Sewage disaster strikes Lekwa
The waste disposal system is ineffective in handling the large amount of sewage it needs to process.
Raw sewage is still flowing into the Vaal River through a leak in the main sewer line under the train bridge in Standerton.
Despite a fine of R70m in 2023 for polluting the environment, including the Vaal River, it appears Lekwa has done nothing since then to rectify the problems.
The Standerton Advertiser visited Lekwa Municipality’s wastewater treatment plant on February 5, after receiving complaints about sewage leaks and raw sewage ending up in the Vaal River.
DA Clr Alberto Franco explained the waste disposal system is ineffective in handling the large amount of sewage it needs to process.
“The current process is removing the biggest parts of waste and pumping the wastewater back into the Vaal River,” explained Franco.
Franco stated the plant can only handle 9kl of waste per day, when in reality they need a capacity of 22kl to dispose of waste effectively.
He claims many of the integral parts of the plant are not functioning and older equipment is no longer viable because of ageing.
Though Lekwa has plans to extend the plant, Franco urges the municipality to look to the future.
“Old, unusable equipment was left to rot. The ideal would be to tear down old equipment, donate the parts you can to other municipalities who still use older systems and sell the rest as scrap metal,” said Franco.
The ground where old equipment was can then be prepared for further extensions.
Furthermore, the number of workers in the plant is not enough to handle the amount of work.
According to Franco, only five people are working at the plant.
“We do not have nearly enough staff to handle the workload,” said Franco.
Cattle frequently roam the area, drinking from the sewage.
According to Hillel Coetzer, chairperson of the Northern Light Foundation, these animals can no longer be slaughtered and consumed as the contamination from the raw sewage could make people sick.
Sewage spills have been constantly polluting the environment, particularly the Vaal River, for years without an end in sight.
A former DA councillor, Louis Jansen van Rensburg, who represented Ward 4, brought this before the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) on November 30, 2019.
The SAHRC issued an investigative report against Lekwa that year and made several recommendations. The report dealt primarily with sewage spillages in Rooikoppen, Ext 8 and other areas within Lekwa.
The SAHRC followed up with a visit to Lekwa on February 17, 2022, and pointed out several problems that persisted, such as sewage spillages resulting from ageing infrastructure and poor maintenance at the wastewater treatment plant.
At the time of going to print, the spokesperson for the Lekwa Local Municipality has still not responded to questions about what the municipality has done since 2023 to tackle the spills.
