Treatment plant may prevent toxic spills
Leachate from the landfill poses a pollution threat to Ramsgate lagoon.
THE worrying saga of the Oatlands landfill site leachate dam might come to an end if a new plan to prevent toxic spills is implemented.
This week Hibiscus Coast Municipality spokesman Simon Soboyisa confirmed that the municipality was exploring the possibility of installing a leachate treatment facility at Oatlands to deal with the contents of the dam.
“The municipality is currently preparing the paperwork for compliance issues,” he explained.
Problems concerning the leachate dam hit the headlines in December 2010, when members of Ramsgate Conservancy and other civic organisations discovered that an entire run-off dam, filled with toxic water from the landfill site, was poised to spill its contents into Ramsgate Lagoon.
They warned that a toxic spill would have a disastrous effect on fauna and flora and would put Ramsgate beach’s Blue Flag in jeopardy.
When functioning correctly, the contaminated leachate from the landfill site would flow into a leachate dam, from where it would be pumped back into the landfill site.The run-off dam was the next line of defence. If the leachate dam overflowed for any reason, the run-off dam would act as a buffer until the problem could be remedied.
Unfortunately, this system, used successfully around the world, had been compromised as there had been no pump in place to return the leachate to the landfill.
Since then the there have been a number of alarms regarding spillage from the dam and, as had happened after the first incident, emergency short-term solutions were brought into play. A monitoring committee has been formed consisting of representatives of Ramsgate Conservancy, the KwaZulu-Natal departments of water and environmental affairs, the local consulting engineer, the Oatlands contractor, Ugu District Municipality’s environmental services and Hibiscus Coast Municipality.
Much pressure has been brought to bear on Hibiscus Coast Municipality to deal with the pollution threat but so far an effective long-term solution has yet to be implemented.
