Council to be probed on sewage spillage

THE Department of Water Affairs is investigating allegations that Durban’s eThekwini municipality flouted the National Water Act by discharging sewage into the Umhlatuzana River, despite having agreed not to do so after a community outcry.

The investigation was prompted this week by a letter e-mailed to the department’s regional director, Jay Reddy, by the Chatsworth and District Civic Federation.

The federation’s spokesman, Umar Singh, said the municipality had lost the trust of Queensburgh, Clairwood, Kharwastan, Yellowwood Park, Hillary, Bayhead and Durban harbour area residents by allegedly proceeding with a two-hour valve-replacement operation during which sewage was flushed into the river on December 28.

The municipality’s proposal to divert raw sewage from its Umhlatuzana Waste Waterworks Treatment Centre into the river to allow it to do maintenance work on an inlet pump station sparked outrage in November last year among various organisations, including the Umhlatuzana Hindu Temple Society, whose devotees use the river for religious rituals.

“The tragedy is that we met with the municipality on November 21, and one of the resolutions was that they were going to come back to us because their implementation plan was still going to be fine-tuned,” said Singh.

He said the federation was prompted to contact the Department of Water Affairs after being forwarded an e-mail by ward 65’s councillor, Chris van den Berg, outlining the operation.

Van den Berg said he had received the e-mail from eThekwini water services’ senior professional engineer, Andrew Peinke, after requesting an update on the issue in February.

“We believe one person took the decision to do work without notifying the community. Even the Water Affairs Department don’t know that this work was done. They were kept in the dark. The community felt a bit let down . . . we are concerned about our environment and the impact,” said Singh.

Reddy said his department was investigating the allegations because “any release of raw sewage into the water resources is a contravention in terms of sections 19 and 20 of the National Water Act”.

Municipal officials did not respond to queries.