Contractors of the Merafong City Local Municipality were again caught red-handed while polluting the environment.

On September 18 at about 14:20, a jet-vac truck with the registration number KP00KWGP was cleaning a sewer line in the veld across from Hlanganani Primary School in Khutsong Ext 3.

Instead of removing the excess sewage and pumping it out at a facility equipped for this purpose, the truck’s operator just pumped the sewage onto the ground.

By the time that the Herald spotted them, a small dam of leaked sewage had accumulated in the veld and a path across from the school.

Meanwhile, the Herald spotted a honey-sucker truck emptying its contents in a manhole on the Khutsong side of the Wonderfonteinspruit the same afternoon.

These trucks suck excess sewage from manholes in Khutsong where leaks regularly occur, such as in Ext 2 and 3.

The problem with the trucks dumping sewage in this manhole is that the municipality and contractors are aware of the fact that the pipe that must take this sewage over the Wonderfonteinspruit to the Khutsong wastewater works has been leaking for years.

This causes all the sewage that is pumped into the manhole to leak into the river.

To prevent such pollution, the trucks will have to empty their contents at a wastewater transfer station.
Because the municipality has not yet fixed the Khutsong wastewater transfer station, the nearest such facility that is fully operational is in Oberholzer.

The Herald again asked the municipality why it was continuing to let such pollution take place, but received no answers by printing time.

Meanwhile, huge amounts of sewage were also still leaking in Khutsong Ext 3 despite the use of honey-sucker trucks.

Although questions were sent to the municipality, they did not provide answers on when the problems would be fixed.