Towns in the Hantam local municipality of the Northern Cape, are facing a severe water shortage.
The latest figures show there are 4591 households
in the municipality, which
consists of people living in Loeriesfontein, Nieuwoudtville, Brandvlei, Calvinia, Middelpos and Swartkop.
The municipality forms part of the Namakwa District Municipality.
Calvinia is the most recent town in the Hantam municipality to battle with a water problem.
Riaan van Wyk, the acting municipal manager for
the Hantam Municipality, said Calvinia, which usually receives winter rain had received only 30ml, compared to the expected rainfall of 200ml each year.
The Karee dam, which supplies the town, dried up at the end of last year and, as a result, borehole water is being pumped to supply the households in the area.
Van Wyk said the borehole water goes through a filtering system and then is pumped to households. The borehole water has been used since last month.
However, residents claim the water is undrinkable as it is foul tasting and smelling.
This they blame on the filtering system.
They say the water is used only for washing themselves and instead they buy drinking water from shops in the area, which filter the borehole water themselves.
But Van Wyk, said the
water was safe to drink and tasted different to the dam water because it contained more salt than usual.
The locals also complained about the borehole water making people sick.
Van Wyk again said this was due to the salt in the water. However, he said he has not been informed of anybody getting sick as a result of drinking the water from the taps.
Lulu Mxekezo, spokeswoman for the Northern Cape Department of Health, said it was not aware of an increase in the number of people getting sick as a result of drinking the water.
“There is no marked increase in the number of cases seen when we compare our data with information from previous years for the condition.
From October 2016 until January between 16 and 21 cases were treated per
month in the area. We are currently awaiting test results to check the quality of water in the area.”
Van Wyk said their water was sent away every month for testing and the last test, which was conducted last month, showed the water was safe to drink.
But a number of local shops have opted to filter the borehole water which comes from the taps and re-sell it to the community.
Cobus and Eureka van Der Merwe, who run the local butchery in the area, said they sold more filtered water than meat these days.
Last month they made R22000 on filter water. This month they are already standing on R10000.
They sell around 4500 five litre cans of water a month.
“Not everybody has enough money to buy the water as they are also paying the municipality for water and rates,” said Cobus.
They also claimed a few locals had spotted worms in their tap water.
Locals would like the municipality to improve the filtering system, saying it was not working well.
However, Van Wyk said to upgrade to a different system would be costly.
Another concern is that even though the town is going through a drought, residents are fined only once they use 40000 litres of water, which Cobus said was very high.
Van Wyk said they were planning to bring down the number of litres each household is allowed to use.
This will be discussed at a meeting later this month and the proposed amount is 20000 litres for each household.
There were also a number of residents who claimed the borehole water levels were very low and had heard that in the next three months Calvinia will be without water. However, Van Wyk slammed the rumours.
“Nobody can see how much borehole water there is.”
But he said should the borehole water dry out, it would be a disaster for the town.
He also said they had no plan for Calvinia should the water dry up.
But he said water would need to be redirected from either the Doring River, which is 60km from Calvinia, or from Clanwilliam Dam, which is 200km away.