Flooding becomes costly for local club and restaurant

Over the period of December, the Benoni Lake Club endured severe flooding of sewage and water due to blocked pipes which, according to the club, is the responsibility of the Ekurhuleni metro to fix.

Terry Kupferman, executive committee member of the club, said that they had to get special people in to sanitise and clean up the space three times, as well as suck the water out, which was costly.

“Grapes had to close for approximately three to four days each time the flooding happened,” he said.

“This had never happened before, so we weren’t even sure where to start looking or what to start doing to make it stop.”

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When the first incident occurred, Kupferman contacted ward councillor Mary Goby and explained the situation to her.

She then went to the club to take pictures and report to the council.

Ward 28 Clr Mary Goby:

“During the month of December we had some heavy rain storms. With this, a sewage line flooded causing major issues at the club.

“It was a total health risk and was not pleasant, especially for the pub/restaurant as they had to close on these days. This happened a total of three times over a two-week period.

“I do think that there is a stormwater drain connected to the sewage line. Ekurhuleni needs to investigate this as we cannot have a repeat of this issue.”

According to Kupferman, the metro went to the club twice to assess the situation and found no issues.

“Eventually when the metro came through, they spent a while checking all their sewage lines, stormwater drains and man holes before telling me there is no problem on their side and left,” he explained.

“But then the second incident occurred and again council came through only to tell me that it’s not a problem on their side, it’s a problem with the club.

“By the third time I just couldn’t wait anymore, I called a plumber in to check everything and he found what looked like a bird or feathers blocking one of the sewage pipe lines, and when he opened a man hole just outside the club he found an abnormal amount of water flowing very quickly through there which was not normal.”

Stephen Cloete, director of Wendaloo’s Plumbing Services (Pty) Ltd, said that in the past years he had been called for blockages on this line but had never seen this amount of water in a manhole and it had never pushed back like this.

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The club called him three times and he found that there was definitely a problem on the council line.

“It is evident that there is a problem on the council line that allows storm water to enter the sewer line which is exacerbated each time it rains heavily.

“The second problem is that the line that carries much of the flow was badly restricted and forced large amounts of effluent into the smaller line.

“The line that crosses the road goes from 300mm and splits to 200mm and 100mm lines.

“Having the 200mm line blocked, all the flow from the 300mm line was now forced down the 100mm line which cannot cope with that amount of flow,” he concluded.

The City Times is waiting for comment from the metro.