The current state of the sewerage network in the whole of the Rand West City Local Municipality (RWCLM) is of serious concern.
The Herald accompanied Ward 3 and 9 councillors, Alwyn van Tonder and Peter Dick to the Randfontein Waste Water Treatment Works to see just how bad the situation is.
Van Tonder said he even took the mayor there last year so that he could see for himself what was going on, but it was fruitless.
“The sewerage network has deteriorated to the extent that untreated effluent is continuously flowing into the Tweelopiesspruit. I have sympathy with the people living along this stream all the way to Hartbeespoort Dam,” Van Tonder said.
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“Sewage flows down the streets of all the suburbs of this municipality every day and in Greenhills the smell of raw sewerage is no exception,” he added. It is said that the available biological filters are also not being used at the plant.
“We have submitted several complaints and requests to have the plant brought up to standard but unfortunately it seems that our concerns are ignored. This might be due to the fact, as acknowledged by the mayor in his State of the City Address, that the merger of Randfontein and Westonaria has caused a major financial setback and as a result the municipality cannot adequately budget for maintenance.”
Dick said, “The reality is that in the budget virtually no internal funding was made available for capital projects. Looking at the draft budget for 2018/ 2019 it will again be the case. The municipality will have to start doing things differently to ensure capital is available to deliver adequate services to the taxpayers of this town. There is, however, grant funding that will hopefully be used to upgrade the Hannes van Niekerk Waste Water Works, but a municipality cannot rely on grant funding alone to address its maintenance backlog.”
Van Tonder, Dick as well as councillors Sina Erasmus, Craig Harrison and Ellik de Lange have drawn up a petition to request that the West Rand District Municipality (WRDM) and Provincial Government assess the current state of the sewerage network and assist the RWCLM to submit a business plan requesting funding in order to address the situation.
Van Tonder pointed out that, “With the development of the Afri-Village in Greenhills where 4 000 units are expected to be built this June, more strain will be placed on the already non-functional Randfontein plant and the pollution will increase substantially.
“We do agree that new developments are essential but the current infrastructure must be upgraded first before new developments are started. It all comes down to proper planning and management.”
Van Tonder continued, “The problem starts at Phase 1, where the current non-functional screening machines need to be replaced. Extra screening machines need to be installed so that the smaller particles of sewage can also be screened.
“In simple terms, the two machines that are supposed to screen the bigger objects such as nappies are not functioning, causing the pumps and pipes to clog up. The larger and smaller particles can also not be separated.
“When and if it ends up on the dry bed where chlorine is supposed to kill all germs, it is not done properly, and the raw sewage is eventually pumped into the Tweelopiesspruit in Elandsvlei. Instead of clean, purified water flowing into the spruit, a milky-white effluent contaminates it.”
The contaminated Tweelopiesspruit flows through the Krugersdorp Nature Reserve and eventually into Hartbeespoort Dam.
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