Poisoned river kills fish, birds
NOTWITHSTANDING the challenges Winklespruit Surf lifesavers have faced over the past 11 months since the river washed away the ramp access to the beach, Sunday 8 September greeted the new intake of nippers, parents and members with hundreds of dead fish and many hundreds more dying in the lagoon in front of the clubhouse.
Further inspection up-river revealed a trail of dead river creatures including newly hatched Egyptian geese and cormorant chicks, along with hundreds more dead fish and even crabs. Some of the fish were around 300mm in size.
It appeared there had been contamination of either diesel or petrol in the area of the servitude that flows in through the parking lot, either on Friday afternoon or Saturday morning.
On Saturday morning residents sensed a strong smell of fuel emanating from the servitude and reported it to the Winklespruit beach office. On conducting queries, the club was told the contamination had been reported to higher authorities around lunchtime on Saturday and nothing was done.
On Sunday morning, Neville Hazell of Winkle SLC contacted the Amanzimtoti beach office to seek assistance. “I was told only disaster management could assist as this was a coastal drainage problem. On contacting Andre Beetge for assistance, a call was logged and in due course the relevant authorities arrived and roped off the entire lagoon and commenced with a clean-up operation,” he said.
Club members got involved with removing plastic bottles stuck in the reeds adjacent to the servitude and there was evidence of an oily substance on the bottles. “It is believed this kill is not directly related to sewage spillage, as at lunchtime on Sunday there was a chemical oily film (similar to petrol or diesel) on the water surface in the region of the outfall.
This ‘kill’ begs to question the management of business waste water upstream on the drainage servitudes, especially the one that starts up near the council offices in Winklespruit and is fed by drains at the Winklespruit taxi rank and flows past the Ocean Call Caravan Park. There could be at least a dozen places where fuel contaminants could have entered the river system.”
The club hopes once remedial action on the beach access has taken place that the river will be diverted in a straight line into the sea and that this will help the lagoon to become tidal as it once was, preventing such losses from happening.
