The Municipal Manager, Ntombi Baart declared the Municipality’s water safe to drink during a Council meeting held on 9 March 2010. This announcement is meant to assure the residents of Makana about the quality of their drinking water.

This should bring some relief to the residents after media reports in the past weeks alleged that the municipal water was “toxic”. The director for technical and infrastructural services, Dabula Njilo said the Municipality decided to utilize services of an independent assessor, Amatola Water which is accredited by the Department of Water Affairs to test the municipality’s water for the presence of alluminium, cadmium, lead and arsenic as mentioned in the media reports as being present in our water beyond acceptable standards.

The results received on 04/03/2010 from Amatola Water by Makana Municipality of chemical analysis state that chemicals were found to be compliant with the Department of Water Affairs standards.

The only point where the reading was found to be more than required is being investigated. It was found to be 124 micrograms of alluminium per liter outside the maximum required limit.

Chemical analysis

Chemical         SANS/DWAE standards                      Amatola Water results
                      Class I water   Class II                           Waainek WTW    Health Office   James Kleinhans   Extension 7   Indoor Sports Centre
Alluminium     > 300              300-500                           < 25                    624                 < 25                    70                36
Cadmium       < 5                  5-10                                  0.15                  0.29                   0.24                  0. 27            0.34
Lead              < 20                20-50                              < 0.1                   < 0.1              < 0.1                   < 0.1            < 0.1
Arsenic          < 5                  20-50                              < 0.1                  < 0.1               < 0.1                   < 0.1            < 0.1

Micro Biological Analysis

Traces of Ecoli which were detected on 16 February 2010 in areas supplied from James Kleinhans due to a faulty chlorinator are no longer detected in our water. A new chlorinator has since been installed.

Amatola Water results show low levels of chlorine in our water system which could be attributed to the fact that the chlorine was still circulating in the system at the time of sampling. It can therefore be confirmed that ecoli is not detected in all the sites tested.

The analysis of the Aluminium Sulphate was tested against the latest product specification as per SABS 1241-1978 and it is within the specified standards.