New dumpsite area, but is it legal?

THE VRYHEID dumpsite sage continues, and might continue even longer. True, the old dumpsite area, compared with how it has appeared sometimes in the past, does not look too bad, although none of the town’s rubbish has been buried.

It seems for want of space in the existing site, there is nowhere to excavate a new “cell” (a huge hole into which the rubbish is tipped, compacted and covered with soil). Rubbish delivered to the site is simply spread over the area. There are no mountains of rubbish, just an ever-increasing number of layers.

Now, or at least recently, half of the large area of veld between the dumpsite’s south-western border and the nearby abattoir, has been fenced off. Concrete pillars and razor mesh fencing surround the area, and from a signboard alongside the road it seems that this will be a landfill site being established by the Department of Environment Affairs as a project of the Expanded Public Works Programme. The Implementing Agent is said to be Gravitas Consulting (Pty) Ltd.

But a number of questions arise, for which we await answers and comment from AbaQulsui Municipality.

When was this new site approved?

When was this new site’s proposal put before the public for comment? When, some years ago, it was proposed that the new site be on the other north-western side of the access road, in the vicinity of the old rifle range, that proposal was put before the public for comment, a copy of the proposal lying in the Vryheid Library. When did this happen for this newly fenced site?

When for this new site was an Environment Impact Study done, by whom, and what were its conclusions?

What provision has been made for the boring of boreholes, as required, on the site in order that groundwater pollution can be periodically sampled and tested?

We await answers from AbaQulusi.