Drinking water is safe to consume, but boil or filter if you have health concerns
Published: June 14, 2023<< BACK TO NEWS
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 at the main supply dam of
the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality, Impofu, this morning.
"The Bromodichloromethane
levels goes up when you add more chlorine. However, we are erring on the side
of caution to ensure that we do not have any outbreak 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.
Ends
Issued on behalf of the
Office of the Executive Mayor by Media Management Officer Kupido Baron (082 780
2726 / 041 506 1500 / kbaron@mandelametro.gov.za / @kupidobaron).
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