
To help residents find quality drinking water in their area the Department of Water and Sanitation has introduced The Blue Drop system to their website.
What is The Blue Drop System?
The home page at www.dwa.gov.za is named My water – it is aimed at finding safe drinking water, as delivered by each local municipality, live. Type in your town, enter, and hey! Find out whether your tap water is safe for consumption, ie. has reached Blue Drop status.
Categories are divided as follows:
Blue Drop:
- Excellent
- Generally safe
- with microbiological failures
- with chemical failures
- Generally safe, but with inadequate monitoring
- with microbiological failures
- with chemical failures
Yellow drop:
- Non-compliant
- Non-compliant, and with inadequate monitoring
Red drop:
- Too low, with extended periods of non-compliance
How safe is the tap water in Bloemfontein?
The Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality, the most densely populated area in the Free State, is divided into Bloemfontein, Botshabelo and Thaba Nchu. Both Bloemfontein and Botshabelo achieved ‘generally safe, but with inadequate monitoring’. At Thaba Nchu however, they have additional chemical failures, but still safe.
In other areas of the Free State people are not so lucky (or extremely lucky in 1 or 2 cases):
Xhariep Municipality has no data, thus classified red.
In Lejweleputswa Municipality, Twelopele has achieved a ‘generally safe, but with inadequate monitoring’, while Matjhabeng has reached the highest honors. Other areas have no data, and as such are awarded a red status.
Thabo Mofutsanyana Municipality is an achiever in Nketoana with an ‘excellent’ rating, but all others receive red drops for no or insufficient data.
And again in Fezile Dabi Municipality, Metsimaholo achieved highest honors, with no others taking part.
(All data is based on March 2017 findings.)
Water (and some of our other resources too), especially clean water for consumption, is becoming more and more scarce. It’s up to you, to ensure you do everything in your power to save water, as well as keep your family safe and healthy.