CoJ posing a health risk – Fairall

Mr Paul Fairall, environmentalist, said despite over R4-million spent by council on the reinstatement of the wetland, an enormous amount of sewage is still flowing through the Jukskei River.

He recommended the reinstatement of the Queens Wetland to the city in 2009 and construction took place last year. However, his recommendation to the city to construct a forebay which would have resulted in the success of the wetland was not implemented.

“The forebay would have captured road grit and especially sewage and facilitated easy cleaning,” said Mr Fairall.

Mr Fairall, who is also the chairman of the Jukskei River Catchment Area Management Forum, has been monitoring the wetlands on a weekly basis.

“The amount of sewage coming down the river is shocking. I am disgusted at the condition of the litter trap, the Queens Wetland catchment pond, the Queens Wetland and Bruma Lake. The absence of a forebay and council not addressing hijacked buildings in Johannesburg as a matter of urgency, is posing a tremendous health risk. This, coupled with the presence of alien vegetation on the wetland and the lack of maintenance, could be catastrophic.

“I told council officials that the sewage emanating from the Johannesburg CBD had to be addressed to alleviate problems experienced downstream. Buildings have been hijacked and the people living in them do not have toilets. The sewage finds its way into the waterway. The superimposed infrastructure also gets blocked. When it rains the water forces the sewage into the stormwater drains which decant into the Jukskei River.

“The city is planning to convert the lake into a river. This will not help resolve problems. Until the problems in the CBD are addressed, interventions downstream will not make a positive difference,” he said.

Mr Fairall was asked by the CoJ to give an evaluation on the condition of this artificial wetland in March, which he did.

“I now want to know why, when I gave officials a warning on the condition of the wetland, no remedial action was taken. In the feasibility report I compiled in 2011 I said there would be excessive sewage entering the artificial wetland. This is now the case. In the feasibility report I recommended that a proper precipitation chamber be retrofitted to alleviate this massive, disgusting, and extremely high health risk to the public. If a forebay was installed at the wetland it would have precipitated the sludge. The sewage could have been removed manually. The feasibility report was ignored in the final design of the wetland. I also attended a meeting with the Johannesburg Development Agency (JDA) in March. I want to know why the JDA, whose budget funded this operation, did not act on the evaluation I did,” he said.

In the feasibility study he compiled, Mr Fairall said that alien vegetation growing on the wetland must be removed because it can influence the flow of water downstream. He said that when contractors flattened the area to reinstate the wetland they spread the seeds of the alien vegetation. “These seeds and other seeds still going into the river could have a detrimental effect downstream. It could contaminate farmlands in this country as well as three other countries,” said Mr Fairall.

The Jukskei River passes through Botswana, Zimbabwe and Mozambique.

Mr Fairall said that if the alien vegetation is not removed from the wetland it will destroy the reeds council grew to yield positive results by overpowering them. “The vegetation is holding some of the sewage back and this is resulting in more problems.

“For some reason the hydrokinetics of the water leaving the litter trap and artificial wetland shows that when the water flows through, the sewage moves to the left of the wetland. Some of the sewage stays behind while the rest flows downstream. This shows how serious the problem is,” said Mr Fairall.

He added that no maintenance work is being done on the wetland. “It would appear that the locks have been stolen from the litter trap and that the gates are forced open when it rains, resulting in a vast amount of litter flowing downstream.

“Workers are not cleaning or weeding the river banks, let alone the wetland. This is aggravating the situation.

“There will be warm weather in about eight weeks. The sewage and warm weather will create problems. Flies and other disease-carriers will breed and this will pose a threat to people. The Department of Water Affairs issued a directive in November 2011 to council stating that it must rectify the problems. Contraventions persist. The gases from the sewage are affecting people already. This is a time bomb for a cholera and typhoid outbreak,” said Mr Fairall.

The EXPRESS sent a request for comment to CoJ on July 9 and requested comment by July 11 before 10am. Comment was also requested from the Department of Water Affairs. Mr Sputnik Ratau from the department confirmed that he had received the EXPRESS’ request for comment. At the time of going to print no comment had been received.