Buffalo City’s metro Mayor, Princess Faku, drinks from a municipal tap at a high school in the Eastern Cape. Citizen-led water testing at 72 schools across 5 provinces found some samples to be “dangerously unsafe” with possible E. coli contamination.
Sithandiwe Velaphi/News24
- Citizen-led water testing at 72 schools found 20 samples – 12 from taps and eight from JoJo water tanks – to be “dangerously unsafe” with possible E. coli contamination.
- The contaminated water was discovered across 11 municipalities in five provinces.
- WaterCAN has advised schools to stop using the water immediately and urged municipalities to take urgent corrective action.
A citizen water-testing kit has yielded frightening results: 20 water samples from 72 schools were found to be “dangerously unsafe” across five provinces. Worse still, 12 of those 20 samples were taken directly from taps, and the remaining eight were from JoJo water tanks supplying potable water to communities.
The tests, which were conducted in the Western Cape, Free State, KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga, were part of civic group WaterCan’s initiative to track water quality. The results have been uploaded to WaterCan’s Map My Water portal, which provides real-time analysis of the results while making them publicly accessible.
The aim is to build one of South Africa’s largest independent citizen-generated datasets on water quality.
WaterCan’s citizen science and training coordinator, Nomsa Daele, called the results “highly concerning” because they indicate possible faecal contamination, which poses a “direct health risk” to the staff and students of the schools.
She said this deepened the non-profit’s concern that South Africa’s water crisis was in a critical state following years of decline.
Daele said:
The presence of E. coli in drinking water is particularly serious and requires urgent attention, as it may lead to waterborne illnesses.
She added that ensuring safe drinking water in schools was “critical to protecting the health, dignity, and well-being of children”.
Daele said that these tests are considered “indicator tests” and serve as an important early warning of contamination.
While indicator tests are generally considered reliable for screening, they indicate the presence of contaminants such as bacteria, nutrients, and metals, but they don’t provide an exact indication of contamination levels.
“We have advised the schools to exercise caution and avoid using the water for drinking purposes until the matter is resolved,” said Daele.
The school’s water testing project ran from 16 to 27 March.
The problematic samples were taken from:
- Chief Albert Luthuli Local Municipality, Mpumalanga;
- Winnie Madikizela-Mandela Municipality, Eastern Cape;
- City of Cape Town, Western Cape
- Enoch Mgijima Local Municipality, Eastern Cape;
- Makana Municipality, Eastern Cape;
- Matjhabeng Local Municipality, Free State;
- Mpofana Local Municipality, KwaZulu-Natal;
- Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan, Eastern Cape
- Nketoana Local Municipality, Free State;
- Sundays River Valley Local Municipality, Eastern Cape; and
- Umvoti Local Municipality, KwaZulu-Natal.
WaterCAN has asked these municipalities to conduct confirmatory water quality testing at the schools.
While WaterCAN did not disclose the names of the schools they tested, the Western Cape Education Department said the results did not accurately reflect the situation at the school alleged to have an unsafe water sample.
Provincial department spokesperson, Bronagh Hammond, said that Cape Town’s Community Services and Health Department had engaged directly with the school regarding the findings.
“That sample was taken from an on-site JoJo water storage tank and not from the school’s municipal potable water supply,” she said, adding that the drinking and handwashing water came from the municipal water connection.
She said testing of the municipal supply confirmed that it is safe for consumption.
She said:
As a result, the implication that learners or staff at the school are consuming contaminated water is factually incorrect, and the framing of the school as having unsafe drinking water is misleading.
Hammond said that where schools in the Western Cape relied on municipal water, the municipality was in control of water quality compliance.
She said that JoJo tanks and other water storage tanks were intended as temporary or emergency measures or for irrigation purposes and were not usually used for potable consumption. This is unless these storage tanks were explicitly designated and managed as such, “obviously ensuring that the water quality is checked and maintained”.
“The presence of a non-potable backup tank does not equate to unsafe drinking water at a school,” Hammond said.
The municipalities were also asked to investigate the source of the contamination and to take immediate corrective action to ensure the water is safe for consumption.
Daele said:
Given the potential risk to children’s health, we urgently need a prompt response and action on this matter.
She added that it was concerning that some of the municipalities where biological elements were found in school drinking water were also flagged in the Blue Drop Report released in 2023 for failing to meet basic compliance requirements.
Daele said municipalities flagged in the 2023 Blue Drop Report for failing to meet the basic requirements of the SANS 241:2015 drinking water standards included Makana, Chief Albert Luthuli, Sundays River and Nketoana.
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Daele added that 2026 marks a near doubling in the number of participating schools compared to the previous year, and that reaching all nine provinces was a sign of how important the schools project had become.
WaterCAN’s partners are Adopt-a-River, Enviro Vito, the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation, Rhodes University, the Nelson Mandela Bay Science Centre, the Wildlife and Environment Society of South Africa, the Cape Town Science Centre, the Institute for Water Research, and the LEAP Institute.
