The Vhembe District Municipality (VDM) was not very helpful when the civil rights organisation AfriForum came to test the water quality of the new boreholes in Makhado (Louis Trichardt) on 28 February.

Only then did they admit that they had already taken water tests, of which the results showed that the water of some boreholes was unfit for human consumption. “Hydrocare is busy installing chlorinators at the four new boreholes,” said VDM spokesperson Mr Moses Shibambu on Tuesday.

AfriForum’s head of environmental affairs, Mr Julius Kleynhans, and their Limpopo organiser, Mr Tiaan Esterhuizen, visited the town on Wednesday and Thursday last week. They were taken on a tour by the local AfriForum exco to visit a couple of sewage hotspots and the boreholes.

“What I observed so far is typical of the low 23% green-drop score of Limpopo and typical of management that is not pro-active in terms of maintenance and upgrading,” Kleynhans said afterwards.

“This alone constitutes a criminal offence,” said Esterhuizen on seeing the sewage river, which is, incidentally, just 50m from the newly drilled borehole in President Street. “There is a chance that pollutants could enter the water table,” Kleynhans said. According to them, the offence of polluting a water source could in some cases lead to a sentence of five years' imprisonment or a fine of R5 million. That could be the outcome of a lengthy process, involving the green scorpions, a possible directive by the Minister and court action.

Local AfriForum chairperson Mr Wally Schultz explained that the contempt-of-court legal process with regard to the lack of a consistent water supply between certain hours every day would take its due course. “In the meantime, we are starting to tackle the sewage problem, which could lead to a criminal charge,” Schultz said.

During the visit to the current waste-water management plant, an official confided to Kleynhans that six pumps were not in working order. The AfriForum team estimated that the plant was less than 50% operational.

Kleynhans took water samples from the sewage river near President Street, the President Street borehole, the new caravan park borehole, and at a municipal tap in President Street. “We will take the samples within the prescribed eight hours to an independent SANS-accredited company to be tested according to the SANS 241 drinking-water quality standards,” Kleynhans said.

In the meantime, Schultz received the water analysis results of the VDM.

The E. Coli counts per 100ml are as follows:

Borehole 1 (in the caravan park): 0

Borehole 2 (President Street): 29.9

Borehole 3 (President Steyn Street): 17.1

Borehole 4 ("near the municipal testing grounds"): 0

The E. coli count for drinking water should be nil. Thus the water of the boreholes at President Street and President Steyn Street (De la Rey Street) was unfit for human use.

The chlorinators could counter the E. Coli counts. Vhembe is also installing a chlorinator at the railway reservoir. Shibambu said that asbestos pipelines from five old boreholes had been replaced and that pipes and pumps would be tested this week.