eColi responsible for Durban’s beaches closing
Durban – Overflowing sewage is found to be the reason for the closure of Durban’s beaches. The eThekweni Municipality admitted the tide of black water pollution was caused by overflowing sewage treatment works.
A steady stream of partially treated human waste has been flowing into the Umgeni River for at least 30 days. The river is about 4km from Durban beaches.
One of the problems that causes massive pollution is the breakdown in the sewage treatment works. The reason for this says Desmond Mathew D’sa, a member of the South Durban Environmental Alliance, is that the municipality does not have the skilled workers it needs to maintain these facilities.
“You got to find buyers either in Europe or China or in other parts of the world to get these parts and they can take months or even years…. We know for a fact the city has had problems with contractors. They’ve outsourced all the work. So, you don’t have skilled workers… doing the work and maintaining these facilities…. It means there is nobody on hand to do the work.”
The government has not been upfront with the test results and only released some information because of public pressure says D’sa.
“All the discussions have taken place behind closed doors. The other important critical issue here is that the government hasn’t called all the role players together to sit down and discuss. This government is afraid to talk to its own citizens. Yet during election day they come to each community to try and talk to us… We have not seen any of this [solutions] that they talk about and if they are doing it, it’s not known by the citizens of this city.”
In 2007, sewage water was dumped into a river that flowed into the Durban harbour and thousands of fish and marine life was destroyed. It took an exceptionally long time for the sea to be rehabilitated naturally and D’sa fears that this is just a continuation of 2007.
It has been reported by the Daily Maverick that several canoeists fell ill after taking part in a canoe race along the Umgeni between Inanda Dam and Blue Lagoon. D’sa explains that something worse can happen if the infected water were to enter an open wound.
“You must remember if sewerage gets into the sea and people are swimming and they have a wound, they can actually lose their arms, they can lose their legs. It happened to many people. Our major concern is about the health and wellbeing of our people who utilise the sea.”
D’sa went on to say that many people are in danger including surfers, swimmers and even natural healers who use the sea. Fishermen are also in danger of losing their livelihood as the sewerage water can react with organic matter which can create a chemical reaction which is dangerous in the short term and long term to marine life.
Durban lost its Blue Flag status, which is a certification by the Foundation for Environmental Education (FEE) that a beach, marina, or sustainable boating tourism operator meets its standards, and D’sa believes the government is trying to keep the test results out of the public so “it can protect its Blue Flag status so that many visitors can come and visit our shores”.
For the city to stop such problems from happening again, D’sa believes that the city must “employ permanent staff” with the relevant knowledge. The city needs to meet and sit down with shareholders and the tourism and hospitality sector to produce a plan to ensure the beach remains clean and safe.
Listen to Desmond Mathew D’sa here:
