Abstract
Water services providers should supply water that is fit for human consumption, taking into account multi-barrier approaches and technical aspects such as design aspects, operation monitoring, final water quality compliance monitoring, plant monitoring practices, maintenance, and risk management practices. Against this background, this study focused on applying the diagnostic tool for technical compliance as well as assessing the compliance of water treatment plants with management norms. Six plants in the Vhembe District Municipality were selected; the Vondo, Malamulele, Mutshedzi, and Mutale plants (conventional), and the Dzingahe and Tshedza package plants. During the first assessment, four (Malamulele, Mutshedzi, Mutale and Dzingahe) plants scored between 44% and 49% and achieved Class 3 certification, revealing serious challenges requiring immediate intervention. Two water plants (Vondo and Tshedza, scoring 53% and 63%, respectively) were in the Class 2 category, revealing serious challenges requiring attention and improvement. During the second assessment, all plants scored between 63% and 87% (Class 2 category). The greatest improvement (30%) was noted for the Dzingahe and Tshedza plants, followed by the Malamulele plant, while the Mutale, Vondo, and Mutshedzi plants improved their scores by 20%, 17% and 14%, respectively. After corrective actions and re-measurement, no plant complied. It is recommended that Water Services Providers (WSPs) regularly apply the diagnostic tools and water safety plans as developed in order to comply with applicable standards.
Highlights
Water is an essential component that is required to sustain the lives of living beings, but when it is contaminated, it leads to public health challenges [1]
It is recommended that Water Services Providers (WSPs) regularly apply the diagnostic tools and water safety plans as developed in order to comply with applicable standards
It has been revealed that the first step that needs to be taken into consideration is the proper selection of the water treatment systems for sustainable supply of safe drinking water, a thorough understanding of the processes and relevant training and knowledge to ensure the understanding of the whole value chain of treatment processes by process controllers [27] are necessary
Summary
Water is an essential component that is required to sustain the lives of living beings, but when it is contaminated, it leads to public health challenges [1]. Ensuring access to safe drinking water is a determining factor for the health and wellbeing of all consumers [2]. Water is regarded safe for domestic consumption when its quality is acceptable in terms of physical, chemical and microbiological parameters [3]. Multiple barriers consisting of appropriate sanitation facilities, protection of raw water resource quality (starting from the catchment scale to the point of treatment and to the point of use) [5], drinking water treatment processes, and control of contaminants, coupled with the protection of distribution channels and plumbing systems, are. Public Health 2017, 14, 810; doi:10.3390/ijerph14070810 www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph
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