The greens at the Estcourt Golf Club have become much greener and this is not due to the pristine condition of the course, but rather the effluent that has been leaking into three of the dams, giving the surface a bright-green colour.
Not only have parts of the course become a serious health hazard for the players and the abundant wildlife that thrives at the club, but President George van Niekerk is concerned that the contaminated water from the dams, which flows directly into the Bushmans River, will fester into sickness for the people who rely on this water for household purposes.
The sewage that spills into the golf club’s dams has been an ongoing problem for about three years now.
READ MORE HERE: Sewer sludge takes over Estcourt golf course
Mr van Niekerk explained that a blocked manhole in Roland Hellet Road is one of the main causes of the spill that meanders its way onto the golf course.
Previously, the onus fell on the club to clean up the dam, after communication with uThukela District Municipality came to a halt.
For a while, it seemed that the spill had been plugged, but during the past eight months, this nightmare has resurfaced.
The thick green sludge that began to collect over the surface of the dams rang alarm bells again and this time, Mr van Niekerk is adamant that the district municipality must attend to the problem.
“This is something serious. The golfers cannot pick up balls that have fallen into the water; it will cause contamination. The birds, ducks, Egyptian geese and other wildlife living in the dams will be negatively affected, and what about the people downstream who rely on this water for washing and drinking? They will get diseases if this is not sorted out,” said Mr van Niekerk.
He reasons that if the blocked manholes are attended to, the leak may be stopped.
“uThukela needs to solve these problems once and for all; we can’t carry on like this. Our members and staff are going to get ill. Our golfers pay a lot of money to play here and we can’t subject them to this unhealthy environment,” continued Mr van Niekerk.
These concerns were relayed to the district municipality’s communications manager, Jabulani Mkhonza, who said that dumping has been the main cause of the sewage spill.
“The sewer problem experienced at the Estcourt Golf Course directly emanated from the construction period of the Correctional Services facilities in Estcourt. During the construction phase, there was continuous dumping of surplus material from the site into our main sewer line, which resulted in the collapse of our sewer mains and blockages of manhole chambers.”
Mr Mkhonza said that plans are in the pipeline to repair the damaged mainline.
“The operations and maintenance team is waiting for the material from the Supply Chain Management section in order to resolve the problem once and for all. We are dependent on the delivery of the material to know exactly the time-frame of completing the works, but every supply chain process has been followed and material ordered.
The completion of the job itself may therefore take up to two days,” concluded Mr Mkhonza.
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