DURBAN - The eThekwini Municipality has said that heavy rains experienced in KwaZulu-Natal has caused the UPL’s pollution control dam (PCD) to overflow into the Ohlanga tributary.
During last year’s July unrest, an alleged arson attack at UPL’s leased Cornubia warehouse led to a chemical spill.
UPL said in a statement on Tuesday that it had re-purposed an existing stormwater control dam below the facility into a PCD.
“UPL appointed independent specialists who have been carefully managing the levels of polluted water in the PCD. Testing had indicated that the recent levels of metals and contaminants of concern in the PCD were sufficiently low to permit a variety of discharge options, including slow release into the river environment.”
It said the PCD had been fully emptied by tankers in the last month, its sediments removed to landfill and had been fully re-lined.
“The heavy rains over the weekend and continuing into last night have however created an unprecedented volume of stormwater in the PCD catchment, and its levels have rapidly risen from empty to extremely high. In response to this threat, UPL had resumed extraction to tankers and the specialist team implemented systems to reduce the volume of rainwater entering the PCD. Despite these interventions, due to ongoing heavy rainfall the PCD still overtopped (water flowed over the edge).”
UPL said according to its specialists, the stormwater emanating from areas of the catchment at present is in such volumes that residual contaminants, already at low levels, will be extremely diluted.
EThekwini Municipality’s spokesperson Msawakhe Mayisela said water samples have been taken to establish the levels of pollutants (metals/pesticides and herbicides) that would have been in the water at the time of overflow.
Mayisela said that while the test results are still pending, the public are reminded to refrain from entering the Ohlanga tributary as well as the exclusion zone, 1km north and south of the uMhlanga river mouth.
“The public is also reminded that the ban on fishing or collection of mussels and oysters from the uThongathi Estuary to Eastmoor Beach Access remains in force.”