The problem was first raised publicly by the social development, infrastructure development and technical services portfolio committees who‚ on May 16 and 17, highlighted that high levels of E.coli — a bacterium indicating contamination by faeces or sewage‚ which can cause a number of illnesses — was found in the water supply.
This raised questions over Makana’s management of water-supply infrastructure and sanitation.
Only after these concerns were raised during the committees’ meeting did officials explain that they had not been testing the water‚ and did not have the necessary chemicals to treat the water because of financial constraints.
They assured the public that the chemicals were on the way.
In 2015‚ Makana municipality hired Amatola Water‚ a company which specialises in providing sanitation and water supply services to municipalities‚ to manage Makana’s unreliable water supply.
According to the Grahamstown Residents Association (GRA) and officials‚ this left Makana without the skills or resources needed for water management operations.
"At Waainek they ran out of chlorine‚ but now [that the public has been informed]‚ the Department of Water and Sanitation has gotten involved to get it working properly‚" Bull said.
Months later‚ after independent tests were done in Grahamstown and the issues were raised at the portfolio committees’ meeting‚ the municipality was forced to address the issue of contamination.
It is an issue of municipalities who only think they are accountable to their political parties‚ when you need to be accountable to your residents‚" Kota said.
Infrastructure upgrades were under way at both James Kleynhans and Waainek water treatment plants.

The problem was first raised publicly by the Social Development and Infrastructure Development and Technical Services portfolio committees who‚ on 16 and 17 May‚ highlighted that high levels of E.coli — a bacterium indicating contamination by faeces or sewage‚ which can cause a number of illnesses — was found in the water supply.
This raised questions over Makana’s management of water-supply infrastructure and sanitation.
Only after these concerns were raised at the committees did officials explain that they had not been testing the water‚ and did not have the necessary chemicals to treat the water because of financial constraints.
They assured the public that the chemicals were on the way.
According to Flow‚ a Rhodes University student research initiative‚ there are two water treatment works in Makana: the James Kleynhans Water Treatment plant‚ which supplies the poorer eastern side of Grahamstown with water‚ and Waainek Water Treatment works‚ which provides water to the wealthier university orientated side.
In 2015‚ Makana Municipality hired Amatola Water‚ a company which specialises in providing sanitation and water supply services to municipalities‚ to manage Makana’s unreliable water supply.
According to the Grahamstown Residents Association (GRA) and officials‚ this left Makana without the skills or resources needed for water management operations.
Months later‚ after independent tests were done in Grahamstown and the issues were raised at the portfolio committees meeting‚ the municipality was forced to address the issue of contamination.
It is an issue of municipalities who only think they are accountable to their political parties‚ when you need to be accountable to your residents‚” said Kota.
Infrastructure upgrades are underway at both James Kleynhans and Waainek water treatment plants.

Sources in the public health engineering department said it will take at least seven days’ time to restore the supply of piped water.
Choudhury.
Khan has directed officials to step up efforts to provide succour to the flood victims.
The deputy commissioner has entrusted three additional deputy commissioners and sub-divisional officer (Sadar) to make assessment of the damages and to submit a report to him.
In a meeting with the managers of 17 tea estates on Tuesday, additional deputy commissioner and chief executive officer of the District Disaster Management Authority E.L. Faihreim requested them to provide drinking water to people and fodder for the livestock affected by the deluge.
It was decided in the meeting that the tea garden management will supply at least 10,000 litres of drinking water through tankers to the affected areas.
The executive engineer of the public health engineering department will direct the rural water supply plants to ensure supply of the required quantity of drinking water to the tea garden authorities till the situation improves.
The tea garden management will have to arrange fodder for the affected livestock and it would be lifted by the district veterinary and animal husbandry office for distribution.
Over two lakh livestock, and poultry have been affected in the floods.
Two persons lost their lives.

The Virginia Department of Health recently approved the town of Hurt’s drinking water after one of 10 samples taken in September showed lead levels above federal guidelines.
Daily news emails Enter your email: Apps: iOS • Android The level of lead in drinking water has received more attention since the water crises in Flint, Michigan, garnered national media coverage in 2015.
Still, Danville Office of Drinking Water Field Director Jeff Wells said he doubts the homeowners were exposed to that level of lead for long as the town has had historically low amounts for decades.
The regulations allow for one of the 10 samples to be an outlier, said Poindexter.
“This was an extremely isolated incident,” he said.
“There’s no history of that issue in this area.” Within the last week, Hurt said the Virginia Department of Health said no more action was needed as the issue was resolved.
The single 106 parts per billion reading was the 10th highest sample taken in the state in 2017, according to data on the Virginia Department of Health website.
He said the EPA requires the town to take 10 water samples every three years to remain in compliance with federal water standards, each sample from a different location in a different part of the town.
Poindexter said the high lead level was likely due to an old meter that allowed more lead into the water than current regulations did.
Wells said the meter found by the town didn’t comply with regulations set in 2014.

“I think we’re just scratching the surface on water contamination on the East End.” Mr. McAllister, who has spoken out to the East Hampton and Southampton town boards about the contamination, said in a recent interview that he wouldn’t be surprised if the region continues to see more cases of PFOS and PFOA contamination as more testing and research is conducted.
So far on the South Fork, plumes of water contaminated by the pair of chemicals have been detected in Westhampton, Hampton Bays, East Quogue, and Wainscott.
In Wainscott about 140 private wells near the East Hampton Airport were found last summer to have PFOS and PFOA contamination—although an exact source of the contamination has yet to be officially identified.
Of the contaminated wells, nine homes reported levels of the chemicals above the health advisory level, and another 131 wells have been found to have traces of the chemicals below the health advisory level.
Since the detection, East Hampton Town declared a state of emergency in the hamlet of Wainscott and allotted $400,000 in funding to provide grants to homeowners with tainted wells to help pay for in-home water filters.
The town supervisor also pointed to a flaw in the process for testing for unregulated chemicals: Chemicals are often not tested for health safety risks before entering the marketplace.
“I think it has a lot of similarities,” Mr. McAllister said.
Henry Bokuniewicz, a groundwater expert and a professor at Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, warned that it’s not easy to stop contamination once it hits the groundwater.
Generally speaking, to stop such contamination from flowing through the groundwater, one must take two steps: detect the source of the plume, then find a treatment.
Since the Hoosick Falls contamination, DEC officials have reportedly been testing more frequently near fire training centers and airports—where the firefighting foam was commonly used—as well as near other common sources of contamination, such as landfills.

NEW DELHI – Hundreds of millions of Indians are in need of clean water and demand may twice exceed the available supply by 2030, a government think tank has warned.
200,000 people already die annually due to drought and water contamination.
The second-largest population in the world is suffering from the worst water crisis in its history, with the situation deteriorating year by year, according to a study by the government-run National Institution for Transforming India (NITI Aayog) think tank.
“Currently, 600 million Indians face high to extreme water stress and about 200,000 people die every year due to inadequate access to safe water,” the study warned.
The current state of India’s water resources is equally concerning, the study noted.
Crops that need a lot of water planted in areas unsuitable for them, and waste being dumped into canals.
The South East Asian nation saw a number of water-related protests in recent times.
Tensions over water allocations from the Narmada River were gripping Gujarat, the home state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
In March, state authorities limited irrigation takeaways from the river, asking farmers not to sow crops.
Scores of people died in violent protests over the Kaveri River dispute between southern Indian states of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

The extension continues the work needed to increase access to clean, treated drinking water in homes and buildings on reserve.
The federal government contributed approximately $27.6 million to this project, in addition to the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte First Nation’s contribution of approximately $3.3 million.
The water main extension will expand the distribution of treated drinking water to the Mohawk Community Centre, fire hall, home-support building, the Orange Lodge and four residential homes as part of a multi-phased approach to addressing long-term drinking water advisories in the community.
Indigenous Services Canada is contributing $845,561 towards the cost of the water main extension.
Our government is proud to partner with the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte First Nation to expand their water system.
I commend Chief Maracle and Council for their efforts in improving water distribution that will carry many benefits for their community" The Honourable Jane Philpott, M.D., P.C., M.P.
Minister of Indigenous Services "Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte First Nation has had drinking water issues for quite some time, and we are pleased that funding has finally been approved for the extension of the water main.
We are pleased to see the Government’s commitment to eliminating all First Nation drinking water advisories in action in our community."
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For the last one-week, a Gairigaon villager in Sergithang, Tsirang, his neighbour and four labourers have been working to connect clean drinking water to his home.
Nim Dorji, 40, said he never thought he could connect his home with drinking water.
He said he and his family suffer from diarrhoea several times a year.
Their family became serious about drinking boiled water after Nim’s wife got typhoid.
With new water taps constructed, he said he is eager to drink from clean pipes.
The rural water supply scheme (RWSS) project connecting Nim and his neighbour’s home with piped water would complete in about four days.
“Our taps are dry most of the time.
The water drawn from the river was first collected in a tank (Alay tank) and then supplied to Tsirangtoed Primary School, the only beneficiary then.
The chairman of the water committee, Tshering Dorji, said the water collected at Alay tank through the old pipeline from Paw River is shared through three outlets today.
“The water supply to Tsirangtoed and Kapasey is shared with Soentabsa village on the way.” He said the water drawn from the source is already scarce and the local line is shared on the way.

The ‘Composite Water Management Index’ report surveyed the ground water levels across India, among other factors, and predicted that 21 Indian cities will have no water by 2020.
In fact, by 2020, 21 major cities, including Delhi, Bangalore, and Hyderabad, are expected to reach zero groundwater levels, affecting access for 100 million people," the report said.
The study also found that the median state in a list on providing water supply on urban areas, could only provide water to 75 percent of the state’s urban population.
Bihar could only provide water to 20 percent of its urban population, and states like Rajasthan, Jharkhand and Kerala weren’t faring to well either.
Rajasthan could only provide 38 percent of its urban population with drinking water in 2016-17.
In comparison, Gujarat provided drinking water to 100 percent of its urban population, and Madhya Pradesh and Punjab were close behind.
In the foreword, Amitabh Kant, director of NITI Aayog wrote that 70% of the drinking water being supplied to households in India is contaminated.
"With nearly 70 percent of water being contaminated, India is placed at 120th amongst 122 countries in the water quality index," he wrote.
The contamination of water is more rampant in rural areas, the report stated.
According to surveys cited by the report, 800 million people in India live in rural areas and form 70 percent of the country’s population.

Do not use the well water for drinking, cooking, making ice, brushing teeth, or even bathing until you are satisfied that the water is not contaminated.
In order to ensure that the water is safe, the well should be disinfected, then the water should be tested to make sure pathogens have been completely eliminated.
If the well casing has been submerged in flood waters it is likely that the well water has become contaminated.
If the pump’s control box was submerged during the flood all electrical components must be dry before electrical service can be restored.
Emergency Disinfection of Wells that Have Been Flooded Before Disinfection: Check the condition of your well.
If you notice any damage, call a professional before the disinfection process.
Step 4 Add the total bleach required to 5 gallons of water in a clean bucket and slowly pour the bleach mixture in to the well casing.
Step 6 Turn on all cold water faucets in the home starting closest to the well, allow water to run until chlorine odor is detected and then turnoff the faucet.
Run the water until there is no longer a chlorine odor.
Step 9 Once you are convinced there is no longer bleach in the system you can collect a sample for bacteria testing, bottles are available at all Health Department offices.