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Ugu District Municipality is failing us. This is according to Jimmy Naicker of the Umbango River Conservancy (URC), who said, “We are fighting a hopeless battle, and our precious resources are being messed up.”
Mr Naicker made the comment after the discovery last Sunday that sewage was again pouring into the Mbango River.
“These sewage spills are an ongoing problem and the water, which flows past my house, has turned green.”
Lynne Howard, who also lives in the area, said spills were happening almost every week, and the sewage could be seen bubbling under the water.
“The smell is horrendous and it’s not a once-off occurrence. Urgent intervention is needed from Ugu to sort out this environmental disaster.”
Sewage floats in the Mbango River last Sunday.
The main concern seemed to be the effect the spills had on the wildlife and birds living along the river. Ms Howard said the river was known to be home to clawless otter and water mongoose, along with a variety of birdlife.
Ugu spokesman, France Zama said Environmental Health officials were on Monday this week notified of the minimal spillage that had occurred due to a power failure.
“This was attended to and repairs undertaken. Ugu is working towards minimising the spillages that have become regular occurrences at the river,” he said.
Morgan Naidoo, chairman of the URC said the conservancy was very concerned about the river and was in constant contact with Ugu.
“Meetings have been held on numerous occasions. However, we always hear the same excuses – aging infrastructure and poor management by residents who flush items that cause breakages at the sewerage plants.”
He said that while these may be contributing factors, when they engaged with Ugu it became evident that the problem was lack of maintenance, bad planning, poor response time and also a lack of spares on hand to effect immediate repairs.
Dead fish in Margate River.
“Ugu has a track record of both accidental and deliberate spillages, a deliberate spillage being when sewage is pumped into rivers and sea when breakages occur. This is a serious breach of both environmental laws and municipal bylaws.
“Residents also divert their storm water pipes into sewer systems. During heavy rains the systems cannot handle this huge flow, causing overflows and spillage from sewer manholes along rivers. Residents too need to be wary of their actions,” added Mr Naidoo.
Professor Anthony Turton, a scientist specialising in water resource management, explained that KZN is characterised by two different types of river.
“The first is the big rivers that sometimes cross provincial boundaries and generally provide water to regions other than KZN. An example is the Thukela that provides water to both KZN and Gauteng. These rivers are mostly distressed from a variety of drivers and are almost always in a low flow situation.”
He added that the second type were the local rivers, mostly along the coast, with very small catchments.
“Some of these rivers are only tens of kilometres long. Their flow is generally characterised by over-abstraction from agriculture and they typically terminate in a lagoon having lost their connectivity with the ocean.”
According to Prof Turton, all KZN rivers were in distress from a combination of over-abstraction, sewage and industrial effluent discharges, and loss of ecological functionality caused by lagoon formation.
“KZN is the epicentre of what is potentially the biggest human health crisis arising from the inappropriate management of sewage return flows in areas that are also known to be high TB and HIV/AIDS areas. Multi-drug resistant pathogens are an emerging risk for KZN in particular.”
Sewage floats in the Mbango River last Sunday.
Margate beach was recently closed to swimming as a precautionary measure after a mechanical failure at Margate pump station 4A resulted in a spill. A large number of fish and other marine species in the Nkongweni River and estuary system died as a result of the spill.
Mr Zama said that repairs to pump station 4A were completed last week and operations had since been restored. He said that Ugu was on high alert and was constantly monitoring the area. Officials have once more taken samples at the lagoon and beach and results are awaited.
“A decision will be taken whether to open the beach pending the results. However, the lagoon will remain closed for recreational purposes in terms of the Water Quality Guidelines for Coastal Marine Waters.”