What is a Blue Drop Risk Rating (BDRR)?

The BDRR assessment focuses on critical risk areas within water services provision. This allows the water service institution to identify and prioritise the critical risk areas within its drinking water treatment process and to take corrective measures to abate these.

The provincial BDRR remained in the low-risk category and improved from 34.8% in 2022 (Blue Drop Progress Assessment Tool) to 27.4% in 2023.

• 115 water supply systems are situated in the low risk category
• 8 water supply systems in the medium risk category
• 1 water supply system in the high-risk category
• 0 water supply systems in the critical risk category.

Water supply systems that received Blue Drop Status

Of the 124 water supply systems, 15 qualified for the Blue Drop Certification (scoring over 95%). In 2014, 8 water supply systems were awarded Blue Drop status. Using the 2014 audit results as comparative baseline, the province shows an improvement in excellence for 2023.

Municipality	Water Supply System	Summarised comment on report
Berg Rivier Local Municipality	Velddrif	The team was familiar with the blue drop system procedure, and this was reflected in most of the required information already uploaded on IRIS. There is also a good complement of technical people appointed on the management side to oversee and implement operations.
City of Cape Town Metro Municipality	Cape Town	All senior managers were present, required information was uploaded onto IRIS beforehand. Water safety plans were completed in-house. The technical department is sufficiently staffed with skilled personnel on the engineering and scientific sides. A high premium is placed on training. The operational side is well managed with automated systems.
Drakenstein Local Municipality	Hermon	Comprehensive water safety plans provided an excellent site-specific risk register. The microbiological and chemical acute compliance was excellent.
George Local Municipality	George	The effort exerted by the municipality to ensure their water supply systems are managed, operated, and maintained in line with the best-practice principles that underpin Blue Drop certification is certainly evident from this audit.
Overstrand Local Municipality	Baardskeerdersbos	Impressed with the cooperative relationship between Veolia and Overstand municipality that is built on trust, respect and continuous communication. Senior technical people were present during the audit process and they presented an outstanding portfolio of evidence that made the audit process easy and efficient. There were excellent water safety plans with proof of implementation. The municipality knew about their water safety plan and could list the risks within their catchments.
	Buffeljags Bay
	Buffelsrivier
	Greater Gaansbaai
	Greater Hermanus
	Kelinmond
	Pearly Beach
	Standford
Saldanha Bay Local Municipality	Hopefield	Represented by senior managers who provided a portfolio of evidence that was well structured and easy to navigate. The team showed pride in their systems and an interest in how to improve.
Swartland Local Municipality	Withoogte	Well prepared, presented by a senior technical team as well as a private engineering company. There is good maintenance and operational supply chain systems in place. Water safety plans are continuously updated and implemented.
Theewaterskloof Local Municipality	Botrivier	The scientist responsible for the Blue Drop system took great care in uploading relevant and concise information to the applicable key performance areas on the IRIS system. Support functions on the maintenance side are in place while there is also a good complement of technical people appointed on the management side to oversee and implement operations

There are pockets of excellence within the Western Cape Province, with 15 water supply systems receiving Blue Drop status.

Of the 26 water systems that received Blue Drop status, 15 of the water systems were in the Western Cape. Why?

“The Blue Drop national report reveals a clear correlation between the presence of qualified technical staff and high scores for water systems. Systems with a substantial number of qualified technicians, technologists, process controllers, engineers, and scientists achieve high scores, whereas those with a significant shortage of technical staff tend to receive lower scores.”

“Furthermore, the Western Cape has a ‘training culture’ where all personnel at the plants, depots and head offices are subjected to regular and relevant training.” says Dewald van Staden, process controller, WISA.

 

“The City of Cape Town has embraced resilience, innovative and technical thinking as well as skills development. We have taken the key performance indicators of the Blue Drop Programme and implemented them into our day-to-day operations. We had a clear plan on who will upload what on IRIS and by when. We involved our operational staff in the Blue Drop audit process, and this made them understand on how they fit into the bigger picture.” comments Dasiy Legodi, Faure Water Scheme Manager, City of Cape Town.