Water crisis looms: 81% of sewage discharge not adequately treated

South Africa is – especially with regard to treated sewage wastewater – on the brink of a severe water crisis. From the outflow of 140 sewage wastewater treatment works (SWWTWs) that were tested this year, only 19% of these met the minimum standards. This means that in an alarming 81% of cases the water that SWWTWs dump into rivers has not been adequately treated.

This is one of the most worrying conclusions drawn in AfriForum’s latest blue and green drop report. This annual, independent report was launched today in Vereeniging at a broken sewage pump station to showcase the complete decay of municipal sewage infrastructure. This is one of hundreds of locations nationwide where fresh water sources (such as the Vaal River) that supply drinking water to communities, are polluted with raw sewage.

The 2023 report contains the complete results of water quality samples that AfriForum’s network of 161 branches across the country took of municipal drinking water (blue drop) and the outflow of processed sewage water (green drop) from local SWWTWs during August.

The report points out that South Africa’s drinking water still largely meets the minimum requirements. Out of the 193 tests in which drinking water was tested, it was tested as unsafe for human consumption in eight cases.

Since 2013, AfriForum has compiled an independent blue and green drop report annually to make reliable information about the quality of South Africa’s drinking and sewage water available to the public. AfriForum was forced to fill the void left after the Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) did not publish any official blue and green drop test reports for almost a decade. Although the DWS resumed its national blue and green drop project in 2022, AfriForum still fulfils an important watchdog function through which pressure can be applied to the DWS and municipalities to call these institutions to account.

This year’s tests were undertaken in August and examined the presence or absence of various chemical and bacteriological components. The tests determine, among other things, the presence of the bacteria E. Coli, which can cause diarrhoea, nausea, vomiting and even kidney failure, and faecal coliform bacteria, which can cause diseases such as enteric fever (also known as typhoid fever), hepatitis and dysentery.

“The results of this year’s tests are cause for serious concern about the overall state of the management of the complete water supply chain in South Africa,” says Marais de Vaal, AfriForum’s Environmental Affairs Advisor. “Although water tests are only carried out in places where AfriForum has branches, and the results only apply to the time at which the water samples were taken, the results paint a picture of the overall health of South Africa’s water,” De Vaal explains.

According to Lambert de Klerk, AfriForum’s Environmental Affairs Manager, around 90% of towns nationwide extract drinking water from bodies of water into which sewage plants dump (un)treated sewage. “The mismanagement of SWWTWs therefore causes a vicious cycle that can also affect the quality of drinking water,” explains De Klerk. He maintains that this will ultimately have a huge impact on the cost of drinking water. “We still pay relatively little for drinking water, but it will become more and more expensive to purify water and therefore the price of drinking water will go up.” He also warns that if the government does not take urgent action to deal with the mismanagement of SWWTWs, the control and management of the plants will break down and this could lead to life-threatening situations such as was the case with the cholera outbreak earlier this year.