The Swartkops Conservancy yesterday issued a new warning to members of the public to avoid the Swartkops River as yet another part of the sewage pipeline broke, causing more spills.
The new leak comes after an emergency 3m clay barrier had to be erected at the municipal Brickfields pre-treatment works to prevent a sewage flood into the Enviroserv Aloes highly hazardous waste site.
Zwartkops Conservancy conservation officer Jenny Rump confirmed there had been another sewage spill following two months of what she described as disastrous spills into the river.
She said this one was at the railway bridge on the Amsterdamhoek side.
“It is where the guys sell bait.”
Rump said plumbers had worked on the problem, but the temporary fix had not stopped the flow of sewage.
Excerpts from Rump’s reports about the past two months of sewage spills include:
April 15: Sewage still pouring into the river past the Aloes community and down Markman Canal.
April 16: The major collapse of the main sewerage pipe from Motherwell is proving much harder to fix than expected.
April 17: I have just checked the Markman Canal and it [sewage] is still running. In the meantime treat the Swartkops with care as a lot of sewage went down the Markman over a period of approximately 36 hours.
April 17: Sewage is flowing down Grahamstown Road to the bottom office of Enviroserve. The Aloes community are blocked off and cannot get to Grahamstown Road without wading through sewage.April 19: Plumbers have found the main source of the flow of sewage into the Markman stormwater canal. A whole section of the Motherwell sewerage pipe has broken. Community members have been vomiting and are suffering headaches. A nine-monthold baby had to be taken to the clinic.
May 7: We need to warn people again about sewage coming down the Markman and Motherwell stormwater canals.
May 9: Last night the pre-treatment plant overflowed again causing a flood down Grahamstown Road and the into the Markman Canal.
May 11: The pre-treatment plant is even higher than we saw it on Monday – hardly anything is sticking above the sewage now.
May 12: The pre-treatment plant overflows all around. I have never seen it so high. All the equipment is under sewage.
May 13: The flood at Brickfields is worse than yesterday - if that was at all possible. The flood of sewage is so bad that motorists struggle to get to the entrance of the pre-treatment works.
May 17: The pre-treatment works are flooded again due to a concrete structure … causing a blockage.
May 20: Sewage is seen pouring past the houses of the Aloes community and into the river after a new break developed in the pipe.
May 21: Sewage is seen bubbling up from where four new pipes were put in the day before. There is a new hole above the replaced section.
Commenting on the spills into the river, Nelson Mandela Bay municipal spokesman Mthubanzi Mniki said the pipe from the pre-treatment plant ponds had collapsed at the first bend and was partially blocked by a steel frame and a ball of plastic sheeting. He denied the hazardous waste site was under threat of being flooded as the 3m berm to stop it had been created in time.
To relieve the pressure on the pre-treatment works the municipality had applied for permission to release sewage into the Swartkops River.
“Permission was given by … the Department of Economic Development and Environmental Affairs to allow for emergency repairs to be carried out,” he said.
The municipality had received a directive from the Department of Water and Sanitation to rectify the situation, to which the municipality had responded.
He said at this stage officials were not concerned about the health impact of the ongoing sewage spills.
“The spilled sewage was treated by bio-enzymes to combat any effect on the community or livestock.”
Mniki said due to the age of the pipeline, plans were in place to rehabilitate the entire structure.
He said officials were trying to minimise the impact of the sewage spill on the lives of Aloes residents.
A spokesman for Enviroserv, Thabiso Taaka, said a borehole used to monitor the quality of groundwater on the site had been destroyed by the excavator used to erect the berm. He said the pre-treatment works had a negative impact on water and air quality in the area.