Contaminated water leaves Bronkhorstspruit without safe supply
By the AFREEQUE newsroom, based on Daily Maverick
In Bronkhorstspruit, residents remain without safe drinking water after the municipal plant sent unchlorinated water contaminated with sewage through taps for weeks. More than 400 cases of severe gastrointestinal illness were reported before Daily Maverick published its article, which also reported that the promised water tankers had yet to arrive.
More than 400 cases of severe gastrointestinal illness, mainly among children under four, have been recorded in Bronkhorstspruit after unchlorinated water contaminated with sewage was distributed. The City of Tshwane municipality, which administers this South African city, has asked residents not to drink tap water or use it for cooking or washing, according to Daily Maverick.
Residents of Rethabiseng, a township in Bronkhorstspruit, are collecting water from a broken pipe, while the water tankers promised by the municipality remain grossly insufficient. Local shops are selling drinking water for about one rand per litre, a price that is difficult for Susan Mashilo, an unemployed resident who depends on child support grants, to afford. The situation follows repeated warnings about water quality and a letter of non-compliance sent to Tshwane by South Africa’s Department of Water and Sanitation in February, according to Daily Maverick.
The department had rated the Bronkhorstspruit treatment plant at 42.3% in its 2023 Blue Drop report. In March, Tshwane submitted a corrective action plan, but none of the promised measures had been implemented within the announced deadlines, the department confirmed, as quoted by Daily Maverick.
The crisis comes after the suspension of the head of the Bronkhorstspruit water plant, announced on 23 October, and the three warnings ignored by Tshwane, revealed on 24 October.
