A part of the Loopspruit at Fochville had turned black because of the vast amount of sewage that had been spilling into it this week. A very concerned resident contacted the Herald on Monday morning, complaining that sewage has been leaking into the Loopspruit at the Dawid Nel Park for weeks.
According to the resident, who did not want to be named, the river had dried up before Christmas when, all of a sudden, sewage water started streaming out of a big pipe on the side of the river. “There was so much of it that the river is now almost full. As you walk past there, you can easily smell it. The scum is getting thicker and it flows down to the dam without people knowing it,” the resident told the Herald. Although the resident said the municipal officials with whom she has spoken were “very friendly and helpful,” they had still not done anything about the problem by this week. When the Herald’s journalist visited the site on Monday morning, the sewage was flowing so fast that one could easily trace the leakage just by listening for it. Grey scrum floated on top of the cloudy water, which was completely black in several places. An extremely unpleasant sewage smell hung in the air all along the river and some of the sewage even seemed to have flowed over a small wall in the middle of the river. Although this wall was not wet during the time of the Herald’s visit, the scum could also be seen in the water on the other side, which had also been discoloured. The water in the Loopspruit flows to the Piet Viljoen Park and, from there, past Kokosi to the Klipdrift Dam outside Potchefstroom, which is a well-known gathering place for anglers, many of whom do not know about the pollution upstream. The Herald sent questions on the matter to the Merafong City Local Municipality on Tuesday morning. “The complaints were received and investigated on 18 January 2016. The clay pipe of the main line clay is covered with concrete. It was damaged by unknown people and is to be replaced by a new pipe today. The sewage originates from the main line that runs from Memento on the eastern boundary of Fochville town. The river was chlorinated to disinfect the contaminated water,” a municipal spokesperson indicated later the same day.
