There are still fears about the safety of Grahamstown’s drinking water despite reassurances from Makana Municipality that the water is now fit for human consumption.
Last week on Friday E. coli was detected in the water when a chlorinator at the James Kleynhans treatment plant broke down.
There are still fears about the safety of Grahamstown’s drinking water despite reassurances from Makana Municipality that the water is now fit for human consumption.
Last week on Friday E. coli was detected in the water when a chlorinator at the James Kleynhans treatment plant broke down.
A story in the Daily Dispatch focused attention on the harmful effects of high levels of toxic metals and the poor state of Grahamstown’s drinking water.
Rhodes University entered the picture over the weekend when Dr Iain L’Ange, Director of the Residential Operations Division, circulated an email warning those living on campus to boil their water before drinking it to kill the E. coli bacteria.
Then on Monday Deputy Vice-Chancellor Dr Peter Clayton convened a meeting of scientists to assess the situation. During the week Amatola Water retested the water and pronounced it safe.
Amatola Water is an independent organisation that provides water supply and waste water services in the Amathole region. It offers contract services to municipalities for water abstraction, treatment, bulk supply and water quality monitoring.
But in the meantime the quality of the water Grahamstonians are drinking has been put very firmly on the agenda. Dr Saleem Badat will use one of his Vice-Chancellor’s public forums on Monday to focus very deliberately on the water issue and the university is offering its scientific expertise to the municipality to resolve the issue.
While the E. coli issue seems to have been resolved, the ongoing debate about heavy metals in the water is not yet settled.The South African Bureau of Standards (SABS) tested Grahamstown’s water in January this year as part of a routine procedure and found that the arsenic level was 75.61 micrograms per litre while the acceptable limit, according to the SABS, is below 10 micrograms a litre.
The maximum allowable is between 10 and 50 micrograms per litre. They also tested for mercury and cadmium, but these tests were inconclusive and need to be redone. In addition, independent analysis of samples by three separate laboratories, including the SABS, showed that the water was above the legal limit for bacteria and that chlorine levels were below the minimum.
This issue was also raised at a Kowie Catchment Campaign (KCC) meeting held last month. Last year, the student society, Grass, formed a Quality Task Team which worked with Clayton to research the quality of the drinking water.
Grahamstown tap water was tested every 15 days for eightmonths. Its findings revealed that in more than half of the tests that were conducted the aluminium levels in the water exceeded South African and international standards.
There was also concern thatmunicipality technical staff, while able to conduct the tests, were not able to interpret the results to know when aluminium levels were unacceptably high.
The meeting decided that the municipality should send samples to an accredited laboratory for aluminium testing at least twice a month.
In a press release on Wednesday, Rhodes Director of Communication and Marketing Lebogang Hashatse, said that on Monday Badat will hold a public forum in the Barrett Lecture Theatre from 4.30pm to 6.30pm on this issue.
A panel of water scientists and experts will present their views and there will be a discussion afterwards.
