Residents happy but up for further battles
“THE battle is far from over. We have only just begun,” said Upper Highway Air director Lauren Johnson.
Months of hard work in fighting for air that they could breathe, culminated earlier this week in the Durban High Court granting a temporary order for operations at the Shongweni landfill site to cease, pending the outcome of waste management company EnviroServ’s appeal against the Department of Environmental Affairs’ suspension of part of their waste management licence.
“We are all relieved that the court granted the interim relief, but no, the odour will not just go away from cessation of operations.
“Engineered active gas extraction and treatment or destruction (flaring) needs to be implemented, as well as capping and rehabilitation of the cell. All the interim order means is that no new waste will add to the problem already in place. The battle is just beginning,” she said.
The journey to this point took months of work.
“Upper Highway Air was started when our website was developed to assist in streamlining the process of reporting the odours to the municipality. We were left frustrated that the municipality could not facilitate the number of complaints and we wanted a platform where no complaints could ‘go missing’. We realised we would have to take matters into our own hands and do our own independent testing (of air and soil),” said Johnson, adding that she never thought the campaign would reach such a level but their main motivation was to get their families’ lives and health back.
Time with their families had to be sacrificed though, for the cause they were fighting.
“This fight has consumed all of us, we spend many evenings away from our families in meetings, with our legal team, meeting experts, fielding questions on our social media platforms and emails, etc. I personally spend most of my day and evenings/weekends working on this battle. We have fights on all fronts, administrative as well as civil, and collating evidence from the community, fund-raising, education and keeping the community positive and up to date. It is virtually a full-time job,” she said.