Tap water in six of the 12 water-supply systems of Vhembe District is of excellent quality and safe to drink. These water supply systems are Makhado (Louis Trichardt), Malamulele, Mutale, Musekwa, Mutshedzi and Tshifire.

The water in Musina, Thohoyandou, Elim, Kutama and Thsedza is generally safe to drink but with some recorded microbiological failures.

Nzhelele’s water did not comply with the expected standards.

These findings are recorded in the results of the 2012 Blue Drop Certification Programme (BDCP). The overall results were announced by Water and Environmental Affairs Minister Edna Molewa on Monday.

The overall national Blue Drop assessment score improved from 72.9% in 2011 to 87.6% in 2012.

Limpopo is in the middle (fifth) of the nine provinces, with a score of 79.4%, improving on their 54% of 2009. Gauteng is first with 98.1% and Mpumalanga is the worst performer with 60.9%

Vhembe District Municipality (VDM) is fourth in the province, with a score of 74,85% and is in position 67 on the national log. In 2011, VDM scored 45.87% and was the 101st municipality on the national log.

Malamulele had the highest Blue Drop score (78.39%) in Vhembe, and increased their performance of last year by more than 31%. Mutale followed closely with a Blue Drop score of 77.17% (more than 27% increase). Musina scored 76.95% after a whopping improvement of just under 45%. Mutshedzi scored 72.26% (an increase of just above 26%), Tshifhire got 71.77% (an increase of just above 38%), Makhado (Louis Trichardt) scored 70.59% (an increase of nearly 26%) and Tshedza 67.97% (an increase of nearly 29%). Musekwa, with its Blue Drop score of 58.37%, showed the greatest improvement, just above 48%. The three poorest-performing systems also showed improvements. Elim improved by 24% to 53.79%, Kutama scored 46.40% (an improvement of just above 25%) and Nzhelele got 44.08% after an improvement of nearly 32%.

The report  by the Department of Water Affairs gives credit for the improvements. “The 2012 Blue Drop scores for Vhembe District Municipality indicate the significant achievement of improvement in performance for every water supply system within the water service authority’s area of jurisdiction,” the department said.

Drinking-water quality compliance forms 30% of the Blue Drop score.  Other areas that are assessed are water safety planning, treatment process management, management accountability and local regulation and asset management.

The report warns that “there remain shortcomings that require attention over the next assessment cycle to ensure the tap water quality management” in VDM.  Their incident management protocol must be amended to include subject matter more relevant to drinking water quality and not only emergencies in general.

Another challenge was the number of water-quality results. “The number of data sets (water-quality results) per supply system, and detail of the water safety plans, does not allow for an easy determination of what influenced the number of samples per water supply system,” states the report.

The department further encouraged VDM to develop and implement risk-based monitoring programmes according to SANS 241 (South African National Standards) requirements. “The department could not allocate full scores under the drinking-water quality compliance criteria since the municipality could not present evidence of a full SANS 241 analysis that would indicate key risk determinants. The chemical-monitoring programmes mostly catered for fluoride, iron and manganese; this would be regarded as inadequate in areas where mining activity is prevalent,” the report states.