Raw sewage pouring into harbour threatens Bay oyster farm
Raw sewage is pouring into the Port Elizabeth Harbour, slowly flowing to the Zwembesi Oyster Farm and scuttling any chance of establishing an expanded shellfish development zone in the area.
The expanded shellfish development zone, situated a kilometre offshore and just north of the harbour, is part of the government’s Algoa Bay fish farm project.
An environmental impact assessment has already been completed and approved, but private sector investors now need to be attracted and the quality of the water is key.
Yesterday, sewage was pouring out the stormwater drain and pushing into the harbour in a large, dark, foul-smelling plume.
Faeces, wads of toilet paper, a dead rat, sanitary towels and condoms were bobbing around in the effluent and lying among the rocks below the drain outlet.
Zwembesi Oyster Farm general manager Simon Burton said the situation was extremely serious and the latest sewage deluge followed years of struggling with the issue.
“The current sewage spill has been pouring into the harbour through the stormwater drain outlet just south of the Baakens River mouth for the past seven weeks.
“We know enough about the system to know it’s from an overflow from the Fleming Street Pump Station, where a pump had to be replaced.
“The metro has been working at the pump station but it has made no difference, the sewage has just been coming out nonstop.”
He said a relatively small volume of this deluge of sewage had spread northeast out the harbour to the Zwembesi site, but it had already damaged its operations.
“Last year we were officially closed for 32 days and with recalls we actually lost 58 days of trading — that amounts to over R1m in lost revenue.
“We have had to spend R150,000 on special tanks to purify our oysters and we now spend an extra R10,000 to 15,000 a month on testing to ensure our oysters are safe.”
He said the department of forestry, fisheries and the environment had downgraded Algoa Bay from category A to category B after major sewage spills in January and March last year.
“My understanding is the authorities are not considering any new leases in the newly proclaimed Algoa Bay Aquaculture Development Zone until the effluent pollution issues are resolved.
“This is holding back potential growth in the industry which will result in job creation and injections of foreign currency from exports.
“At Zwembesi, we currently employ 41 people who stand to lose their jobs if the Bay is downgraded further to category C, because then we will have to close down.
“We are making an urgent call to the metro to please sort this sewage pollution situation out once and for all.”
The Bay’s sewerage system is designed so that when a sewerage pipe gets blocked or a pump fails, the overflow is channelled into the stormwater system to prevent sewerage pump stations being flooded.
It is understood that the metro has made good progress in fixing problems at the Rudolph Street Sewerage Pump Station, situated in the harbour between the railway line and the Deep Sea Angling Club.
However, it has been struggling to make progress on the Fleming Street Sewerage Pump Station. Questions were put to metro water and sanitation executive director Barry Martin and spokesperson Mamela Ndamase yesterday morning, but no response had been received by the time of publication.