Palmiet pollution takes a toll on wildlife

DEAD crabs, frogs, fish and bewildered river birds, thick white foam at every rapid. Dirty blue, then green, grey, black and brown, foul smelling, soapy river water, accompanied by cleaning agents, chemical smells and solvents fumes. This was the state the Palmiet River was in last week in Westville and Cowies Hill.

According to Lee D-Eathe from the Palmiet River Watch, a series of sewer blockages, sewer-pump-station failures, and a sewer pipe burst had raw industrial sewage pouring into the Palmiet River via the sewer and storm-water network in the Pinetown industrial area, which devastated 10 kilometres of the Palmiet River, affecting hundreds of residents and business owners.

Angry and frustrated, Helen Cannon, who runs a bed and breakfast on the banks of the river, said this was one of the worst, and certainly, the longest duration pollution events she has ever seen.

She said she wondered whether there was a risk of disease from the foul smelling and ugly looking, foam covered water passing through residential areas of Cowies Hills and Westville and asked whether warnings should have been issued following an unusual spate of pollution events.

“Guests from Canada, and a wedding reception party, left her business with a bad impression of what should have been a memorable experience, tarnishing the reputation of a normally beautiful riverside setting,” D’Eathe said.

D’Eathe, who started the Palmiet River Watch, said he wrote to eThekwini Municipality recently and thanked them for the remarkable reduction, and hopefully the elimination, of fresh-water supply-pipe bursts that had been tearing riverine habitats apart, cutting the sunlight off for days and smothering organisms with a crippling silt deposit. From what was a regular horror, these events are no longer happening.

“It is no easy task keeping domestic, industrial effluent and debris out of the river, and maintaining a quick turn-around time; and contending with the illegal disposal of rags and paper, the discharge of wax, oil, grease and storm-water into the sewer systems,” he said.

Along with the community, D’Eathe asked what went wrong with the sewage system and what measures will be taken to prevent it happening again.

DA PR councillor for Westville, Warren Burne, said: “This is a calamity. If human behaviour is responsible for this pollution, the responsible people must be identified and appropriate punishment meted out to them. If it was just an accident, then appropriate action must be taken to ensure that such accidents don’t happen again.

” I hope that the municipality will make the sufficient manpower and resources available to identify the cause of the pollution, and take adequate remedial action. If it is because of inadequate maintenance, or even just monitoring of the municipal infrastructure, then adequate measures must be taken to ensure that this does not happen again.”