In the last two weeks many scare stories about the local water quality have made the rounds in Grahamstown.
Some of these stories are quite alarming because they suggest that drinking tap water could have serious consequences for a person’s health.
In the last two weeks many scare stories about the local water quality have made the rounds in Grahamstown.
Some of these stories are quite alarming because they suggest that drinking tap water could have serious consequences for a person’s health.
The rumour mill fed on itself and in some schools, children were running around in a state of terror. The immediate consequence of these rumours was a run on bottled water in the supermarkets.
By the middle of last weekend, the shelves where we normally pick up our bottled water were bare. Yet these stories are not without foundation.
There really is E.coli bacteria in the water and by some accounts, there is a lot. Even the municipality put an advert in Grocott’s Mail advising residents to boil water before consuming it. It is almost impossible to avoid all contact with the municipal water supply.
How do you brush your teeth? Do you need to boil water to rinse off your toothbrush? What if you just want to wash off your face and some of the water gets in your eye?
How do you wash your dishes and that piece of lettuce? It is difficult to ensure that not a drop of this water
touches your lips, and judging from the large number of reported cases of tummy bugs – not many people have succeeded.
As the tummy bug cases increase and the rumour mill goes into overdrive, it is easy to lose perspective and run the risk of becoming alarmist.
Scare stories tend to escalate when there is a lack of information because if there are no facts, people make up stories.
We need to take the current concerns about water quality seriously, but it is counter-productive to create panic.
For these reasons, we have tried to provide readers with the most up-to-date information about the water quality in our articles on Page Three.
It appears that the municipality has rectified the most serious problems with the water supply and the quality is improving.
On Monday afternoon at Rhodes University, there will be an open discussion on the latest water emergency so that we can at least have access to all the correct information.
