Growing back at lightening speed, Pistia stratiotes, or ‘water cabbage’, continues to form plush green layers over Newcastle’s troubled waters.
The Newcastle Municipality has done everything but sit on the sidelines and hope for best in recent months. Instead, it has taken every step possible in its plight to clear Ncandu River.
Last week, the Newcastle Advertiser received word that the equipment being used to physically extract the evasive plants had broken down, stalling any potential progress.
Acting Strategic Executive Director for Technical Services, Lindile Zincume, refuted the allegation, and claimed the equipment was in working condition.
“The municipality is renting the machine used in the river using plant hire rates on Kusile Engineering’s contract,” he explained.
Photographic evidence recently revealed water cabbage had once again overrun areas that had already been cleaned by the municipality.
“Depending on the condition of the water, the lettuce can grow back after twelve days after cleaning, [if] there is no rain flush to clean the water,” said Mr Zincume.
While the initial clean-up yielded little long term results, a new development to curb further growth came to the fore on January 19.
“To retard the growth rate, the sugar association, through the Department of Water and Sanitation, has provided insects (biological control/natural predators), which have been released into the river to assist in this,” he added. “The efficacy of this is currently being monitored.”
In addition, Mr Zincume stated the municipality was limited by the funds at its disposal.
“A business plan was approved by council for submission for R5-million. These funds have not been available as yet from the Department of Water and Sanitation, and it makes it difficult for the municipality to move at the desired pace to clean the river.”
He also confirmed the Department of Environmental Affairs recently offered its assistance in dealing with aquatic pests.
“The Department of Environmental Affairs offered the municipality a service provider to fly over the river and do aerial spraying. It is anticipated this will take place in the first week of February, 2016.”
The municipality’s approach to cleaning the river involves the following steps:
– Chemical control (aerial or boat spraying).
– Physical removal.
– Biological control.
Mr Zincume said the overarching solution would be to ensure efficient and effective operations at pump stations, in turn hindering further contamination of the river.
“The leading water multi-national, Veola Water, has been appointed on a project for more than R10-million for the upgrade of Ncandu Pump Station. This will ensure the pump station is able to be pump all the sewage received,” he concluded.
