Pretoria - The water in Carolina, Mpumalanga, has been declared safe for human consumption and complies well with South African standards.
This was announced on Tuesday by Water and Environmental Affairs Minister Edna Molewa, shortly after a North Gauteng High Court judgement, which found no order against the department for the contamination of water.
The drinking water in Carolina was found to be contaminated by acid mine water seepage in January.
The department has since been working closely with all stakeholders including the Gert Sibande District Municipality, Chief Albert Luthuli Local Municipality and Inkomati Catchment Management as well as other agencies and parties in an effort to ensure that the supply of safe water is restored.
Welcoming the court judgement, Molewa said that to date, the department has spent over R5 million on various initiatives following the discovery of the water contamination problem in January. These included the provision of water tanks, tanker services and the Accelerated Community Infrastructure Programme in the Gert Sibande District Municipality to upgrade the water treatment works on behalf of the Chief Albert Luthuli Local Municipality.
"The department was instrumental in declaring the water in Carolina unsafe for human consumption and sprang into action with the commissioning of the provisioning of the interim water supply measures, the only interruption that occurred was for five days during the community unrest that led to the burning of some of the tanks and a tanker truck.
"As soon as the department was notified of the problem in Carolina, our Rapid Response Unit was dispatched to the area to help with efforts to restore water supply in the area, together with the stakeholders, the department established a technical committee, which is still in place to continue to monitor the progress," Molewa noted.
The municipality has been ordered by the court to provide adequate amount of water in a tap within the next three days. The municipalities fall within the definition of water services authorities and are therefore responsible for ensuring access to water services in their areas of jurisdiction.
Molewa stressed that mines continued to be held responsible to clean up all point sources of pollution and further warned that they would pay for failing to comply.
"In spite of this most welcome announcement, we are aware of the fact that there remains so much to do to ensure that the source of the pollution is dealt with in most effective manner, we will continue with our catchment management responsibilities together with the Inkomati Catchment Management and will intensify the regulation of activities impacting on the quality and quantity of our water resources."
