A major ecological disaster, which could render water from the municipal boreholes permanently unfit for human consumption, is looming in Makhado (Louis Trichardt). This is amidst the prevailing water crisis and a total ban on the use of water for, amongst others, gardening purposes.

The results of tests, conducted last week by officials of the Department of Water Affairs, are now being awaited. The tests were called for after fish started dying in a municipal dam directly water above the aquifer from which some 25% of the town’s drinking water is being pumped. One of the municipal boreholes is a mere couple of metres from where rotting fish were lying at the water’s edge. The surface water is directly downstream from the hopelessly overburdened municipal sewage purification works.

Major problems in the entire sewage system erupted after the local municipality failed to heed timeous expert advice that the existing system would not be able to cope with the drastic increase in sewage to be generated by the giant maximum security prison. Although a doubling of the sewage purification plant was part of the advance planning before the erection of the prison, this urgent upgrading never materialised. In the meantime, several other extensions of the town’s residential and business areas have been allowed, increasing the pressure on the municipality’s outdated infrastructure.

Experts have been issuing serious warnings about the very real danger of contaminating the aquifer that is being fed with the outflow from the sewage plant.

More than a year ago, the serious crisis of continued raw sewage spills caused an eminent expert, Professor Ben van de Waal from Univen, to describe the situation as totally unacceptable. He warned against the immediate danger of raw sewage carrying viruses and dangerous bacteria to the water in the aquifer, tapped by the municipal boreholes.

"Polluted water in an open river will take almost a month to normalise again. Pollution in the underground water supply may take an unbelievable 1 500 years to normalise," Prof. Van der Waal warned. He indicated that contamination of the aquifer could have catastrophic long-term consequences, with a very real immediate danger of an outbreak of life-threatening diseases like typhoid fever.

He said the fish population is usually a very efficient indicator of the quality of water. When large numbers of fish start dying, it is usually an indication of a lack of oxygen and an unhealthy increase in nitrates and sulphates and the possible presence of raw sewage due to the breakdown in the purification process at the overburdened purification plant.

Although questions about this situation have been put in writing to the municipal manager after last year’s investigation by this newspaper, no response was forthcoming on questions about possible emergency plans to expedite, even with the assistance of the central government, a permanent solution to a continued gamble with people’s lives.

Ironically, the latest pollution crisis surfaced a few days before International Water Monitoring Day (October 18), celebrating the importance of clean, unpolluted water.

When the Regional Director of the Department of Water Affairs, Mr Madukani, was approached about the situation at Louis Trichardt he was unaware of any immediate crisis. He promised to find out what the results of last week’s tests were.