TAINTED TAPS: Mapped: Bronkhorstspruit an example of SA’s collapsing water system

When the Bronhorstspruit water treatment plant in eastern Tshwane quietly operated for 21 consecutive days without basic chlorination chemicals, pumping untreated water to residents, 833 people (mostly children under the age of four) were struck by gastrointestinal illness.

Mayor Masipa Moya took personal responsibility for the treatment works’ operational failure and promised to remedy the situation.

Days later, a broken municipal sewer pipe in the Groenkloof Nature Reserve pumped raw sewage into the Apies River, which contaminated the groundwater supplying the Fountains springs and the Findlay Water Treatment Works. The City was forced to divert water supply away from the reservoir and issue a boil water notice to residents.

In council meetings and media briefings, politicians such as Tshwane Mayor Moya, Deputy President Paul Mashatile and Water and Sanitation Minister Pemmy Majodina lined up to declare that the water contamination saga was a freak occurrence, the result of sudden mechanical breakdown or rogue contractors.

It was not.

South Africa’s water systems are so degraded that the water contamination incidents in Tshwane are the predictable outcomes of a nationwide municipal infrastructure failure. In April this year, Daily Maverick’s investigation into the country’s growing water crisis sounded the alarm on this.

A map of South Africa’s water quality and wastewater networks shows these barriers are critical across every province.

The Department of Water and Sanitation’s (DWS) Green Drop report and the Blue Drop progress assessment (drinking water quality) released earlier in 2026 show that the country’s water sector is under increased strain.

The 2025 Green Drop Report, which assesses SA’s wastewater infrastructure, found that 47% of wastewater systems were in critical condition, with Gauteng at 87% and the Free State at 85%. Even traditionally stronger provinces such as Gauteng and the Western Cape were showing signs of deterioration.

The Blue Drop progress report, which evaluates drinking water quality, also highlighted concerns.

Nationally, 61.9% of drinking water systems are classified as low risk, but nearly 38% fall outside the low-risk category, with the highest proportion of critical wastewater systems recorded in the Free State at 87%, followed by the Northern Cape at 86%. The traditionally stronger provinces like Gauteng and the Western Cape are showing signs of deterioration here, too.

When viewed in isolation, failing wastewater systems and water quality don’t seem linked; however, drinking-water contamination is inextricably linked to the collapse of municipal Wastewater Treatment Works (WWTWs) — especially when millions of litres of untreated or partially treated sewage are discharged into freshwater river basins daily, creating a compounding operational cycle for downstream water treatment plants.

Speaking to Daily Maverick, Dr Ferrial Adam, water activist and executive director of WaterCAN, said that in some cases, when raw water quality degraded, water treatment works were forced into precarious chemical balancing acts.

“What happens is you have your wastewater treatment works, and if that is not working well, then it’s spewing sewage into the rivers and streams, billions and billions of litres of sewage into the rivers. If you have high levels of organic matter in your water, which could be bacteria, sewage, or anything, and you add high amounts of disinfectants because you need to treat that, you kind of overdose. What you also get is something called disinfectant byproducts... which can be carcinogenic,” Adam said.

The consequences of this dynamic had already surfaced in crisis-hit metros such as Nelson Mandela Bay, where plants facing raw water contamination led to increased disinfectant dosing to compensate, triggering toxic byproduct risks.

While headlines focus on dramatic plant shutdowns, systematic under-reporting obscures the true scope of waterborne illness across South African communities.

“I’m surprised that we only have Bronkhorstspruit because of the state of our water system across the country,” said Adam. “It can’t only be Bronkhorstspruit because it’s much worse. And why are we not seeing this? We’re not seeing it because, firstly, people are made to feel as if it’s their fault. Like: you didn’t wash your hands, you didn’t cook your food properly. It’s you, you, you. Instead of understanding that actually this is because of circumstance.”

Adam said the failure to document water contamination began at public health facilities. Clinics operated under bureaucratic constraints where health data was closely guarded behind formal access-to-information hurdles rather than actively shared to protect communities.

“Clinics need to start gathering data now. The Department of Health needs to ask regularly for this data,” Adam said.

Daily Maverick asked the Department of Water and Sanitation about other cases of contamination across the country, but did not receive a response by the time of publication.

However, WaterCAN, through its water quality dashboard, has water quality data from across the country.

Through citizen-science monitoring, WaterCAN has tracked this spread across provinces. Using field test kits that evaluate both chemical parameters (phosphates, nitrates, pH) and bacterial loads (E. coli and total coliform), the organisation compiles real-time water quality maps.

“We are finding drinking water that’s not safe more often. And if people are testing rivers, it’s like almost all the time those rivers are quite polluted,” Adam said.

Responding to Daily Maverick’s questions on how many municipal wastewater Treatment Works classified as under “Critical Risk” submitted Corrective Action Plans, the DWS said:

“After the release of the 2026 Green Drop Report, the Department has received corrective action plans from 72 out of 101 water services authorities required to submit. There are corrective action plans outstanding from NW, KZN, EC and NC. These have been handed over to the relevant Catchment Management Agencies to take further enforcement action.”

The department told Daily Maverick that the Blue Drop Progress Assessment risk rating was an indication of the risk of a system failing to consistently meet drinking-water quality requirements. It should therefore not automatically be interpreted as confirmation that all water supplied by a municipality was unsafe to drink.

“For this reason, DWS considers it more technically appropriate to identify municipalities and systems falling within the critical and high-risk categories, rather than producing a simplified national “best-to-worst” ranking. The detailed Blue Drop and Green Drop reports provide the scores and risk classifications for individual systems and Water Services Authorities,” the department said.

Given that the last comprehensive water quality audit was published in 2023, the department said that neither the Blue Drop progress report nor the full report provided indications on the current status of water quality in municipalities.

How are municipalities held accountable?

Often, residents are left adrift when it comes to holding municipalities accountable. When a water disruption or pollution incident occurs, the avenues for redress often end with filing a complaint.

The landmark legal prosecution of Mpumalanga’s Govan Mbeki Local Municipality, which saw the Bethal Regional Court impose a R200-million fine for continuous raw sewage discharges into river catchments, demonstrated that municipal environmental neglect could be treated as a criminal offence.

Yet relying solely on protracted criminal trials against municipal managers is not a cure-all for residents whose taps are dry or toxic.

“It’s sadly all about following the legal route for pollution, and it’s not only Govan Mbeki,” Adam pointed out. “The Department of Water and Sanitation has issued something like 80 directives against municipalities for pollution into the rivers. The problem with that is that it takes a long time. They have to go through investigations... The legal route is a long one, so people lose faith in government.”

Community pressure

Because individual complaints are easily dismissed, organised community pressure is essential to force action before conditions deteriorate to the point of litigation:

“The best thing I can say is that people need to get organised as groups – whether it’s a residents’ association, church, or school group. When you report these things as a group, it does get some level of reaction, but when it’s individuals, it gets ignored. We need to keep pushing government to act so that we don’t have to go to court.”

On the cases the department has opened against municipalities, the DWS told Daily Maverick that it had 106 active criminal cases against municipalities.

“These cases primarily relate to alleged failures in the management and operation of wastewater treatment works, including the discharge of substandard effluent, overflowing sewer manholes and the discharge of sewage into water resources. The cases also include incidents involving malfunctioning or non-functional pump stations, resulting in sewage overflows into water resources,” the department said.

The department said that of the 106 cases, 48 case dockets had been finalised and referred to the NPA for consideration for prosecution.

To date, eight municipalities have been successfully prosecuted, with plea and sentence agreements concluded and fines imposed.

Additionally, the department noted that the NPA had decided to prosecute the previous municipal manager of Lephalale Local Municipality in his personal capacity. DM