MOSSEL BAY NEWS - "Mossel Bay Local Municipality is certainly one of the Blue Drop success stories. A water services authority that was inspired by this incentive-based approach to implement all stringent criteria with the commendable dedication required.

The Department salutes all the officials, management and decision-makers that contributed to this remarkable enhancement in drinking water quality management. They certainly deserve the Blue Drop status for Mossel Bay and Ruiterbos".

This is a passage from the 2011 Blue Drop Report of the Department of Water Affairs in which the results for the 2011 Blue Drop Certification Programme of the Department on drinking water quality and water management systems in South Africa are detailed.

Mossel Bay achieved the coveted Blue Drop status for its Mossel Bay and Ruiterbos plants and an overall municipal Blue Drop Score of 95,27% for all its plants. A score of 95% is required to achieve Blue Drop status for individual plants, and these two plants scored 95,33% and 95% respectively.

The other three plants of the Municipality, namely Friemersheim, Herbertsdale and Lodewykstenk (Buisplaas) scored 92,21%, 91,9% and 90,83% respectively.

The Municipality's overall score of 95,27% also placed it in eighth position out of 27 Western Cape municipalities assessed in 2011. The Western Cape in turn, with 94,09%, achieved the second highest score In South Africa for drinking water quality. Gauteng was first with 95,1% and KwaZulu-Natal third with 80,49%. Mpumalanga finished last with a provincial score of 56,5%.

"We are extremely proud of this achievement, which was truly a team effort by all involved. Our team has done us proud in achieving these coveted awards. The Mossel Bay Municipality has also made tremendous progress to ensure that it meets the stringent audit standards to qualify for Blue Drop status.

The public of Mossel Bay is not always aware of the hard work and dedication that goes into supplying them with water of this quality and to achieve Blue Drop status," said the Executive Mayor, Alderlady Marie Ferreira. This was the first year that Mossel Bay achieved Blue Drop status.

To qualify for the status Municipalities are assessed on water safety plan processes and incident response management; process control; maintenance and management skills; drinking water quality management monitoring programmes; drinking water sample analysis credibility; submission of drink water quality results; drinking water quality compliance; publication of drinking water quality management performance and drinking water asset management.

The Blue Drop Certification Programme was introduced by the Minister of Water Affairs in 2008 as an incentive-based regulation of drinking water quality and drinking water management systems in South Africa.