SAVE the VAAL Environment (SAVE) has had another victory in its fight against the pollution of the Vaal. The High Court in Johannesburg granted the organisation an order to join role players in national and provincial government in existing litigation and a court order to stop polluting the Vaal River.
SAVE applied to join the ministers of finance, water and sanitation and environmental affairs, and the Gauteng premier and the MECs of finance and cooperative governance and traditional affairs (Cogta).
This action relates to SAVE’s existing court order against the Emfuleni Municipality and the municipal manager in February 2018. That order required Emfuleni to prevent raw or partially-treated sewage from entering the Vaal River and its tributaries from the municipality’s waste water treatment system. In a statement, SAVE said Emfuleni Municipality had failed to repair the broken pipes and dysfunctional waste water treatment plants, or get all 44 pump stations back in working order.
The organisation says this has resulted in the raw sewage pollution of the Vaal River reaching alarming and dangerous levels, despite the efforts of the SANDF, which has made some progress but is hampered by a lack of funding.
SAVE said they would seek to provide appropriately funded short, medium and long-term plans through the litigation. The organisation wants implementation and completion dates to upgrade, increase capacity and maintain the waste water system. The system must be able to cope with growing populations and prevent sewage pollution of the Vaal River, they said. The new parties that have been added to the court order must respond within 45 days, in accordance with their various statutory mandates.
