Durban - Independent laboratories will now partner with eThekwini Municipality to test water at the City’s beaches in an effort to guarantee safety and eliminate confusion.
Mayor Mxolisi Kaunda revealed that independent laboratories, including Talbot and a lab at the Durban University of Technology, would now conduct testing of water quality at the city’s beaches at the same time as the municipality.
The municipality and independent laboratories have often released conflicting results. Recently, Talbot released results showing the water quality was unsafe and had high levels of E coli, but the municipality disputed this, saying its results had shown the water was safe. Speaking during a press briefing yesterday, Kaunda said: “We want to assure our residents and visitors that the City only opens the beaches that meet the quality standard for the safety of bathing water.
“To this end, as from October 5, we will be collaborating with independent laboratories such as Talbot and the Durban University of Technology to conduct water tests on the same spot, date and time and subsequently release them simultaneously.”
He said water and sanitation technical teams would continue to work hard to ensure all beaches were open during the festive season and beyond.
“Apart from beefing-up our technical team by bringing on board experienced engineers, there is a collaborative effort between the scientific services, mechanical and wastewater network departments to clearly identify the sources for any identified coastal pollution.
“It is important for the public to know that the pollution of beaches is caused by a combination of factors including pump failure, load shedding, vandalism or poor network infrastructure. Therefore, the streamlining of our processes has resulted in us being able to prioritise and track non-functioning infrastructure on a daily basis to ensure repairs are effected promptly. The fact that most of our bathing beaches are now open for swimming is testimony to this hard work by our technical teams,” said Kaunda.
The mayor also touched on tourism, saying the sector was turning the corner with thousands of people having visited the city recently.
“The city has enjoyed a bumper Heritage Month with thousands of visitors flocking into the City of Durban.
What is exciting is that when the visitors arrived, they found most of our beaches working and safe for swimming. This can be attributed to the sterling work our technical teams continue to do to fix the pump stations along the coastline. For the heritage long weekend, the municipality was able to achieve 62% occupancy at hotels. The direct spend expected was R120 million with a contribution of R300m to the GDP and a contribution of 1300 jobs.”
Kaunda said they were expecting another bumper weekend as they would be hosting the MTN8 final on October 7 at Moses Mabhida Stadium, adding that this demonstrated that Durban was indeed open for business.
“Furthermore, to demonstrate that we remain Africa’s playground and a destination of choice for international events, just last week we were announced as the 2025 host of the World Water Conference. In the same year, we will be welcoming international visitors to the World ECO-Summit. In November, we are hosting the 13th World Congress of The World Society for Paediatric Infectious Diseases. Contrary to what our detractors may want you to believe, the world still has confidence in us and what the city of Durban is capable of,” he said.