One in three below grade

THE Blue Drop report investigated 1 036 drinking water supply systems across the country and found that more than a third (38%) were considered ”poor” and in need of attention.

The findings show that 174 systems were rated “critical” (scoring less than 30%) and that 245 systems scored less than 50% and were considered “poor”.

Only 44 water systems achieved Blue Drop status, which is awarded to systems that scored above 95%. This was significantly lower than the 98 systems awarded the status two years earlier.

While the more rural municipalities bore the brunt of the problems — some scored as low as 9% — there were deteriorating scores in bigger cities, too.

Even though they were still “excellent”, Blue Drop results in Johannesburg, Cape Town, eThekwini (Durban), and Tshwane (Pretoria), fell.

Only Mpumalanga improved its score (from 61% to 69%), while the Northern Cape remained steady at 68%. Every other province dropped by between 5% and 17%.

According to the Green Drop report, more than half (about 57%) of waste-water treatment plants needed urgent intervention.

The report showed that, of the 824 plants that were assessed — which receive a combined 5 billion litres of waste water a day — 212 (25.7%) were in a “critical” condition and needed urgent attention. A further 259 (31.4%) were graded “high risk” and 218 (26.4%) “medium risk”.

Just 135 (16.3%), down from 199 in 2012, were considered to be “low risk”.