NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
FOR WRITTEN REPLY
QUESTION NO 2221 (NW2930E)
DATE OF PUBLICATION IN INTERNAL QUESTION PAPER: 13 NOVEMBER 2009
(INTERNAL QUESTION PAPER NOâ¦)
2930 Mrs A T Lovemore (DA) to ask the Minister of Water and Environmental
Affairs:
Whether (a) water that is supplied for domestic use, (b) waste water
that is discharged from waste water treatment works and (c) river
water known to be used by communities for domestic purposes is
analysed on a regular basis to determine the presence and level of
Cryptosporidium oocysts; if not, why not in each case; if so, what are
the relevant details of such analysis in each case?
NW2930E
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REPLY:
a) Yes. Water treated for the purpose of domestic use is continuously
monitored to determine compliance with the physical, chemical and
microbiological limits of the National Standard (SANS 241:2006) by
the responsible water services institutions. Monitoring varies from
filtration efficacy determination through high frequency
operational monitoring, to highly sophisticated Protozoa (including
Cryptosporidium) monitoring by means of high volume micro
filtration. Generally smaller municipalities opt for the
operational monitoring option due to the extremely high cost for
cryptosporidium analyses. Bigger water services providers such as
Rand Water has perfected the micro filtration option. The general
indication of overall protozoa analyses is that tap water is free
of cryptosporidium.
b) The microbiological quality of waste water discharge is required to
be determined continuously as part of license and General
Authorization requirements. This monitoring is based upon highly
dependable indicator determinants due to high cost to test for
every possible determinant that might be present.
(c) River water known to be used by communities is not tested for
Cryptosporidium oocysts. However, should the presence of
Cryptosporidium oocysts be expected due to the presence of other
indicator organisms, analyses will be done at a regional or local
level.
The reason for only conducting ad hoc/sporadic analyses is due to the
fact that the cost of monitoring Cryptosporidium presence in raw
river water is in the order of R3Â 000 per sample. To determine the
viability of the organisms, will add R1Â 000 per sample. At the
moment, the Department relies on the presence of other indicator
organisms for further specific analyses. The cost for analyses and
identification of these indicator organisms are substantially
lower, and also relatively easy to do.
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