Fuss over truck in Hennops River
“We haven’t had reports of serious injury or loss of life yet but this is a very serious issue.”
A truck mistaken for an illegal dumper in the Hennops River had residents of Centurion abuzz last week.
This was until it was established the truck was from a specialist waste removal company commissioned to remove a mysterious blockage in the sewer.
The experts soon discovered a huge boulder in the sewer between Witstinkhout and End streets.
Ward councillor Peter Sutton said the metro had on numerous occasions discovered strange foreign objects in the sewers and this was almost definitely due to “drain mining”.
“It seems the obstruction was deliberately placed there by drain miners, in search of jewellery or other valuable items that end up in the sewers.”
Harvesting drains for valuables was “illegal as it is dangerous”.
ALSO READ: VIDEO: City not dumping effluent in Hennops – metro
He said the obstruction was installed by drain miners to slow down the flow of water.
“We haven’t had reports of serious injury or loss of life yet but this is a very serious issue.”
Earlier last week, a concerned Centurion posted video footage of the truck “spilling fluids in the Hennops River” on social media.
This sparked accusations of illegal dumping into the river.
Sutton said the residents had informed him of the leak into the river.
“I requested Tshwane metro technical teams to assist.”
Numerous attempts to clear the blockage had failed, leading to a decision to hire experts.
The metro sought to assure residents there was no dumping of sewage into the river.
“The metro can confirm that there was no dumping of sewage into the Hennops River,” said metro spokesman, Lindela Mashigo.
“The video clip that was circulating on social media platforms was a waste vehicle with on-board equipment preparing to unblock a sewer pipeline.”
He said the metro’s water and sanitation department in region 4 identified a surcharging manhole along the river.
“The metro contracted Averda Sight Lines to investigate and unblock the sewer pipeline causing the surcharge and to mitigate the environmental risk.”
ALSO READ: Hennops river can be beautiful again – in 10 years’ time
The Averda truck utilised high-pressure water-jetting into the sewer to unblock the pipelines.
Mashigo said the metro would always comply with set standards of discarding sewage in a safe and responsible way, without posing any health risk to its residents.
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