Makana battles dirty water crisis

Some residents of Grahamstown and other parts of the Makana Municipality have been without access to clean water for months.

This follows the discovery by independent laboratories in the middle of last month that levels of E.coli bacteria in Makana’s drinking water supply were unsafe.

This sparked outrage among residents and civil society organisations, which accuse the municipality of inefficiency and mismanagement.

The problem was first raised publicly by the social development and infrastructure development and technical services portfolio committees, which, on May 16 and 17, highlighted that high levels of E.coli – a bacterium indicating contamination by faeces or sewage that can cause a number of illnesses – were found in the water supply.

Only after these concerns were raised at the committees did officials explain that they had not been testing the water‚ and did not have the necessary chemicals to treat the water because of financial constraints.

They assured the public that the chemicals were on the way.

According to Flow‚ a Rhodes University student research initiative‚ there are two water treatment works in Makana – the James Kleynhans Water Treatment Plant‚ which supplies the poorer, eastern side of Grahamstown with water‚ and the Waainek Water Treatment Works‚ which provides water to the wealthier university-oriented side.

The water comes from the surrounding Orange and Kariega river systems which act as catchments in surrounding valleys.

This results in small‚ highly polluted streams carrying sewage leaks‚ spilt oil‚ chemicals and faeces into the rivers‚ and then the water storage dams.

“The eastern township side has long suffered from pipe leakages and heavily silted water from James Kleynhans,” Grahamstown Residents’ Association secretary Tim Bull said.

“Infrastructure and maintenance are a problem.”

In 2015‚ the Makana Municipality hired Amatola Water to manage Makana’s unreliable water supply.

However in August last year‚ Amatola Water withdrew its services due to a R40-million unpaid debt from Makana.

According to the Grahamstown Residents’ Association and officials‚ this left Makana without the skills or resources needed for water management operations.

So when chemicals needed for treatment were running out‚ which is estimated to have been about February this year‚ instead of alerting the minister for water affairs or the public as is standard procedure‚ officials revealed at the portfolio committee meetings that R41 000 worth of hydrochloride swimming pool tablets had been bought in an attempt to treat the water.

But this was insufficient for the vast amount of water which needed to be treated.

“At Waainek they ran out of chlorine‚ but now [that the public has been informed]‚ the Department of Water and Sanitation has gotten involved to get it working properly‚” Bull said.

Months later‚ after independent tests were done in Grahamstown and the issues were raised at the portfolio committees meeting‚ the municipality was forced to address the issue of contamination.

“A number of residents were affected because they didn’t receive notices that it was crosscontaminated,” Unemployed Peoples Movement chairman Ayanda Kota said.

“We have had people taking their babies to clinics or to health practitioners with either fever‚ diarrhoea or because they have a rash.

“They were not aware that they were supposed to boil the water.”

Kota led 25 members of the organisation to deliver buckets of dirty water from taps and raw sewage to a public consultation meeting on May 31.

Dali Mlenzana‚ the director of engineering and infrastructural services at the Makana Municipality‚ assured residents that the necessary chemicals had been delivered two weeks ago and were already in use.

However‚ he advised residents to continue boiling tap water for at least the next two weeks.

Infrastructure upgrades are under way at the treatment plants.

-GroundUP