Durban - UMGENI Water has said the recent heavy rains played a role in a sewage spill into Midmar Dam and, by Tuesday, they had begun disinfecting the spillage.
The organisation was responding to community concerns and the
social media uproar over the past few days.
Fears about E Coli were also raised by Save Our Rivers, a community organisation, on its Facebook page, saying it could affect various activities, such as tourism.
Umgeni Water spokesperson Shami Harichunder said they were working on resolving the matter.
“At this stage, the Mpophomeni Pump Station outflow is transferred to the Howick Wastewater Treatment Works.
“However, limited pipeline capacity, of a maximum of 3 million litres per day, is often the source of some of the problems that are experienced,” Harichunder said.
The heavy rains from the past 10 days had resulted in the storm dam at Mpophomeni filling up quickly, he said.
Harichunder added that when
the storm dam became full, its contents spilled over into three interlinked ponds in the Mpophomeni site.
The spills of the past few days had been from the third pond that the storm dam spilled into.
“A wetland situated between the Mpophomeni Pump Station and Midmar Dam helped serve as natural filtration, thereby improving the quality of inflows into the dam,” Harichunder said.
Umgeni Water had seen the social media uproar about the spillage into Midmar Dam and dispatched staff to tackle the problem, and by Tuesday they had begun the process of disinfecting the spillage from the Mpophomeni site.
Harichunder said that in the meantime Umgeni Water would be considering dredging the ponds to increase their capacity.
He said it should be noted that the water from Midmar Dam had been previously found to be of a good quality and safe for consumption.
In addition to dredging the ponds, Umgeni Water had made progress in building a new plant at Mpophomeni.
“The new plant, to be constructed at a cost of R389million, will replace the existing plant there, which has been decommissioned.
“Construction of two trunk mains will begin in January 2020 and is expected to be completed
in 24 months, after which capacity-
related problems being experienced at Mpophomeni Pump Station and Howick Wastewater Treatment
Works will be significantly reduced,” he said.