If the stream feeding into the Winklespruit lagoon was allowed to flow, it would flush out sewage spills in the lagoon out to sea.
That is opinion of a flat owner, who did not wish to be named, of the Ocean Breeze complex that borders the stream.
Last week the Sun reported that two four-year-old boys, Reagan Gray and Zain Jansen van Rensburg were rushed to hospital, suffering from an e.Coli bug and dehydration on Wednesday night, 6 January after swimming in the sewage-infested lagoon.
The spill was first reported to the municipality on 29 November, but until Thursday, 8 January nothing was done about it.
“There is no flow in the stream,” said the owner, who has been renovating his flat since the second week of January. “Then the stench was so bad from the lagoon we had to keep our kitchen and bathroom windows closed. You couldn’t live here two weeks ago. A resident said she couldn’t breathe in her flat.
In the last three weeks I must have made between 30 and 40 phone calls to various municipal departments to try and sort out the problem.
I was told the fire department will flush out the stream, but nothing came of it.
A municipal vehicle arrived with about six men in it. They took a look at the stream, but all they did was empty a bag of lime into the water.”
In response to the Sun’s query regarding the continued sewage spill into the stream, eThekwini head of communications, Tozi Mthethwa said the lagoon was aerated to reduce the smell.
Although the flat owner said the smell was reduced, merely aerating the lagoon water without flushing it out to sea was not solving the problem.