The City of Cape Town has issued a precautionary boil notice for water appearing discoloured across the metro.
In a statement released earlier today, the City said that the notice was prompted after residents noticed discoloured water over parts of the eastern, central and southern suburbs on Thursday.
“Residents in the affected areas should boil their water before drinking or cooking with it as a precautionary measure while the City investigates and does further testing.
“The affected areas are primarily south of the N2 reaching from Strand in the East through Khayelitsha, Mitchell’s Plain, Philippi to Plumstead and down into the Southern suburbs as far as about Muizenburg.
“This precaution should be taken until further notice,” read the notice, citing the limited operational hours of the sludge handling process at the Faure Water Treatment Plant was caused by the effects of sustained load shedding.
“This part of the treatment process cannot be augmented by generator capacity due to high energy demand.
“The continued sporadic bouts of load shedding have a detrimental effect on the City’s operations.
“The City is working on resolving the problem as soon as possible, and would like to apologise for any inconvenience,” the statement continued, adding that they expect the situation to normalise the water quality over the next few days.
The City advised that residents should do one of the following, until further notice:
- Boil the water for at least one minute, allow it to cool down and store it in clean, sanitised and sealed containers. Or,
- Use household bleach (like Jik) to disinfect water. The World Health Organisation recommends adding 5 millilitres (1 teaspoon) of unperfumed household bleach to 25 litres of water. Let the water stand for at least 30 minutes before using it. Or,
- Use water disinfection tablets. Follow the instructions prescribed by the respective manufacturers to ensure the safety of the water for drinking purposes.
