Rustenburg – The brown-coloured water in the Rustenburg area in North West poses no health risk, bulk water supplier Magalies Water said on Monday.
Magalies Water issued a notice on December 26 regarding the water quality concerns in the Vaalkop-Bospoort Supply Scheme that affected Magalies Water’s area of supply within the Royal Bafokeng Administrative (RBA) areas and Rustenburg Local Municipal (RLM) jurisdiction,
Spokesperson David Magae said specialists from the Water Services Division, embarked on a fact-finding mission to establish the origin and causes of the coloured water.
“Preliminary and final results later found that the water supplied did not pose any health risks to consumers despite the brown colour it possessed,” said Magae.
He said scientific testing and analysis of the potable water was done.
A detailed report was produced on the causes, effects and remedial actions required to improve the quality of the water on the side of the bulk customers.
“As of the 28th of December 2023, water quality in the supply scheme had started to show improvements, and consequently in the water being distributed water supply scheme to RBA and RLM,” said Magae.
“After system optimisation and process refinement, the water was compliant with the requirements of the SANS 241 specifications as stipulated by law.
“He said recent water quality challenges were triggered by numerous factors deriving from natural process that were beyond Magalies Water’s control.”
He said specifically, that erratic changes in raw water quality were due to sporadic shifts in climatic conditions that induced stratification and other biogeochemical processes in the Vaalkop Dam.
This impairs the quality of water abstracted from this mega-impoundment and further afield.
In response, Magalies Water took swift and agile initiatives to correct the prevailing challenges and changed the abstraction level in partnership with the Department of Water and Sanitation.
This was informed by the depth sampling of the water column since the raw water constituted elevated levels of manganese and organic matter in the previous abstraction point and that was posing adverse operational challenges, he said.
“Magalies Water ascertains to the customers in the RLM distribution network that the integrity of the system has been restored and it is now producing water that meets and surpass SANS 241 specification…”
