“The situation at the Amanzimtoti Bird Park is completely unacceptable.”
That’s the cry from Toti Conservancy after it was informed by its past chairman, Peter Small of the possibility of another sewage influx.
Peter said when he visited on Friday, 30 May, the water was black and bubbling. Fish were gasping at the surface and only one aeration pump was working.
“I cannot believe the authorities have allowed this situation to go on for five weeks without tracing the source of the contamination,” said Toti Conservancy chairman, Laura Taylor, who has been in contact with numerous municipal staff members about the problem.
“Ten days ago ward 97 councillor, Andre Beetge and I were at the bird park with the staff from the natural resources department, as well as Jay Pundit of water and sanitation. We traced the source of the pollution as most likely coming from the Southgate Business Park, through checking the quality of the dams in Kissin Lane and Umbogavango Nature Reserve.
These streams were clean, but the pond below the conference centre in the business park was contaminated, as were the stormwater drains above stream of that.
These are the only streams that run into the bird park, so one must assume the problem emanates from Southgate.”
Samples were taken on Monday, 26 May and sent to a water, sewage and industrial effluent testing laboratory for analysis.
The results showed 10 times higher faecal coliforms and e-Coli readings than what is allowed to be discharged from a sewage treatment facility.
However, sewerage is not the only issue as daily a fatty substance is entering the bird park as well.
“This fatty substance was also present in the pond below Weavers Conference Centre,” said Laura.
“Why it took the intervention of Cllr Beetge and myself to establish that, after the problem had been there for three weeks already defies logic and casts severe aspersions on the authorities at the bird park for not taking action to resolve the problem earlier.
However, having established that, 10 days later the problem is worse than ever. What has the municipality been doing for the past 10 days? I have considerable experience in industrial environmental management and even offered my services to Jay Pundit and his team to help them trace the problem, but I have heard nothing further from them. We, the community, have been patient on this issue, but our patience has now run out and we must conclude that the authorities are displaying gross incompetence in not being able to resolve this problem.”
See the Southgate Business Park’s response.
