OVER 70 birds at the bird sanctuary in Bonaero Park have so far died following a massive sewage spill in the suburb.
A resident, who normally feeds the birds, awakened on Tuesday morning and discovered the dead birds.
“The woman called me in tears this morning saying she had found dead birds inside her yard,” ward councillor André du Plessis said.
The woman went to the dam to investigate, only to find more birds dying, only managing to softly flutter their wings.
According to Kempton Park SPCA’s senior inspector, Charmaine Joubert, although the feathered animals were found still alive, the society was forced to euthanise them because they were in so much pain and were “busy dying”.
On arrival at the scene, EXPRESS found the team had already euthanised the birds and had started packing them into black refuse bags to be taken away and cremated. Although not confirmed, it is suspected the cause of the problem might be due to water contamination caused by a sewage leak that started about three weeks ago.
According to Du Plessis, the pipes have been leaking and the sewage eventually started flowing into the wetland.
“We (Du Plessis and the community) have seven different reference numbers, the community signed a petition with over 350 signatures and I even escalated the issue to the department head,” he said.
Du Plessis said the reason for the leak was the new sewer line, built three years ago, which was still not operational “due to the incompetence of the company contracted to do the job, Puledi Construction”.
“It’s now been three years but the sewer line is still not functional. The contractor was incompetent, didn’t have the right equipment and therefore causing the sewer line to be crooked and the sewage not being able to flow through the pipes. And Ekurhuleni Metro doesn’t seem to be taking any responsibility for it,” Du Plessis explained.
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Joubert told EXPRESS that at some point while they were on the scene, they witnessed a bird drinking from the water, then attempted to fly away but literally dropped down from the sky after just a few moments. Only about five birds survived and were taken away by FreeMe, a rehabilitation centre for indigenous wildlife.
Six of the dead birds, three guinea fowl and three pigeons, will be taken to a veterinarian in Bryanston, Johannesburg, for a toxicology test to determine the cause of death, and whether they were poisoned by the sewage.
“Although the time-frame of the tests are unique to each situation, most of them take a couple of days to complete, so we’re hoping we’ll have the reports soon so we can get to the source of the problem as quickly as possible,” Joubert said.
Du Plessis offered to find a sponsor who can help fund the tests.
At the same time the team cleared up the birds, two large municipal trucks were on the other side of the dam. The workers were clearing up the sewer from the dam.
According to Du Plessis, however, the problem was back again the very next day.
Du Plessis sent a message to the city manager, Khaya Ngema, on Wednesday morning, informing him about the unresolved leakage.
By the afternoon, the ward councillor had still not received a reply from Ngema.
