A Warner Beach resident lamented the sight of scores of dead fish lining the banks of the Little Amanzimtoti River last week.
“From Wednesday I noticed lots of dead fish close to the mouth,” said Lynett Snyman. “The first thing in the morning I see the birds eating the dead fish.”
Lynett was informed by an expert that the algae that can be seen on the river bed is from increased nitrate in the water, which results from an abundance of sewage in the water.
The river mouth opened mid-week, which assisted in flushing out a lot of the tainted water.
“Someone should be monitoring the quality of the water and if a pump is used to aerate the water when the quality is poor, we wouldn’t have this problem,” said Lynett.
“I see a lot of people fishing for food in this river.”
Lynett said she noticed the dead fish had white gills, an indication they died from a lack of oxygen.
“It is our belief that the oxygen depletion in the water was caused by a combination of factors and not only sewage. In this instance, there was definitely no sewage spill into the Little Amanzimtoti River that could decisively be blamed for the fish kill,” said Toti Conservancy’s Corinne Winson.
“If you examine the water flowing quite steadily over the shallow section on the seaside of the pedestrian bridge, you will note it is quite clear. The river bed is also much cleaner than it was just a few short week’s back. We do not believe that the fish kill, in this instance, can be blamed entirely on the eThekwini sewage works.
The Little Amanzimtoti River does have a number of specific problems and these are partly the result of years of sewage effluent being released into the river from the pumpstation upstream. Under normal circumstances, this effluent is ‘up to standard’.
We might not agree with those national even international standards, but it is something over which we have no control.
It is our belief that the oxygen depletion in the water was caused by a combination of factors
We do know that the efforts of the Army Saints and conservancy members to manually remove water lettuce is disturbing a lot of rotten vegetation lying on the bottom of the river. This, together with exceptionally high temperatures, is more than likely the cause of oxygen depletion.
The municipality can only aerate the water if a problem is reported via the Engineering Services Centre on 080-131-3013. Too often there are complaints from concerned local residents, placing blame on the municipality when it is completed unaware of the problem.”
At Corinne’s request, eThekwini’s wastewater department checked the pumpstation at the weekend and confirmed no spill caused the fish kill. It will look at the feasibility of setting up an aerator at Baggies to aerate the lagoon water.
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