Concern about factory discharging waste into sea
Concerned citizen, Mossel Bay:
I was wondering if you were perhaps aware of what this may be, coming out the corner of the harbour every day.
It does not seem right and I doubt there has been an environmental assessment done for this.
It seems the fisheries discharge their waste directly into the ocean and there appears to be some sort of oil slick on the surface. Surely this cannot be allowed. What is stopping them from discharging detergents, etc?
This particular photo was taken on 21 November at 10:50, but it is a daily occurrence.
Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment chief director: communication and advocacy, Peter Mbelengwa:
In terms of section 69 of the National Environmental Management: Integrated Coastal Management Act, 2008 (ICM Act) any person that intends to discharge effluent that originate from land must be authorised by the department through a Coastal Waters Discharge Permit (CWDP) or a General Discharge Authorisation (GDA).
AfroFishing was issued with a Coastal Waters Discharge Permit on 18 May 2022.
The objective of the permit is to regulate the effluent that is discharged into the coastal environment to ensure that the rights of beneficial users are protected. To this effect, the permit contains conditions that the permit holder must adhere to, to ensure that these rights are not compromised.
AfroFishing is required, in terms of the permit, to adhere to the permit conditions, which stipulate the daily discharge volume and limits for the effluent quality and monitoring requirements. AfroFishing is required to do weekly and monthly effluent monitoring to ensure that its effluent is within the limits of the permit and quarterly reports are submitted to the department.
The permit also requires AfroFishing to investigate methods to continuously improve its effluent, which the department will incorporate during the permit renewal process in 2024.
With reference to the plume in the picture provided, the department is aware that plumes might occur at an outfall, depending on the environmental conditions at the time.
According to the reports that were submitted to the department for the previous quarter, the facility was operating within the limits of the permit.
Notwithstanding the above, the department’s compliance office will be requested to review the monitoring reports for this month to ascertain compliance with the permit conditions.
Deon van Zyl, CEO: Afro Fishing, responds:
The image does show a plume arising from our “discharge B” as referenced in our Coastal Waters Discharge Permit (CWDP).
We have been operating for several days so I assume this image is recent.
There is a faint plume today (28 November) but not so prominent. I can only respond by saying that the concerned citizen's image portrays a very calm day with little wind and wave action and the plume is obviously much more visible. The tide could also have been low.
As per our quarterly reports and sampling we have achieved our permit conditions fully in 2023. Our current report is due endNovember and will cover this quarter.
Within an hour of a production run this plume dissipates fully.
The discolouration arises from the processing water we discharge and the action of centrifugal pumps.
The plume contains no harmful materials, detergents or toxins. As per our extensive sampling it is wholly dissolved organic matter. We have processes to remove all solids. We obviously endeavour to also reduce the plume so as to eliminate these “concerned citizen” complaints.
We are already trying some settling trials but these trials have been difficult to manage with stage 4 to 6 load shedding. We do also begin working towards our expansion plans in 2024. The new fish processing facility will include settling and evaporation processes to deal with our liquid discharges.
I am confident that this plume will be reduced much once the new facility is commissioned in 2025.
I recently approved expenditure to do the required dispersion modelling which is one of our CWDP permit conditions. We have commissioned Anchor Environment to undertake a Marine Impact Assessment of our two discharge points and this will require dispersion modelling.