Letter: Forget the Drakensberg – the snow’s here!

Patrick Ronan of Shaka’s Rock is fed up with the Black Snow:
Yes – the Black Snow season is in full swing on the North Coast. Exceptional powder snow conditions were experienced in all populated areas in the Ballito area on Wednesday, September 12.

Unfortunately, it brought with it the usual bout of carcinogenic environmental pollution and respiratory distress/illness to our greater community – impacting especially on the elderly and our children.

What gets me is the lack of law enforcement by our paid local government officials and “deafening silence” from our greater KZN coastal community to the continued, highly illegal, practices of the commercial sugar industry in connection with sugar cane burning.

What has become of us if we stand back and allow our environment and children to be poisoned by those members of the sugar cane industry who are not compliant with the law and standards and practices of the South African and international sugar cane industry?

Of course, we cannot generalize. There are commercial operations and farmers who practice green harvesting methods or burning practices in accordance with the requirements of the Air Quality Act.

No – this is addressed to those arrogant criminals who do not monitor weather and specifically wind direction and postpone burns to minimize the impact on all North Coast communities – as they are required to do by law.

Of course, it is greed which actuates these callous and cowardly rogue elements within the sugar industry. It is they who use our national air quality legislation and the Kyoto Protocol as toilet paper. They revel in the lack of law enforcement by national, provincial and local governments – such as, in our instance, the KwaDukuza municipality.
Of course, the homes and families of these bottom feeders in ultimate control of these illegal practices are never downwind of these burns – in fact many of them live well away from the proven health risks associated with such practices – as far off as London I hear.

Local authorities in KZN have been empowered by national legislation to introduce air quality management by-laws to regulate, inter alia, sugar cane burning adjacent to or near populated areas. Sadly our local municipalities have not put these regulations into effect and one has to question why this is the case, given the significant commercial factors under-pinning this challenge,
Just so there is no misunderstanding of the serious health risks associated with cane burning fallout on populated areas, here are some well documented international and local facts i.e. sugar cane burning releases:

• vast amounts of harmful carbon dioxide into the air;

• harmful acidic particles consisting of secondary nitrates into the air,

• harmful sulphates and organic species are released into the air

All of these airborne agents promote respiratory disease in humans and animals. Our children are more affected by this airborne poisoning as internationally recognised local studies have proven that children are more susceptible to asthma-related illnesses, pneumonia and bronchopneumonia caused by sugar cane burning emissions than adults because their immune systems and lungs are not fully developed.

Most frightening of all is that it has been scientifically determined that during sugarcane burning, the combustion process is incomplete (you know the black snow which pollutes our homes and ruins your household belongings like furniture). This promotes, in some instances, the formation of dangerous partially oxidized carcinogenic (respiratory tract cancer causing) compounds.
So, I call on all North Coast communities in the greater KwaDukuza area to stand up together and:

1. “Name and Shame” on social media and report to the authorities (including KZN provincial environmental health and the KwaDukuza municipal manager’s office) sugar cane burning culprits;

2. put pressure on and call on our KwaDukuza municipal councillors (especially the paid executive councillors) and the municipal manager, to get off their seats and start enforcing the law in order to protect the children, health, living environment and property of all of the citizens within their jurisdiction.

The days of the noncompliant KZN “Sugar Barons” must be brought to an end.