Alarm over effluent spill

Fisherman says waste at Strandfontein Pavilion ‘is about to go into the seawater again’

EFFLUENT continuously spills from a drain close to the shoreline at Strandfontein Pavilion, where local fishermen usually gather to fish.

Community activist and retired police captain Keith Blake said the spillover had affected beachgoers and fishermen.

“The spillage is now, again, about to go into the seawater at Broken Roads, Strandfontein, where I and many fishermen fish for the pan for our families,” he said.

“No one wants to swim at a place where there is sewage. (To) the councillor and every City official who needs to address this germ warfare, stop patching it up. Fix it properly, as I am so tired of explaining the matter to the other fishermen, who depend on me to raise their concerns about this poor service delivery.”

Despite City officials assessing the spillover and attempting to halt it, the problem persists.

“This drain, if it is not repaired properly, will leak into the sea, and that we don’t want,” said Blake.

Another avid angler, Arthur Reisenberg, said: “It’s becoming a disaster for us, because every time we come and fish here, the sewage is running into the sea. It’s affecting us, the smell, the germs. You don’t know what you’re going to pick up. The fish also don’t bite when the sewage runs into the water.”

Mayco member for water and waste services Xanthea Limberg said the directorate had investigated the cause of the spillage. “There was no overflow while the teams were on site. If the spill had been due to a blockage, the overflow would have been ongoing beyond that time, until the blockage was cleared,” she said.

“Therefore, all indications are that the overflow could have been caused by a power failure at one of the pump stations due to load shedding this past weekend.”

She said because load shedding took place for more than two hours at a time, and occurred more than once a day, it had led facilities with pump stations that had no auxiliary power, or sufficient holding capacity, to overflow into the environment.

Limberg said the spillage had not reached the ocean when the directorate’s team was on site.

City of Cape Town coastal manager Gregg Oelofse said his unit had been notified of a spillage on Monday, and had conducted an on-site inspection that day.

The site of the spillage was next to the pavilion, in an area known as Fishermen’s Lane.

“The City is currently busy with the Fisherman’s Lane Upgrade Project, and as part of this project, the sewer line will be rerouted further inland to a more appropriate location. It is anticipated that the realignment of the sewer line, as part of the Fisherman’s Lane Upgrade Project, will take place in February 2021.”

He said that the sewer line would be monitored in the interim, and should any incident occur, it would be addressed immediately.