River polluted day by day
The Merafong City Local Municipality seems to have no plan to stop the ongoing pollution of the Wonderfonteinspruit.
The river flows past Carletonville, Khutsong and Welverdiend and later joins the Mooi River, where Potchefstroom gets its drinking water.
Khutsong residents have complained about the worsening sewage leaks for months. Leaks in areas like Xhosa Section started worsening around the beginning of July. In a statement on 10 July, the municipal manager, Mr Dumisani Mabuza, said the problems stemmed from a major blockage on the main outfall sewer pipeline past Mbulelo Primary School. Although the municipality hired a Jet Vac machine to clear the blockage, did a CCTV camera inspection and hired a new contractor, it has still not resolved the problem. Copious amounts of sewage still stream into the storm water canal past the school, which then runs through Skopas.
“The people living here complain about the sewage stink every day. They can hardly breathe when the wind blows in the wrong direction,” says an opposition party councillor, Mr Welile Fihla.
Fihla showed the Herald where this storm water canal empties into the Wonderfonteinspruit. Large volumes of sewage flow straight into the river daily.
Meanwhile, the contractor the municipality appointed to fix the problem does not seem to be winning. A sinkhole recently caved in on the site where they are working in Xhosa Section in Khutsong.
Although the municipality did not reply to questions about the sinkhole, they did acknowledge that the sewage problems were enormous.
“Projects are currently underway to resolve the spillage in Khutsong. Due to budget constraints, we cannot undertake all the planned projects at once,” the acting municipal marketing and communications manager, Ms Nomonde Mahube, said.
To make matters worse, sewage also leaks into the Wonderfonteinspruit from the opposite side of the river.
Several Welverdiend residents told the Herald they had seen the sewage streaming through a culvert under the road from the Khutsong-South side. Sewage has also dammed up in the veld on the right side of the bottom road from Welverdiend to the Khutsong Sewerage Works.
An opposition party councillor, Mr Tollie Lubbe, and another resident, Mr Johan Roestoff, say the sewage has leaked there for months.
The Herald asked the municipality about this leak but is yet to get a response.
