Durban - A mysterious black sludge and “excessive” amounts of sand and debris being pumped on to central Durban beaches has caused alarm among beachgoers - and could jeopardise the city’s plan to regain its Blue Flag status for water quality.
Environmental groups have warned that if the eThekwini Municipality continued pumping and dumping the slurry - which includes a mix of the sludge substance, and even half bricks and rubble - on Durban beaches, they would eventually be “smothered”. This includes Vetch’s Pier and Limestone Reef, which are being covered, killing marine life.
The chairwoman of marine health activist group Coast Watch, Di Dold, who had also been an active member of the Wildlife and Environmental Society of South Africa (Wessa) for 35 years, said that the problem went far deeper than sand dumping.
“The problem is that we don’t know what that black muck is, so we can’t say what the environmental effects will be. Whether it’s harmful or not, we need to know,” she said on Thursday.
“People swim there every day. Surfers go there. It really is a worry from a health perspective.”
She thought that the black substance pumped on Addington Beach last week probably came from the bottom of the harbour, and not the usual sand trap off the end of the South Pier.
The trap is a hole dredged in the seabed to catch the sand moving northwards along the coast and to prevent it forming a sandbank in front of the harbour entrance.
“There seems to be a lack of concern on the part of the municipality. They worry about the land environment, but there’s little thought given to the sea. It is totally unacceptable.”
However, the city has defended the operation, saying the black substance was nothing to worry about.
“When you dredge up the sand and pump it, you cause the sand to become a slurry and the sand in suspension looks dirty. If you look at the area where we have completed sand pumping, you will see that the sand we have pumped is the same colour of the surrounding area,” the city’s manager of coastal engineering, storm water and catchment management, Godfrey Vella, said on Thursday.
“We also test the sand pumped for contaminants and bacteria to ensure that it will meet the stringent Blue Flag beach criteria.”
But Morgan Griffiths, environmental governance programme manager at Wessa - which also manages the Blue Flag programme in the country - said that the substance, depending on what it was, could impede the plan for the city’s beaches to obtain the international water quality standard.
“Samples need to be taken to determine if the substance is hazardous to human health and that of the coastline. Is it faecal matter? Is it industrial pollution? Is it dust from the storm water drains?”
Durban had pulled out of the Blue Flag programme in 2008 but was interested in vying for the award again.
But the issue of excessive sand pumping in the area was not a new one and had not been limited to Addington Beach.
Johnny Vassilaros, the Durban Paddle Ski Club’s chairman, said that Vetch’s Beach had also been affected.
“The natural profile of the beach had been altered and while we understand that sand had to be pumped to compensate for the huge amounts of erosion… this is killing the beach,” he told the Daily News on Thursday).
Vassilaros said the reef’s marine life was being smothered, with the first 100m being dead already..
Sand has been pumped on to Durban’s beaches for decades.
The club, part of the Save Vetch’s Association, had been instrumental in fight against the destruction of the beach.
“We fought tooth and nail to make sure this place remained safe, but every dumping takes us further and further from that,” Vassilaros said.
A paddle skier who took pictures of the sand dumping said it had not been the first time he had seen the sludge.
The man, a member of the Durban Paddle Ski Club who requested anonymity, said he had been going for a run on the beach on September 13, when he spotted the mess.
“I’ve been using the beach for paddle skiing, surfing and fishing for more than 35 years. It’s a shame what’s going on here.”
He said he often surfed in the area and he was concerned about what the sludge was.
“It looks like charcoal. When you’re in the water, you can see and feel it. They are like tiny black flakes, like you get when you burn something.”
He said it left the skin feeling itchy.
“If we were getting ready for the World Cup this never would have happened,” he said. “What makes it okay now?”
Vella said that the sand pumping operation was a joint process between Transnet Dredging Services and the city.
There was very little control over what was dredged from the sand trap as the dredger screened mainly the larger sized stones that may find their way into the trap, he said.
“The Transnet dredger services a number of ports and is not always available for sand pumping operations in Durban. When the sand trap... is full, there becomes an urgent need to dredge it empty again to prevent the build-up of sand in front of the harbour entrance.”
He said that the pumping commenced in front of uShaka Beach approximately two weeks ago and should be completed by the end of October, but possibly recommence again at the end of November, depending on dredger availability, Vella said.
“We have informed most of the water sport clubs in the vicinity, who have been eagerly waiting for some sand in front of their establishment.”
Daily News