WATER QUALITY FIT FOR SWIMMERS

Competitors taking part in the aQuelle Midmar Mile over the next two weekends need not worry about the quality of the water, says Shami Harichunder, Corporate Stakeholder Manager, Umgeni Water

He said routine fortnightly Midmar Dam impoundment water quality testing was going on as usual. “The results where Umgeni Water samples (near the dam wall, but still very representative of the majority of the impoundment, including the race route) are entirely acceptable for full contact recreation.”

Harichunder said the average result from July last year to the present is just 20/100 mL, the median result is actually only 9 / 100 mL (and that is the result that would be used as the main assessment of full contact recreation), plus on at least three occasions in 2020, the result was zero.

“There cannot be a better result. E.Coli presence is measured as MPN/100mL. (MPN stands for ‘Most Probable Number’ and refers to a method that uses dilution cultures and a probability calculation to determine the approximate number of viable cells in a given volume of sample. For example, 50 MPN/100 mL means that the Most Probable Number of viable cells in 100 mL of sample is 50). The requirement by the Department of Water and Sanitation for full contact recreation is that the median result be <130 E. coli / 100 mL.”

He added that there are “some algae present at the moment, but they are mostly not the types that seem to cause any irritation from swimming / direct contact”.