Ekurhuleni Metro says its crews are working on stopping the intermittent sewage spill plaguing residents of Impala Park for the past few weeks.
Responding to the Advertiser’s request for comment, the metro pointed out that a collapsed underground sewer pipe in Northrop Road is the cause of the spillages. This is downstream of the sewer network in Marbore Street.
“This collapsed sewer pipe is causing a backup of sewer in the upstream network, causing occasional overflows. The City is doing everything in its power to resolve the matter as soon as possible,” said the metro spokesperson, Zweli Dlamini.
“The department’s contractor is busy repairing the collapsed sewer pipe on the corner of Northrop and Shackleton roads. In the meantime, the water department arranged for a contractor to over-pump the sewer to a manhole downstream of the collapsed section. This brought some relief to the residents where the overflowing occurred.
“The department has also arranged for further level control measures, including sucking from the network, utilizing vacuum tankers in Mystere Avenue.
“The team is making progress and no sewer overflow is taking place,” explained Dlamini.
‘Delayed’ response to a sewage spill
This publication previously reported that furious residents of the affected area were accusing the metro of turning a deaf ear to their complaints about the mess caused by the spillage, saying they don’t know who to turn to for help.
Footage shot by an affected resident shows murky waste overflowing onto the streets, winding its way through the suburb and spilling the waste into nearby water bodies. Some people’s bathrooms or toilets have water in a brown colour.
According to Terry Owens, a night caretaker at one of the affected nearby complexes, they immediately reported the problem to the metro after noticing it two weeks ago, with the hope that crews would urgently attend to it.
Owens said the situation has gotten so bad that residents have been unable to flush their toilets.
“The untreated sewage is being pushed back into our complex and the smell is terrible,” said Owens.
A resident at Marbore Court said the main sewerage pipe in the area collapsed on April 22. Since then most drains in the area blocked and gallons of sewerage from the complex have been flowing into the dam.
“It is now so bad that the sewerage is pushing back into some of our ground floor units. It is very unhealthy as our children are forced to play in the sewerage. We are also concerned about the geese and fish in the dam.
“One of the tenants was told by our ward councillor that it was supposed to be a two-day-long job to repair the damaged system, but the matter has now been dragging for more than a week,” said the resident.
The councillor, Simon Lapping, confirmed that he had expected the repair works to take at least two days, but the pipe is located about six metres deep and requires a lot of resources to repair.
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