These are all the towns in SA

These are all the towns in SA where the water is not safe to drink – report

Tap water, anyone?

These are all the towns in SA

Many South Africans from across the country know that they can not drink the tap water in their town. It might be “legally” safe to do so, but they know that if they drink it they will have a messed up stomach for the next day or so. AfriForum has tested the water quality in 156 towns this year and some of the results are exceptionally worrying.

Last year, the organisation said that 7 out of 132 towns did not adhere to quality standards for drinking water. This year, only 3 towns didn’t make the cut.

The seven from last year were: Pretoria West‚ Belfast‚ Lydenburg‚ Piet Retief‚ Witbank‚ Schweizer-Reneke‚ Stella.

“The water tests conducted by AfriForum show worrying results, especially in terms of poor sewage management, and indicate the continuous decline in South Africa’s infrastructure and a lack of skilled personnel to manage water bodies. AfriForum cautioned the towns that did not meet the set microbiological standards and requested the municipalities concerned to restore the water standard within 24 hours,” says Marcus Pawson, AfriForum’s head of Environmental Affairs.”

The three towns that did not meet minimum quality standards this year are: Ellisras in Limpopo and Heilbron and Villiers in the Free State.

Test from Ellisras indicated that the drinking water contained E.coli, while Heilbron and Villiers contained a high concentration of faecal coliforms.

“The drinking water of three towns (Ellisras, Heilbron and Villiers) did not meet the national standards for drinking water. After the municipalities concerned did not address the problem, AfriForum used new water purification technology to clean the water.”

While the water may now be “clean” AfriForum warns that the municipalities could let the water deteriorate again at any time.