'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,' warns Dr Ferrial Adam, WaterCAN executive director.
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.
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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.
