SDCEA’s open letter to refineries emitting toxic pollutants

THE determined environmentalists of the South Durban Community Environmental Alliance (Sdcea) have yet again put the the growing concern of toxic pollution in the spotlight.

“We are all aware of the fragility of our local and global public health systems, as the coronavirus moves across the world with terrifying speed. But we must not forget the slow killers that continue to do enormous damage in South Africa’s most vulnerable communities, as toxic pollution kills hundreds, and leave the rest of our immune systems compromised,” said Desmond D’sa, Sdcea coordinator.

According to Sdcea, South Durban communities bear the brunt of fossil fuel and petrochemical industries adjacent to their homes on a daily basis. Over the past sixty-five years, residing in South Durban has been a nightmare for residents who coexist with corporations which act with impunity in search of higher profits, and, worse still, which are not held accountable for their actions by those government officials responsible for the protection of health.

For decades, people have breathed in toxic fumes released from fossil fuel and petrochemical industries in South Durban. This has resulted in extremely high levels of asthma, cancer and other respiratory problems. “The attack on our health is worse because of the relatively low height of smokestacks and chimneys (just 50-100 meters) due to long-standing restrictions attributable to airplane flight paths. Yet in 2010, the old Durban International Airport was relocated to the far north of Durban so the state should have forced the huge oil and chemical firms to raise their smokestacks. Government’s failure to protect us is no surprise.

The South Durban basin topography and local climatic conditions have not helped, as the toxins released stay in the valley and affect a wide area. The Bluff dams up the air that drains downward off the Berea ridge through the river valleys and into the basin trapping the pollution. In winter, the evening temperature inversions compound this problem by keeping pollution close to the ground and preventing it from dispersing upward,” said D’sa.

According to D’sa the two biggest petrochemical polluters are Engen and Sapref (BP/Shell) oil refineries and were historically protected from any public scrutiny by the Apartheid Key Points Act, giving them free reign to pollute. Many other factories and companies in South Durban also contribute enormously to air pollution, e.g. paper and pulp industries Mondi and SAPPI.

SDCEA together with residents have been at the forefront of human rights and environmental justice for over two decades, with special attention paid to watchdogging air quality in the South Durban area. SDCEA conducts air monitoring on a regular basis and we find that refineries and industries are constantly emitting harmful pollutants. This is experienced most severely by the fence-line communities: Umlazi, Lamontville, Merebank, Wentworth, Clairwood and the Bluff.

In the last meeting SDCEA held with the city health department, on the 23 May 2019, city officials agreed to preparing a terms of reference and holding quarterly meetings specifically to discuss the air quality in South Durban, industry non-compliance and the lack of action in response to pollution complaints amongst other grievances. To date, nothing has materialised from those deliberations.

Years of letters, emails, media articles, complaints and protests have fallen on deaf ears.

“All tiers of government are fully aware of the problem and yet they lack the political will to hold corporations accountable. To our politicians and bureaucrats, Section 24 of the Constitution – protecting our right to a clean and healthy environment” – cannot simply be ignored, as the polluters continue their state capture. We are furious, and just as our vulnerable economy, health system, climate and elites are under unprecedented pressure, we will ramp it up even higher in coming days and months,” concluded D’sa.

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