Sewage leak repaired at Zwartkop golf course

A private contractor was tasked this weekend with repairing the sewage line at the Zwartkop golf course, Centurion, after numerous complaints were received.

According to residents’ complaints, the sewage line had been blocked for about a month and overflowing onto the golf course.

Golfers complained that they have to move through sewage water while playing golf. The water was also directly flowing into the Hennops River, and land up in Hartbeespoortdam.

Manager of Zwartkop Estate Chris Delport, confirmed the leak was repaired over the weekend.

“It had been overflowing since the recent floods in the area,” Delport said.

Tarryn Johnston, founder of Hennops Revival, investigated the complaint. She said she was informed there were two sewage lines located on the golf course that caused the overflow, and that it was in the process of being repaired.

“There is another sewage line overflowing at the gate of the club, but I was informed that would be repaired today (March 22).” Johnston said residents also often report what is known as ‘black water events’ that people mistaken for sewage water.

“What happens is, when it is cold during the night and the temperature rises during the day, the stuff at the bottom reacts, causing bubbles. It also stinks a lot because of the sludge, so it can be easily mistaken for a sewage spill when it is actually not.”

She said she was also concerned about the bugs used to kill off hyacinths at Hartbeespoortdam.

“We are concerned that if the dead hyacinths are not removed, it will just sink to the bottom and cause problems.”

She said the dam has become eutrophic in earlier years and reached a hypertrophic state due to the severe growth during summer.

“These blue-green algae blooms pose a high risk to human health and we do focus some of our clean-up projects around removing hyacinths.”

Johnston said they also spent days manually removing hundreds of thousands of hyacinths from the bottom dam at the model train park a while back.  

“One can see there is a noticeable difference in water quality once the sun shines through it for the first time in a long time.

“It is extremely labour-intensive work; the plants are packed so tightly together, one has to pull them away from the others and push them towards the banks where they can be removed,” she said.

“One of our volunteers once even went out in our canoe to try and pull it out, but unfortunately the plants were too tough.”

She said there were laws in place regarding the transportation of hyacinth due to its highly invasive nature, “so taking it somewhere is not an option”.

“I don’t know of anyone permitted to transport these plants; so I had to come up with a plan, working with what is available and allowed.”

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