Environmentalist witnesses oily operation

VAccording to the witness, who asked to remain anonymous, on 5 November she saw a Joburg Water truck and people dressed in Joburg Water uniforms outside the BP garage on William Nicol Drive, near Fourways Crossing. The witness said she saw the people pumping about 5 000 litres of oil from a nearby pressure reducing valve (PRV) chamber onto the grass embankment alongside the road. The witness said she asked the people to stop their operation, but was told that they do this every year and that she should not tell them what to do.

The witness said the oil dumping was a major environmental concern and needed to be cleaned up immediately. Puleng Mopeli, spokesperson for Joburg Water, said the incident did take place, however it was during the maintenance of a PRV chamber where Joburg Water employees discovered oil.

Mopeli said the employees pumped the oil out of the chamber to the surface to try and access the chamber for maintenance and also to reduce the risk of contamination.

“By the time we became aware of what had happened on-site, we were served with a compliance notice by City of Joburg environmental [department],” Mopeli said. “In a nutshell, they [City of Joburg] visited the site with Joburg Water and tried to determine the root cause of the problem.” Mopeli said they suspected that someone servicing their vehicle may have disposed of oil in the PRV chamber. “We are in the process of acquiring quotations from service providers to assist in cleaning the oil spillage on the surface,” she said.

“We have also instructed our staff to escalate such occurrences in future before pumping it out onto the surface.”