The City of Cape Town is doing a sterling job of managing drinking water quality in its area of jurisdiction…

Not our words, but the words of new Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs, Ms Buyelwa Sonjica, in awarding Cape Town’s Water and Sanitation Department 100% for the quality of its drinking water.

‘The Department of Water and Environmental Affairs can assure that the served communities [that’s us!] can have confidence in the safeness of tap water as well as the manner in which the quality thereof is being managed.”

At the recent Water Quality Conference in Port Elizabeth, Cape Town was awarded an A for water quality process controlling, monitoring, sample analysis, data submissions, quality compliance and response of quality failures. The A’s (which means full compliance with standards) added up to a Blue Drop Score of 100%, and a 99% compliance with the health parameters of the national standard.

The Department of Water and Environmental Affairs’ Blue Drop Status programme, launched in September 2008, details the drinking water quality in municipalities across the country. Information is sourced from water samples taken over three-months, and municipalities with more than 97% microbiological compliance are issued Blue Drop status.

The Blue Drop status certificate does not only recognise a municipality's ability to provide quality drinking water, but it also gives recognition to the efficiency of the entire process surrounding the purification and distribution of water.

The drinking quality programme was conceptualised partially to restore the public’s trust in the quality of the country’s and our water, because of the lack of credible drinking water quality information to the general public, intensive news coverage of unacceptable water quality situations, misinterpretations of actual water quality, and the recent outbreak of cholera, which created widespread panic.

The City of Cape Town received four Blue Drop Certificates (for drinking water) and one four Green Drop Certificates (for wastewater).
To qualify for Blue Drop Status the local government must achieve 95% based on all criteria.

The City received the following Blue Drop Status (drinking water) certification:

• Certificate for the entire Cape Peninsula.
• Certificate as the Bulk WSP for Drakenstein Local Municipality (Paarl Mountain water supply) 95%.
• Certificate as the Bulk WSP for Stellenbosch Local Municipality (Paradyskloof system) 95%.
• Certificate as the Bulk WSP for Stellenbosch Local Municipality (Franschhoek system) 90%.

Over and above the drinking water Blue Drop Certificates, the City also received Green Drop Certificates for seven of its wastewater treatment plants.