The contamination of our municipal water has forced many members of the community to resort to drinking bottled water or queueing for literally hours at a time in the veld near Coldstream spring.
This is the most visible symptom of the ailing Makana water purification system and the severe drought that has affected the Eastern Cape for almost a year.
The contamination of our municipal water has forced many members of the community to resort to drinking bottled water or queueing for literally hours at a time in the veld near Coldstream spring.
This is the most visible symptom of the ailing Makana water purification system and the severe drought that has affected the Eastern Cape for almost a year.
When we were told a week ago that the tap water contains traces of E.coli a wave of panic washed over us. This was followed by the news that our water contains high levels of toxic metals. So is our water safe to drink, or not?
Simply put, Makana Municipality’s water has become a health hazard to its people. First it was E.coli and then the high levels of aluminium and even arsenic.
We believe it is crucial that the municipality takes action to ensure that our water is healthy and safe to drink for all before people fall ill and start taking the municipality to court.
However we do find it heartening to see that the municipality, the university and the community at large are working together to ensure that this issue is addressed and addressed promptly.
We are also pleased that the municipality has finally appointed personnel for water services. We hope that this will assist the management of the water purification plant and that the process of water testing is done properly and with due process.
We are hoping that Makana Municipality will benefit from the infrastructure development funds that the provincial government is planning to allocate for local government.
On the Your Say page of this edition you can see the results a small survey we did this week, asking people whether they drink tap water.
The result was nothing but shocking – more 50% of the people interviewed said they do not drink tap water. Hopefully, the municipality will take this to heart and speedily address these serious problems.
