BULAWAYO City Council is conducting a month-long bulk water reservoir cleaning programme in a bid to enhance the quality of drinking water.
Chief Reporter
The programme, which starts today follows indications by council’s microbiology section that the water supply reservoirs do not contain any bacteria and the city’s tap water is 100% safe to drink.
“The public is advised that the City of Bulawayo will be carrying out bulk water reservoir cleaning programme to enhance the quality of water delivered to the city. The programme will begin on Monday 16 June 2014 with the anticipated completion date being on a Wednesday, July 30 2014” town clerk Middleton Nyoni said in a statement. He said there might be water supply interruptions should the reservoir ancillary components require maintenance.
Recent quality tests conducted by the council’s microbiology section indicated that Bulawayo water was safe and met specifications of the Standards Association of Zimbabwe (SAZ), a statutory body that ensures firms meet and comply with various laid down standards.
Laboratory tests at the reservoirs in Cowdray Park, Ncema, Criterion and Fernhill showed that the water did not have coliforms or faecal matter. Coliforms are a broad class of bacteria.
The presence of coliforms in drinking water indicates a possible presence of harmful, disease-causing organisms, according to research.
“Chemical compliance to SAZ specifications for drinking water remained at 100% during the month under review.
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“Compliance to SAZ bacteriological quality standards which was fairly good is summarised in the two following tables,” the council laboratory results read in part. On the flipside, the effluent from the council’s sewerage treatment plants is polluting the environment and attracting heavy fines from the Environmental Management Authority.
Companies operating in Bulawayo were said to be at fault and council is fine-tuning policies to deal with offenders, among them, United Refineries and the Cold Storage Company (CSC).
“Industries continue to discharge effluent that is rich in pollutants as seen by the red highlighted figures.
“The department is in the process of fine-tuning its polluter-pays principle in order to effectively deal with offenders. Pre-treatment facilities of companies like CSC, United Refineries and Bulawayo Abattoirs are now in a bad state thus posing a pollution risk to city streams and water users downstream of Bulawayo.”
Recently, council sought authority from the government to borrow $13,3 million from financial institutions to purify rivers that are spilling raw sewage and hazardous effluent into the Umguza catchment area.
A Cabinet task-force on pollution was assisting council in solving the problem of pollution.
The task-force, which is chaired by Local Government, Public Works and National Housing minister Ignatius Chombo and comprises five ministries including Health and Child Care, Environment, Water and Climate, Local Government, Public Works and National Housing, is assisting the council.
A recent report prepared by the Cabinet taskforce on the pollution of Umguza River and its tributaries exposed an environmental disaster unfolding in the affected areas.
