Sewage spills into Moodie Street

THE overflowing drain in Moodie Street, Umkomaas is still causing a stink among residents, businesses and environmentalists.

“It feels like we deal with this every two weeks or so,” said one person who lives nearby.

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“The drain is sorted and for a few weeks all is well, and then we’re back to square one because the fix is always only temporary.”

This drain has been problematic for several years, with sewage regularly overflowing.

There are residential properties and a dive centre in Moodie Street, meaning people are forced to deal with the stench on an almost daily basis.

Residents report that on occasion toilet paper and sludgy water pool in front of their homes and they have to negotiate the raw sewage when entering or exiting their properties.

The effluent runs down the road towards the beach and has begun flowing onto the sand.

Not only does this contamination pose a threat to the environment, it is also a health hazard.

The latest leak was reported to eThekwini Municipality last week.

A team was sent to determine the root cause of the problem was and to hopefully find a permanent solution.

Senior technician, Samkele Ndlangisa and his team cleared the blockage.

“We inspected our line to find the cause of these blockages and noticed that our infrastructure is working perfectly well,” he said.

“However, there is a lot of fat which is being discharged into the sewerage networks by businesses in the area and this appears to be causing these frequent blockages.

“It is the responsibility of the business owners to make sure that their fat traps are serviced regularly to prevent the fat from entering the sewerage system.”

He added that eThekwini’s pollution team would also assist with the investigation into the discharge of fats into the sewer infrastructure which result in the frequent blockages.

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