DURBAN’s beachfront and harbour areas have long been counted among its tourism crown jewels, but in recent days they have developed a “stinking” reputation.
Repeated instances of raw sewage being discharged into the harbour and finding its way onto the city’s popular beaches because of malfunctioning infrastructure have caused consternation among residents, business owners, environmentalists and visitors.
Sewage began to gush into the harbour eight days ago, a situation the eThekwini Municipality only managed to bring under control on Friday.
The City blamed load shedding for the breakdown of its Mahatma Gandhi pump station, resulting in the smelly effluent being discharged into the harbour.
There are reports that raw sewage also found its way into the harbour via “grunter gully” in September, and onto some of Durban's well-known beaches weeks before that.
The pump stations at North Beach and Victoria Embankment were reportedly on the blink on those occasions.
It emerged recently, in response to questions from DA MPL Heinz de Boer, directed at KZN’s Department of Economic Development, Tourism and Environmental Affairs, that of the 34 compliance notices and directives issued under the National Environmental Management Act (NEMA) over the past 24 months, eThekwini received 12 of those warnings.
Sharmaine Sewshanker, an eThekwini councillor, together with a delegation of local DA leaders, visited some pump stations on Thursday.
Sewshanker said various pump stations had malfunctioned, despite appeals to the municipality to have them regularly serviced and maintained. As a result, the environment, tourism and businesses in the area were adversely affected.
While load shedding had a bearing on the operation of the pump stations, Sewshanker said the sewage spills were inexcusable because this was not a new crisis.
“The city should have planned accordingly,” she said.
Her party would look at laying criminal charges against the municipality because the city’s long list of excuses over regular sewage spills was unacceptable.
“The ongoing sewerage issue, together with the increase in tariffs, load-shedding, water outages and increased unemployment, does not bode well for the future of residents,” Sewshanker said.
Ayub Essop, a shareholder in the multi-million rand 9th Avenue Waterside Restaurant in the harbour precinct, said the latest sewage spill was the worst they have experienced in recent times.
Essop said he and his business partners were reconsidering their investment, but their major concern is the fate of their 48 staff at the restaurant.
“Our workers are humble, hardworking and have dependents who rely on their earnings. The restaurant is not our core business. We are into logistics and have made various other investments around the city.
“Shutting the doors of our restaurant is an option because our R11 million investment is in jeopardy, but what will happen to our workers?”
Essop said their main frustration was the frequency of the sewage leakages and the constant excuses they received from the city.
Malusi Mchunu is another business owner in the harbour area who is counting the spillage cost.
In a TV interview, Mchunu said he ran a commercial diving company doing minor in-water repairs to commercial vessels that dock at the harbour.
Since last Saturday, his operations were halted because they received notice from the authorities that it was not permissible to enter the water.
“You have to plan in advance for this type of work. We usually get the go ahead from vessels a few weeks in advance.
“We had two vessels needing our attention since Monday, but we couldn’t dive.”
Mchunu said the downtime was a huge loss because the company earned $30 000 [about R450 000] for each day of work, and agents would direct further work elsewhere.
“This is not the first time we’ve had a sewage problem.”
Municipality spokesperson Msawakhe Mayisela confirmed that load shedding had affected the operation of the Mahatma Gandhi pump station.
Asked why the City was not more proactive in preparing for the likely impact of load shedding on its infrastructure, Mayisela said they had not imagined it would continue for so long.
“We are now working with our electricity unit who are developing a programme of exempting strategic pump stations. We are also working towards ensuring all pump stations have generators, in spite of severe financial constraints.”
He said that while all the City’s infrastructure was regularly maintained, some had been damaged by ongoing vandalism.
Mayisela said the City’s repair teams, who carried out their work using technologically advanced methods, sometimes had to dig up pavements and roads to effectively trace faults in the system.
On overcrowding problems – especially in some of the City’s high-rise buildings, where landlords crammed in tenants – that had placed added strain on infrastructure, Mayisela said: “We are proud of the strides that we are making through our Operation Good Hope initiative."
Since it started two years ago, the City had issued fines "worth over R500 000”.
SUNDAY TRIBUNE