United Phosphorus Limited (UPL) was not in possession of the requisite environmental authorisation prior to establishing its operations in Cornubia. This was announced by Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, Barbara Creecy, on Sunday when she released the joint preliminary investigation into the compliance profile report of UPL after the company’s warehouse was set on fire during the unrest in July.
“Empirical evidence shows that an entire ecosystem, which includes the Ohanga tributary, the uMhlanga estuary, the beaches and the coastal environment, not only in the vicinity of the UPL, but for several kilometres to the north of the uMhlanga estuary mouth, has been seriously impacted and may take several years to recover from this incident. In the days following the fire, the air quality in the immediate facility was also affected.
“Beaches along this stretch of the KwaZulu-Natal north coast remain closed, and subsistence and recreational fishing, as well as the utilisation of any marine living resources in the area remains prohibited. The impact on ecotourism in Umhlanga, and the reserve, will be felt for a considerable period of time,” she said.
So far 13 000 tonnes of contaminated solids and 23.4 million litres of contaminated liquids have been professionally removed from the UPL site and the environment below it said Creecy.
“The threat to human health remains an important concern for government. In order to ensure long-term monitoring of the affected communities the authorities requested UPL to place a mobile clinic in the affected communities on a semi-permanent basis and to extend the human health risk assessment to include biological monitoring of the affected community. To ensure that affected communities are fully briefed on all developments, we have developed a draft terms of reference, to establish the multi-stakeholder forum in line with the recommendation of the Portfolio Committee during its visit to the site in August,” she said.
