South Africa: Municipalities Are Failing to Present Clear Water. Residents Are Stepping in to Repair the Drawback

Municipalities will solely clear up their act if officers are sentenced to jail, says lawyer

• Piped water in two-thirds of South Africa’s municipalities doesn’t meet minimal requirements.
• Untreated sewage usually flows into consuming water dams.
• Failure by nationwide and provincial authorities to take motion sees citizen teams approaching the courts.

Nearly two-thirds of South African municipalities accountable for supplying consuming water to residents are both failing to offer water that meets the minimal consuming requirements, or just failing to check the water they provide.

Not all South Africa’s municipalities are accountable for treating and supplying consuming water to residents. Many municipalities are provided by water boards that are state-owned firms. However of the 144 municipalities that do deal with and provide water, 94 have been failing as of 11 October. These municipalities are accountable for supplying consuming water to at the least 22 million folks, when matched towards Stats SA’s 2016 Community Survey.

Exacerbating the scenario, 112 of 144 (77%) of those municipalities that provide consuming water have been polluting streams, rivers, and oceans with untreated or partially handled sewage. Overlapping consuming water and sewage remedy failures have been evident in 81 municipalities.

These statistics are extracted from the Division of Water and Sanitation’s personal publicly accessible water and sanitation data repository.

And geolocation and subject analysis reveal that in lots of instances the place sewage works are or have been failing, reminiscent of in Winburg within the Free State, Emalahleni and Standerton in Mpumalanga, Buffalo Metropolis within the Japanese Cape, and Koster and Swartruggens within the North West, untreated or partially handled water is polluting the dams from which consuming water is extracted.

There are additionally communities reminiscent of Mazista and Mogogelo within the North West Province, Makhanda, Fort Beaufort and Butterworth within the Japanese Cape, Mbokoto village in Limpopo, and your entire Ugu District Municipality on the KwaZulu-Natal south coast, which don’t obtain water or have suffered water outages lasting days and even weeks. These are just a few examples extracted from a present news search.

South Africa’s largest metropolis, and the nation’s financial hub, Johannesburg, just isn’t exempt. Though water to Johannesburg is provided by Rand Water – a state-owned firm – and meets high quality requirements, water distribution is a municipal accountability, and this 12 months for the primary time, water distribution to giant elements of the town is failing. In contrast to water shortages skilled within the metropolis of Gqeberha within the Japanese Cape, Johannesburg’s water shortages aren’t as a consequence of drought – the Vaal Dam from which it obtains water is about 91% full. The shortages are as a consequence of infrastructure and planning failures, exacerbated by loadshedding, according to reports.

However many municipalities have been struggling soiled water and intermittent provide for years. And within the face of inaction, or at greatest ineffective motion, from related nationwide authorities departments such because the Division of Water and Sanitation, some residents have determined to take issues into their very own arms.

In search of assist from the courts

“It was December 2019 after we approached the court docket,” stated lawyer Adreas Peens in Koster, a small city within the Kgetlengrivier municipality within the North West Province.

Peens represents the Kgetlengrivier Involved Residents, who went to the Justice of the Peace’s Court docket to grant them entry to the water remedy works so they may get it operating once more after it had been shut down throughout a municipal employees’ strike over wage will increase.

The court docket granted them entry, and the water provide was restored.

This success, stated Peens, gave the involved residents braveness to handle the municipality’s longstanding water and sanitation failures by means of the courts.

A 12 months later, in December 2020, Peens was within the North West Division Excessive Court docket with an pressing software to take custodianship of the municipal water remedy works and the sewage works.

He stated uncooked sewage was being diverted through ditches and pipes from the sewage works in Koster, and the close by city of Swartruggens, straight into the Koster and Elands Rivers. The discharge in each instances was upstream of the dams supplying consuming water to the cities.

Swartruggens farmer Wilhelm Rocher, who in November final 12 months was elected as an impartial municipal councillor, stated sewage had been flowing into the Swartruggens dam since at the least 2014.

On 18 December 2020, Decide Samkelo Gura dominated in favour of the residents, ordering the municipality to cease uncooked sewage flowing into the rivers – a problem which had not been resolved regardless of a go to from the provincial environmental affairs minister – and to instantly repair the causes of the issue. Decide Gura additionally declared that the water remedy works on the two cities have been in “states of disrepair”, and “mismanaged”.

The interim order gave the municipality two weeks to place an finish to sewage air pollution and supply a steady provide of fresh consuming water. Failure to take action would permit the involved residents to “take management” of the infrastructure, and the municipal supervisor would serve a minimal 90 days jail sentence.

The municipality didn’t meet the phrases of the order. By early January, Willie Jones, an engineer and head of Jones Masjiene, a 20-year-old household enterprise manufacturing agricultural gear, was on the helm of a workforce repairing the water remedy works and sewage works. Inside days, they have been supplying clear water and releasing clear sewage effluent. On 21 February, information programme Carte Blanche posted a video of Jones drinking the treated water launched from the Koster sewage plant after it had been fastened. Although the municipality didn’t meet the two-week deadline to restore its water and sanitation failures, the municipal supervisor has not been imprisoned. He received a subsequent court docket attraction.

However, defined Peens, in an enlargement of the preliminary interim order, on 12 January the court docket ordered the municipality to nominate an “implementing agent” to take management of the water and sewage infrastructure.

Peens stated the involved residents did not need to handle the vegetation on a everlasting foundation, solely to intervene.

However when as soon as the appointed agent, Magalies Water, a state-owned firm initially established in 1969 to offer water to the platinum mines in close by Rustenberg, took over on 17 March 2021, water provide issues re-emerged.

A partial win

Two weeks after Magalies Water took over, water provide in Koster started to fail, stated Rocher.

“We get water for perhaps an hour, hour-and-a-half within the morning,” stated Kenalemang Morule, who lives in a family of 4 adults in Koster’s Hospital Heights, inside a stone’s throw of the water purification plant.

Interviewed in October this 12 months, Morule stated water usually flows from the faucets between about 5am and 6am. “We open the faucets after we fall asleep, in order that the [sound of running] water will wake us up,” he stated.

However sometimes the faucets keep dry for days and even weeks. “We are able to go for 3 weeks with out water.”

When that occurs, folks purchase water from those that have boreholes, such because the Bem-Vindo Lodge. The going fee was about R5 for 20 litres. For these with out vehicles, wheelbarrows are used to cart the drums and buckets.

Resident Joseph Moeti stated from January to March 2021, “when Jones was in cost”, the water “was good”. Moeti stated the water was clear and the provision was common, and his workforce even painted the fence across the water purification plant.

“After March (when Magalies Water took over) all the things went down once more”.

“Jones is a white man, however he was a superb man,” stated Moeti.

Pensioner Mary Montsho, who lives additional down the hill in Reagile, stated she additionally solely obtained water “for a number of hours” a day, and “generally it is soiled”.

Like her neighbours, she stated she crammed buckets and barrels when the water flowed, with the intention to present sufficient for the wants of three adults and three youngsters in the home. The youngest is simply three years previous.

Whereas Montsho, Moeti, and Morule all stated they drink the water provided, information from the Division of Water and Sanitation web site, captured on 11 October, confirmed water high quality in Kgetlengrivier municipality was “dangerous”. It had a microbiological compliance of 94%, indicating the presence of fecal coliforms reminiscent of E. coli. The minimal consuming water requirement to ensure that the water to be labelled “good” is 97%. It was, nonetheless, reaching “glorious” standing for chemical compliance.

An inspection of the sewage effluent launched into the Koster River revealed a clear outflow, displaying that what sewage reached the plant, was being successfully handled. However not all of the city’s sewage was reaching the sewage works. A big leak a number of hundred metres above the sewage works was evident, with uncooked sewage operating down what seemed to be an previous furrow, towards the river.

In Swartruggens, Rocher, who every day checks the consuming water reservoir ranges, stated the water and sewage have been “hundred p.c”.

In the meantime, Peens is concerned in ongoing litigation in an effort to have Magalies Water eliminated as an agent and have Pionier, a for-profit firm initiated by the Afrikaans civil society group Afriforum, appointed instead.

An instance for others

The partial, however important, enchancment in water provide and sewage remedy in Kgetlengrivier municipality has spurred residents of Mafube municipality within the Free State to take related authorized motion.

In January this 12 months, the Mafube Enterprise Discussion board took the municipality to court docket, acquiring a judgment from the Free State Excessive Court docket in April. The court docket ordered the municipality, with oversight by provincial authorities, to instantly stop the air pollution attributable to dysfunctional sewage plant operations. As within the case with Kgetlengrivier, the municipality was instructed to pay authorized prices and related provincial authorities who have been additionally cited as respondents.

Nevertheless, in response to Jacques Jansen van Vuuren, chair of the Vaal Dam Reservoir Catchment Discussion board and liaison officer for the Mafube Enterprise Discussion board, regardless of the court docket’s order, no motion has but been taken by the municipality or the provincial authorities.

“We’re going to court docket to see if we are able to get contempt of court docket expenses towards these accountable,” stated Jansen van Vuuren.

He stated untreated sewage from the cities throughout the municipality, Frankfort, Tweeling, Cornelia, and Villiers, was all flowing to the Vaal Dam, which is the consuming water provide for Johannesburg. Together with different failing municipalities, this contributes to the continued risk to Johannesburg’s drinking water supply.

Information reveals Mafube municipality fails to report on the standard of sewage effluent, although it is a authorized requirement for working the sewage works. All compliance and monitoring ranges are at zero, suggesting the municipality can be not reporting the standard of its consuming water.

Jansen van Vuuren stated no consuming water was being delivered to the city of Cornelia at current. He stated after they met with the municipal supervisor on Monday 24 October, two days earlier than talking to GroundUp, Cornelia had been with out water for 4 days. He stated the municipal supervisor had not offered an evidence.

Doing it for themselves

The picturesque Free State city of Clarens within the Dihlabeng municipality is within the foothills of the majestic Maluti Mountains. Right here residents took the issue of water provide failures, as a consequence of frequent pipe breakages, into their very own arms.

Former chair of the Clarens Village Conservancy, Bastiaan Verhoek, stated water pipe breakages started in about 2017, and acquired to a degree the place water provide was interrupted to elements of the city thrice per week.

“We’re a vacationer city with about 200 guesthouses so we had to assist ourselves. Guests would not come again if that they had no water.”

Because the municipality had no cash to purchase the mandatory elements, municipal workers would dig down and expose the fault, and “residents would exit and purchase the elements,” stated Verhoek. He stated in contrast to in Kgetlengrivier municipality, the place the court docket ordered the municipality to refund the involved residents the R15.8-million in bills incurred, the Clarens residents purchased the elements out of their very own pocket.

He stated water provide was now fixed, though the pipe community was previous and wanted to be totally changed. “Clarens ratepayers are combating to get that on the finances,” he stated.

Concerning water high quality, he was of the opinion it was “okay”, though inadequate provide in peak vacationer durations prompted the municipality to sacrifice high quality in a bid to take care of provide by bypassing the water remedy course of.

Division of Water and Sanitation information reveals that as of 11 October, Dihlabeng municipality, underneath which Clarens falls, failed water high quality requirements, with microbiological compliance cited as ‘poor’ at 97%. Acute chemical compliance was at 0%. As well as, Dihlabeng sewage works have been failing, with all sewage compliance indicators throughout the “dangerous” or “poor” parameters.

The official response

Inquiries to Kgetlengrivier and Mafube municipalities weren’t answered. We couldn’t determine how one can contact Dihlabeng municipality; the web site is outdated.

The Division of Water and Sanitation is conscious of the deterioration in municipal water and sanitation companies, stated the division’s director-general Sean Phillips, and consequently has developed a Water Providers Enchancment Programme. The programme “goals to strengthen authorities’s help and intervention at municipal degree, extra persistently and systematically,” stated Phillips.

In keeping with this, the division “is growing rolling regional help and intervention plans” primarily based on the info it collects. This might be managed by the division’s regional places of work, in session with provincial governments and municipalities.

Phillips stated there isn’t any provision within the Water Services Act for the division to situation a directive when consuming water just isn’t compliant. Nevertheless, he stated, there’s a legislative evaluation of the Water Providers Act underway to empower the division to implement compliance with consuming water high quality.

At present, the Water Providers Act requires nationwide authorities to watch efficiency and will there be efficiency challenges, the minister could intervene by means of a Constitutional course of.

Sewage air pollution, nonetheless, violates provisions of the National Water Act, and as such, notices and directives had been served to 88 municipalities through the 2021/22 monetary 12 months, associated to sewage air pollution, Phillips stated. These have been “triggered by air pollution incidents reported and proactive investigations undertaken”.

He stated a “huge array” of contraventions had been discovered, starting from manhole overflows attributable to blockages, malfunctioning pump stations inflicting sewage overflows in water sources and discharge of “substandard” effluent from wastewater remedy works into water sources.

Phillips stated “some” of those municipalities subsequently submitted motion plans to handle the air pollution, a few of these plans have been insufficient and the division had taken “additional enforcement motion”.

In some “unlucky” instances the municipalities had not responded to the division’s directions, he stated.

He stated the place the municipalities had not complied, the division had initiated civil motion. Two examples have been Modimolle and Lekwa Native Municipalities, towards which the courts had ordered the municipalities to take remedial motion. The Modimolle municipality complied, however the division is monitoring Lekwa municipality’s implementation of the court docket order. (You possibly can learn in regards to the scenario in Lekwa municipality here).

He stated in “sure circumstances” the division would institute legal motion. There have been 9 municipalities dealing with legal expenses for contravening provisions of the Nationwide Water Act, and a few of these had been initiated by the division, Phillips stated.

Lately, a case had been opened by a member of the general public towards the Rand West Metropolis Native Municipality for discharging partially handled sewage right into a river. The case was heard within the Randfontein Regional Court docket in Might. The court docket imposed a R10-million nice on the municipality, R7-million of it suspended for 5 years offered the municipality met sure provisions.

Earlier this 12 months, the Thaba Chweu Native Municipality obtained a R10-million nice by order of the Lydenburg Justice of the Peace’s Court docket, for ignoring complaints about sewage spilling into the Dorps River, and permitting waste to pile up on the streets since 2011.

In search of accountability

However Peens believes fines issued towards municipalities are ineffective. And as Phillips states, some municipalities don’t even reply. Mafube Native Municipality, which in response to Jansen van Vuuren has achieved nothing to cease the continued sewage air pollution regardless of a court docket order to take action issued six months in the past, is a living proof.

Peens says the municipalities pay the fines with ratepayers’ cash, and infrequently a lot of the nice is suspended in any case.

Municipalities will solely clear up their act if the accountable officers are sentenced to jail, he believes. For that reason, he was again within the North West Province Excessive Court docket on 27 October to push an software to have the Kgetlengrivier municipal supervisor imprisoned as per the unique court docket order. Even a suspended jail sentence would imply a legal document dismissal from the municipality.

This, he stated, would set a precedent, and shock the accountable officers throughout all South Africa’s failing municipalities.

“Our purpose is accountability,” stated Peens.

Information visualisations by Yuxi Wang. This investigation was produced in collaboration with the Heart for Collaborative Investigative Journalism and OpenUp, with the help of the Open Society Basis.

Definition of “failure”

There are a selection of high quality indicators for consuming water and sewage effluent.

For consuming water, indicators embody microbiological compliance, acute chemical compliance, power chemical compliance, and aesthetic compliance, amongst others.

For wastewater (sewage), indicators embody microbiological, chemical, and bodily compliance.

Failure, for the aim of this evaluation, is decided by microbiological compliance. In response to water high quality skilled and Professor on the College of Free State’s Centre for Environmental Administration, Anthony Turton, that is the simplest issue to deal with.

Microbiological compliance pertains to the variety of fecal coliforms within the water. There ought to be lower than 10 colony forming models per 100ml in consuming water, and fewer than 1,000 colony forming models in handled wastewater (sewage) effluent. Fecal coliforms, reminiscent of E. coli, don’t survive lengthy outdoors the intestine the place they originate and are simply eradicated with chlorine.

Municipalities the place microbiological compliance was labelled “dangerous” and “poor” by the Division of Water and Sanitation, have been thought of to have did not adjust to minimal requirements. These labelled “good” and “glorious” have been seen to fulfill minimal requirements.

There are municipalities which attain microbiological compliance however fail chemical compliance, however these have been discounted on this evaluation. In consequence, failure is extra widespread than even the microbiological compliance ranges point out.

The information informing this text was scraped from the Division of Water and Sanitation’s Built-in Regulatory Info System (information repository) on 11 October 2022.