NO 21 DISASTER SEWER PINPOINTED
Anatomy of a local socio-environmental calamity
All eyes are on inspection chamber Number 21 on a leading city sewer line.
This chamber, which gushed into the Nahoon Point Nature Reserve for more than 24 hours, was the weekend’s weakest link in the huge braided network which is suburban East London’s sewerage system.
But the notorious chamber is also now a strong public focal point and is likely to feature in the campaign to save and fix the long-standing scourge of sewage pollution assailing Nahoon Point Nature Reserve and marine protected area (MPA).
The weekend’s latest sewer disaster saw community leaders and activists quickly raising the alarm and pinpointing exactly where Buffalo City sanitation staff needed to promptly go to ground and staunch the socio-environmental catastrophe.
It took 24 hours to get sanitation staff to No 21, meaning Saturday and Sunday’s sewage from a large area of the city suburbs — Bunkers Hill, Berea, Vincent, Cambridge, Abbotsford, Stirling and Nahoon — was emptying into the Ihlanza “Turdy” River and flowing into the sea at Nahoon Beach.
In the context of years of unabated spills, a 24-hour response time was seen as both ghastly and a positive by environmentalists.
On Saturday at noon, the familiar mottled grey look and stink of the “Turdy” as it flowed over the beach was first noticed and reported by Tidy Towns committee chair Dean Knox and his staff at Jonginenge Ecoadventure, who teach at the beach.
Knox, an East London Surf Lifesavers’ Club member for 30 years, many of them as a professional, said they had decided to close the beach on Saturday.
Messages went out for official help, but by 8am on Sunday — 20 hours later — the stink had worsened.
In a post on Sunday morning, Knox said: “I have my shirt over my face the smell is so nauseating.
“Grey water is flowing into the sea.
“There are people wading across the Turdy.
“We reported the spill to sanitation on Saturday. Please guys, we need to react quickly!
“When we report incidents like this, it is a matter of time.
“We have done so well to have only one spill since June.”
Minutes later, Jonginenge head guide Mabhuti Baliso, who was walking the line upstream, traced the No 21 inspection chamber with its cover blown off.
In the clips, he spoke of seeing nappies, clothing and a pillow in the metre-wide gushing stream. His stark videos and citizen reportage evoked a public outcry.
Knox, Friends of Turdy (Frot), public interest group The Green Ripple, Save Nahoon and Christo Theart of the Nahoon Estuary Management Forum started commenting and raising the alarm online. Dispatchlive posted a story. Knox was heard telling a surfer: “Don’t go surf. T
“There has been a spill and wind is blowing east. It is a bad one.
“I advise you not to go in.” While Knox held out that the metro would do its duty and respond, there were still underlying trust issues — mainly that there would be official inertia, and that the river of pathogens and other toxins would continue to flow, fester and damage the environment and public green space until municipal working hours resumed on Monday.
Efforts to get sanitation officials to the site were doubled and, amid tones of relief, a senior official was said to be driving from Qonce, and was on site by midday.
Green Ripple spokesperson Kevin Harris said the blockage at inspection chamber No 21 was a regular trouble spot on the line below John Woods Road circle and the Beauchamp Place town house complex.
He said there was a telemetry system which was meant to trigger an alarm when there was a blockage or loss of flow.
“The inspection chamber is low-lying and clearly a risk point.
“This is not the first time this has happened over the last few years.
“Lots of debris shows that residents are flushing nappies, clothing material and foreign matter, leading to these terrible events.
“Raw sewage has run into the Ihlanza and to Nahoon Beach at a strong flow rate and this has contaminated the entire ravine below this chamber.
“While BCM sanitation staff were aware of the problem and tried to resolve this as soon as possible, it is unacceptable that BCM appears to have no staff on hand at weekends for these disasters.
“The Nahoon Point Nature Reserve is under threat.
“The ecosystem of this nature reserve and marine protected area has been assailed by a toxic brew of pathogens and other hazardous waste.
“The public is not yet safe.
“This hazardous waste causes dread illnesses, among them Hepatitis B and cholera, and kills all life.
“We applaud the efforts of Jonginenge Eco-adventure staff and lifeguards in acting to close the beach and protect the public.
“But where are the city leaders in this time of need?”
Harris thanked Knox and the Tidy Towns Buffalo City team, especially Jonginenge for being proactive and assisting to identify the source.
“We hope for quick mitigation.”
In a statement, BCM spokesperson Sam Ngwenya said vandalism and the throwing of foreign objects into the sewer system had caused the blockage of a “sewer manhole” which affected Nahoon Beach and the Ihlanza River.
Beaches were closed on Friday, partly because of large swells.
“We have a technician on site and issues will all be repaired over this period.
“Nahoon Beach will remain closed as a precautionary measure; the municipality will be monitoring the e.coli bacterial count along the beach and will only open the beach after positive daily sampling and testing, which includes recording two consecutive compliant results, in line with municipal protocol.”