Mission to clean up a poisoned river

Thousands live in the informal settlements next to the Jukskei River amid pollution and the constant threat of flooding. Now a lifestyle estate is sinking millions into cleaning up the river. Pictures: Boxer Ngwenya

Thousands live in the informal settlements next to the Jukskei River amid pollution and the constant threat of flooding. Now a lifestyle estate is sinking millions into cleaning up the river. Pictures: Boxer Ngwenya

Published Sep 13, 2014

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Johannesburg -

One of Gauteng’s most exclusive lifestyle estates is sinking millions into cleaning the dirtiest stretch of the Jukskei River in Alexandra to preserve the riverfront views it offers its wealthy residents.

It’s the first time in South Africa that a housing development – the upmarket Waterfall Country Estate in Midrand – has waded in to finance the sustained clean-up of a polluted river system to “keep the river clean for residents”.

Located on the banks of the Jukskei, Waterfall wants to ensure that the “Jukskei is returned to – and remains – a thing of beauty”. It is funding the river remediation project to the tune of R12 million.

“Living on a country estate with a river running through it, has to be one of life’s great pleasures – unless the river is choked with rubbish or full of stagnant water infested with a million of mosquitoes,” says the estate in a recent newsletter to residents.

“Careless humans or communities living without proper waste sanitation services can quickly turn a beautiful stretch of water into a smelly, dangerous mess.”

The estate has turned to Kim Kieser, the founder of Water and Environment Transformation (WET), which revives blighted waterways. The waste management project is a huge undertaking: Alex produces a million kilograms of waste a day – a third ends up clogging the river.

By early next year, Kieser hopes 120 Alex residents will enter the poisoned river system and begin to dredge its contaminated river bed. This is part of a larger R50m sustainable river and waste programme to reclaim the river, create waste separation and recycling operations in the communities through which the river flows.

The long-term project envisions unemployed women running recycling operations at strategic points in Alex, while waste disposal firms will collect the rubbish and pay a fee to WET. Households will also contribute their waste stream to the recycling project.

“I calculated that if we can capture 100 percent of Alex’s waste that is recyclable, we can generate R148m a year,” reveals Kieser. “That is an income stream only from waste. From there, we’ll be targeting sewage, turning it into biogas, turning the rubble into building materials. There are so many waste streams now damaging the environment that we can turn into very useful products. We can’t clean the river if we don’t stop the waste,” she says.

Kieser has devoted her life to healing the Jukskei. A decade ago, when she rehabilitated parts of the river, her team removed 20 000 tons of solid waste, recycling 10 000 tons of household and industry waste. And the water quality improved – E. coli levels plummeted from 22 million parts per 100ml to 240 000 parts per 100ml within two months.

It’s vital to create a different kind of industry that can provide jobs for Alex’s impoverished community “outside of what is available”, she says. “There is nothing more important than cleaning this river system. People in Alex are marginalised and have nothing. This system basically distributes wealth. Cleaning the river will reduce waste, increase prosperity and reduce crime … Land values will go up.”

Willie Vos, chief executive of the Waterfall management company, tells the Saturday Star the project has been seven years in the making. “People in Alex, being as poor as they are, don’t have an incentive to care about waste. Their struggle is to stay alive, unless you do something to benefit people of the area and educate them you will not be successful in this plan.

“Our residents in the estate realise that they can’t live here and ignore the environment and their neighbours in Alex. If it goes better with our neighbours in Alex, it will go better with us.”

But the project can’t run on its own. “It doesn’t help we clean it here, and then in Diepsloot, it gets polluted again. We need the involvement of other estates, communities, industries and local government. This river runs through various municipal areas and the government also has a responsibility to clean the river.”

Satellite imaging will allow the management team to identify dumping offenders, he says. “This is a big effort … that will hopefully benefit not only our residents and tenants, but greater Joburg.”

Saturday Star

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