Warning signals on the nearcollapse of Nelson Mandela Bay’s sewerage system have now become a clamour of alarm bells impossible to ignore.
The most recent alarm came last week — untreated sewage spilling into the Baakens River at various points and into the Gqeberha Harbour, flowing unchecked for a week.
This follows numerous, frequent reports over the past months and years of sewage flowing into stormwater drains, rivers, streets and sports fields, and flooding residential and business premises.
More recently, cable theft has disrupted the operations of the Fishwater Flats Wastewater Treatment Works, which handles 64% of the metro’s sewage, resulting in this facility not being operational for weeks, with potentially catastrophic health and environmental consequences.
In March, it was reported that operations at the Kelvin Jones Wastewater Treatment Works in Kariega came to a standstill due to a lack of diesel to operate the pumps, resulting in raw sewage piling up on the property of a neighbouring business and flowing into the Swartkops estuary.
This crisis of collapsing sewerage infrastructure is not new.
In fact, it doesn ’ t take more investigation than a quick Google to reveal that problems of lack of maintenance and ineffectual repairs, leading to repeated bursts of the same sewerage pipes and failures of pumps and treatments works, with raw sewage flowing into our rivers and streets as a result, have been with us for a decade or more.
All of this points to a dysfunctional municipality, illequipped or lacking sufficient capacity and resources to respond to service problems, carry out maintenance and repairs, and operate a sewerage and wastewater treatment system able to cope with a growing population and increasing business activity in the metro.
The collapsing sewerage system and the intolerable resulting sights and smells have wide-ranging impacts — a public health hazard, discouraging tourism, forcing businesses to close, unbearable living conditions for residents, and compromising the ecosystem value of our rivers in support of recreation and the fishing industry.
Vandalism, illegal dumping and incorrect waste disposal no doubt all play a role in damaging and overburdening the system and leading to blockages and spills.
Improved security of critical public infrastructure, improved law enforcement and policing of bylaws, harsher penalties for vandals, thieves and transgressors of waste disposal regulations — all of these are important, necessary, and urgent.
However, the blame cannot solely be laid on these issues.
The most critical solution and responsibility lies with the municipality and national government.
The department of water and sanitation’s 2022 Green Drop report, auditing the quality of wastewater systems, saw the metro’s Green Drop score decreasing from a high of 81% in 2011 to 65% in 2013, to 58% in 2021.
This is well below the 90% required for certification as a water authority that delivers wastewater management at an efficient and effective standard.
Further, the metro’s most recent Sewerage Master Plan was compiled in 2009. It identified a need to upgrade or construct some 286km of sewer pipelines and related infrastructure such as pump stations, as well as two additional wastewater treatment works, to meet projected demand in line with anticipated expansion of the metro’s residential and business areas up to 2020.
That time period has now passed, with no updating of the Master Plan, and it is not clear to what extent the plan has been implemented.
The issue of upgrading and maintaining the sewerage system is intertwined with the urgent need for upgrading and maintenance of the stormwater drainage system.
The issues are similar — 1) ensuring the system is sufficient to cope with the size and population of the metro and, 2) ensuring regular maintenance, repairs and upgrades are effectively carried out. What needs to be done? The metro needs to urgently increase its complement of skilled personnel able to drive improved maintenance as well as the needed upgrades.
Alongside this, updating of the long-term sewerage master plan, enlisting external expert assistance.
Plans must be backed up with infrastructure investment, sufficient maintenance and repair budgets, and must be implemented, with ongoing monitoring, reporting of progress and performance management.
Additionally, before we can even begin to consider the reuse of treated effluent, we need to ensure our waste water treatment processes are of a very high standard.
The Green Drop Report’s “incentive-based regulation” that recognises and rewards good performance is one thing, but it is questionable whether that “carrot” comes with an effective “stick” to hold underperformers accountable and enforce remedial action and compliance.
The department of water and sanitation needs to step in and ensure its recommendations are implemented and compliance is achieved.
We need transparency, with publication of the metro’s water quality test results.