UPDATE: Oil booms fail to save harbour wildlife

FOLLOWING the fire in Mobeni on Thursday, 26 March, yet another deluge of oil made its way into the Durban Harbour, claiming the lives of marine and birdlife and infuriating community members.

The fire at Africa Sunoils led to oil spilling into adjacent canals.

Despite Transnet National Ports Authority’s (TNPA) quick response and attempts to contain the spill, it eventually made its way into the harbour.

Port manager, Moshe Motlohi confirmed booms were put in place to try contain the spill, but due to high tide, it went beyond their boundaries. Additional booms and bio-absorbing agents were positioned to contain the oil in the area of the harbour, near the Bluff Yacht Club (BYC).

Click here to hear what the port manager had to say.

Still recovering from the previous week’s spill, from an as yet unidentified source, yacht owners at the BYC were aghast as they faced yet another catastrophe.

BYC commodore, Andrew Murray, said the spill had caused severe damage to the 68 yachts at the club and shrimp were seen at the surface of the water, trying to get air.

The cost to wildlife this time could clearly be seen, with reports of dead fish and birds. The Centre for the Rehabilitation of Wildlife (Crow) responded to the call of birds in distress over the weekend. “We rescued a Cape gannet and three Egyptian geese goslings from the BYC that were covered in oil. Sadly, none of them pulled through.

We would love to see stricter measures put into place to ensure incidents like this do not repeat themselves. Oil has a detrimental effect on marine life and sea birds that in many cases leads to fatality,” said Crow’s marketing and communications officer, Paul Hoyte.

The South Durban Community Environmental Alliance’s (SDCEA) Bongani Mthembu said he was shocked by yet another spill.

Watch his response here.

This should have been avoided and the culprit and municipality need to be brought to book. The damage to marine life can’t be reversed,” said Mthembu.

After years of calling for the municipality to do more to maintain what he calls faulty weirs in the canals leading to the harbour, Bluff resident and member of the Bluff Alliance, Ivor Aylward is livid. “This should not have happened. Enough is enough. Action needs to be taken against the municipality – if we have to march for them to put appropriate systems in place, then we will do so,” said Aylward.

The municipality said the panels had been removed from the weir due to a stormwater construction contract just upstream of the weir. “This is a very necessary temporary measure, which will remain in its present (free flow) condition for another four months. We understand the importance of the weir, which forms part of our oil and trash trap, which is why we built it in the first place. However in order to accommodate other valuable improvements to the stormwater system, the weir needs to remain out of commission in the short term due to the flooding risk it poses to construction workers.

Obviously we are very disappointed that the weir was not able to serve its purpose during last week’s tragic incident,” eThekwini Municipality’s manager of stormwater design said Greg Williams.