The City warns residents that water in the distribution system coming from Faure Water Treatment Plant over parts of the city is currently discoloured.
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The affected areas are primarily south of the N2 reaching from Strand in the East through Khayelitsha, Mitchells Plain, and Philippi to Plumstead and down into the Southern suburbs as far as Muizenburg.
The precautionary boiling notice from the City, recommends that residents in the affected areas should boil their tap water before drinking it or using it for food preparation and cooking, until further notice.
According to the City, the discoloured water is due to a process control fault at the Faure Water Treatment Plant, which is the result of cumulative effects of recent phases of load-shedding, which caused limited operational hours of the sludge handling process. They further explained that this part of the treatment process cannot be augmented by generator capacity due to high energy demand.
Meanwhile, the supply from the Faure Water Treatment Plant has been stopped, and the affected areas of the network are being fed water from Blackheath Reservoir. “Intensive water sampling and ongoing testing are being conducted, “The City of Cape Town said.
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Furthermore, the City stated that they working on resolving the problem as soon as possible, and would like to apologise for any inconvenience. Over the next few days, the situation is anticipated to normalise the water quality in this part of the supply network.
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.
- 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.)
- Use water disinfection tablets. Follow the instructions prescribed by the respective manufacturers to ensure the safety of the water for drinking purposes.
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