Another follow-up site inspection, related to the industrial discharge into the Illiondale stream, took place with representatives from the City of Joburg (CoJ), Joburg Water, Cydna Laboratory and Civil Society.
The inspection took place on Tuesday, August 18.
The NEWS reported on August 12 that a task team, consisting of the Department of Environmental Management, Environmental Health, the Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality and officials from Johannesburg Water’s Laboratory Services, was to return to the Modderfontein stream area for further investigations and by-law enforcement.
During a visit in June, the task team conducted an investigation through a survey of premises that were known to be conducting offensive activities, or discharging industrial effluent into the stream.
Mr David Sibiya, of Joburg Water, said at the time the officials will return to the area again as it had come to their attention that the illegal practice had become worse in recent weeks.
He said during their visit in June, it was discovered that as a result of non-compliance with regulations and by-laws, industries were illegally discharging effluent into the stream via stormwater channels.
After the recent visit to the area, Mr Nthatisi Modingoane, the spokesperson for the CoJ, said based on the initial samples that were taken on June 17, the fingerprinting results showed there was no conclusive evidence to link the pollution to Liquid Paints.
“The source remains a mystery and hence the need for further investigations to help identify the culprit,” said Mr Modingoane.
He said a decision was taken to undertake a follow up inspection to cover the other factories which were not considered in the previous inspection.
“There were about six samples taken, two from the river and four from the factory premises, namely Dura Paints and FST Paints. However, there was no evidence of effluent being discharged into the sewer system from these two factories. The only factory which Joburg Water confirmed is discharging into the sewer channel is Liquid Paints, therefore there is a need to revisit the site to check if the initial test didn’t miss anything,” said Mr Modingoane.
He said from the observation it is clear that the discharge enters the storm-water channels somewhere but in a place that is not visible from the surface.
“For now we are awaiting the analysis results for the samples which were taken on August 18. We will also request storm-water layouts for the area and we will request that the Johannesburg Roads Agency (JRA) joins us on the next site inspection so that they can open the channels for inspection,” said Mr modingoane.
