Sewage saga ends

Three weeks after sewage started pouring on to the pavement outside a building in Somerset Street, a number of problems were finally identified and various leaks had all been repaired.

In the long term that sewer line – which also leaked during the National Arts Festival – is targeted for clearing and upgrading as part of Makana Municipality’s Eastern Cape Development Corporation (ECDC)-funded sewer reticulation project.

However, frustrated and disgusted at the mess the contractors left, the occupants of the Rhodes University Department of Music and Musicology have decided they can’t wait until next month, when the project is due to begin, and have taken the matter into their own hands.

On 18 August head of department Catherine Foxcroft wrote to Grocott’s Mail, complaining about a sewage leak outside the department at the south and of Somerset Street.

She wrote: “Eighteen days after a sewer leak appeared on Somerset Road in front of the Rhodes Music Department on 1 August, sewage is still pouring out of a leaking pipe down the pavement.

“Daily calls to the municipality go unanswered.

“One municipality visit to repair the leaking pipe on 9 August resulted in the sewage being diverted to another leak a few metres up the road. No further repairs were made.

“The municipality also left the pile of stinking, sewagesoaked ground they dug up to repair the first pipe on the pavement.

“The stench is intolerable. The Music Department has now shut its front door as this is an unacceptable health hazard to students and staff.”

Foxcroft said several students and staff had reported stomach upsets during that week.

On the same day, Infrastructure Director Dali Mlenzana, in reply to questions from Grocott’s Mail, said his team had informed him that the leak Foxcroft reported in midAugust was different from the one reported at the beginning of the month.

The first leak was outside the building. The second one was inside the property.

Short-term, the plan was to try and clear the new blockage, inside the property.

Longer term, Mlenzana said, that sewerage line would be cleared with a hydro blast as part of the Eastern Cape Development Corporation Sewer Reticulation project.

“ECDC is currently busy with procurement processes towards appointment of service providers for the project and is anticipated that by the end of August or early September all should be in place,” Mlenzana told Grocott’s Mail.

He said the team working on the blockage suspected that the sewerage line had been adversely affected by other works in the area - in particular the replacement of asbestos reticulation.

“Previously no such issues were experienced,” Mlenzana said. On 23 August Foxcroft confirmed that the leak had been repaired.

“However, the contractor has not returned to pick up the pile of stinking rubble,” she said. “Nor has the area been cleaned, as promised.”

Yesterday, Foxcroft took matters into her own hands and decided to employ someone to restore the area.

“Wentzel Nquma has put the stinking rubble on the road for municipal collection and is sweeping the remainder of the stones from the lawn (what remains of it) and cutting a border,” Foxcroft said.

“I have bought compost and top soil from my own pocket to try to remove the stench and help the grass to recover.”

When Grocott’s Mail visited the site yesterday, the area from which Nquma had just removed the rubble was damp and so still smelled strongly of sewage. Rubble was placed in a pile at the road’s edge, and Nquma was busy raking smaller stones off the side walk area, readying it for a layer of topsoil, and then planting.

“It already feels a lot better now that it’s been cleaned up,” Foxcroft said.