Cape Town - There is something in the air along Strandfontein Road and it is a foul smell, say residents.
Keith Blake, a 59-year-old resident from Ottery, often drives down Strandfontein Road on his way to his favourite fishing spot, and has repeatedly come across this stench. This weekend it became so bad the couldn’t let it carry on. “I go fishing a lot. At times I go past here and there is nothing, but when I come back, depending on the wind, there is this rotten smell.
“For a few weeks now as I drive down Strandfontein Road and just opposite Pelican Park I get the sickening smell of a huge overflow toilet - bluntly, a lingering poo smell. And this seems to linger at my fishing spot,” he said.
“I live in Ottery, and whenever we drive towards the beach, there is a horrible smell in the air, and I said to my wife there is something not right here.”
He isn’t the only one to take note of the unfortunate aroma as Pastor Paul Phillips, chairperson at Destiny Development Corporation and a Lotus River resident, has also come across it.
“I live in Lotus River and there has been this going on for a while. It’s a stinky sewage smell, you can distinguish between the Zeekoevlei smell and sewage smell.
“From time to time I check my drains but it is an outside sewage smell. You can definitely smell it’s rotten sewage.”
Phillips, 50, said he recently moved back to the area, and had come across this smell on-and-off for the last six months.
“You can smell it on humid and windy days when it’s hot. I’m trying to figure out where it is coming from, but maybe there is a leak The more you go towards Zeekoevlei, the stronger the smell gets. It is very intense. I live next to a senior citizens’ home in the area and if it affects me then it definitely affects them.”
Xanthea Limberg, mayco member for Informal Settlements, Water and Waste Services, said that without more detailed information it was not possible to say for certain, but they did have some idea where the smell could be coming from.
“It is possible that the smell described is coming from the Cape Flats Wastewater Treatment Plant which is in Zeekoevlei.
“The plant was built in the mid-1950s, but is currently being refurbished.
“Despite the smell, the plant is operating well. Effluent quality meets the required standards.
“If the residents could provide us with more information regarding where exactly they experience this smell, a more detailed investigation can be undertaken.”