservation as the recent rain was not nearly enough to break the drought.
“We also would like to encourage residents to harvest rainwater in water tanks, if possible, to build up their own reserves.
“Our current combined dam levels are at 22%, with our main supply dam, Impofu only at 7%,” Mayor Van Niekerk said.
Issued on behalf of the Office of the Executive Mayor
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