Petiton forces Joburg Water to act

The meeting is in response to a petition signed by more than 400 residents residing along the waterways.

According to Anthony Duigan, chair of the Rhenosterspruit Nature Conservancy, sewage from Northern Wastewater Treatment Works next to Diepsloot has been polluting the Jukskei and Crocodile rivers since the last week of July this year. *

This is the latest in a long series of sewage discharges into the Jukskei River from the sewage treatment plant over years.

Duigan said the continual discharges point to a lack of competence and criminal irresponsibility on the part of Joburg Water and its officials, and has a negative impact on agriculture.

The petition requests that Joburg Water provides answers and solutions to the following:

•  The reason for the lack of any visible action to tackle the continuing pollution
•  The inability, or incompetence, of officials from Joburg Water, particularly those responsible for managing the Northern Wastewater Treatment Works
•  The breakdown in the chain of accountability for addressing this state of affairs
•  The state of preventive maintenance at the works and who and what is responsible for the continual flow of raw sewage into the Jukskei River
•  The short-term and long-term actions that need to be taken to address this critical issue.

Etienne Hugo, acting chief operating officer of Joburg Water, said, “Sewage spills from the Northern Wastewater Treatment Works are currently being experienced, mainly due to frequent operational failures due to aging infrastructure, continuous power failures due to vandalism and theft of cables at critical pump stations, as well as limited emergency storage capacity in the emergency retention dams due to the dams being silted up over the years.”

Hugo admitted that Joburg Water was aware that this was putting a strain on the environment and, therefore, Joburg Water had started a series of interventions to address the causes of the current pollution incidents.

Hugo explained that although the interventions needed to be implemented over time, the immediate goal for Joburg Water was to get the maintenance of wastewater works on track again to reduce and stop the current pollution.

As a result, Joburg Water had since placed a senior manager at the works to ensure all maintenance was on track and to co-ordinate all the short-term plans from the beginning of November.

Duigan added that the petition would be moving into rolling mass action – a campaign that would be called Armour (Action for Responsible Management of Our Rivers).