Just near the Klipfontein dam, and below the corner of Grove Street and Van Rensburg Street stands an open area that was mainly used for the illegal dumping of household refuse, dead animals and the like, a common practice on all open land in and around Ema*&^leni.
However, with the aid of a sewerage river which has been running into this area for months now, it has become a vlei, which could possibly be added to our list of Tourist Attractions, targeting ‘bird watchers’ as I noticed the scarce “Hammerkop” as well as Hadida Ibis blissfully wondering around this cesspool .
Surely this was reported to “someone” sometime in the last few months, or have we become a society of “Handsoppers”?
Who knows nothing will be done, so we just give up and live with the toxic smell that permeates everything including our houses.
How every single person in the Ema*&^leni area is not suffering from Dysentery, Cholera, Gastro Enteritis or some other form of water born disease is nothing short of a miracle!
As the daily sight of raw sewerage freely flowing from manholes, is the norm for most suburbs or extensions in Ema*&^leni.
Maybe it is because we are still ‘upstream’ of the rivers of sewerage we are sending downstream into the catchments areas feeding our dams and water sources.
Unfortunately this cannot continue indefinitely, and when not ‘if’, I am sad to say, the outbreak of one of these diseases, is visited on Ema*&^leni, it will make the outbreak in Delmas look like a Sunday school picnic.
I was also unfortunate enough to drive past the new Checkers Mall in Paul Sauer Street on Saturday night, the paint blistering smell of raw sewerage confirms that they also have their own river flowing nearby , and so onto the area below Land-Rover , where the overpowering stench also confirms another river.
How in the name of all that’s holy, does everyone just live with it?
Are we scared to involve organisations like the Blue Scorpions, or have we truly just become so uninterested, uninvolved and apathetic, that we choose to ignore the fire and fighting spirit that is part of our DNA, and live voluntarily in a cesspool?
Good Lord I hope not.
