Potentially catastrophic sewage spill on the cards for Botanical Garden

A possible sewage spill in the Walter Sisulu National Botanical Garden could cause extreme long-term damage to surrounding plant life if not dealt with in time, reports Roodepoort Northsider.

The threat of a potential sewage spill of gigantic proportions emanates from a decaying sewerage pipe, measuring almost a metre in diameter, which carries sewerage from Rangeview, Roodekrans, Kenmare, and Noordheuwel through the garden.

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While the largest section of the pipe runs below ground, a section runs over a bridge – an approximately 8m high concrete structure – specially built for it across the river in the Botanical Garden. The pipe belongs to the city of Joburg. Several of the supports cradling the pipe can be seen crumbling, with the steel inside possibly rusting.

Andrew Hankey and a colleague survey the damage to the bridge. Photo: Supplied.

Should it collapse, the pipe could burst and begin discharging its massive load into the river.

In its wake, the spill will damage not only the rare riverine forest which surrounds the pipe, but the entire ecosystem downstream towards the Crocodile River, which flows into the Hartbeespoort Dam.

According to Ronny Tshabalala, marketing and communications officer for the Garden, cleaning up such a disaster will be no mean feat.

“Not only will it be very expensive in financial terms, but will also take many years as such large volumes of raw sewage may kill many trees along the river,” he said.

“The serious pollution that this spill will create will also cause disastrous conservation problems as bird species and other animals drinking the contaminated water are likely to become ill and fish could die from the contamination.”

Andrew Hankey, a specialist horticulturist at the Botanical Garden, said: “We have been alerting the city of Joburg to the potential disaster for several years, but they have not attended to the issue by appointing structural engineers to assess the severity of the problem.”

The city has been approached for comment, but has not yet responded.

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