Most of Cape Town’s sewage treatment works are failing, including the city’s largest one which releases effluent straight into the sea.
While the City of Cape Town is looking at ways to stop pumping untreated sewage off the Atlantic seaboard, its largest sewage treatment works, situated near Strandfontein, is polluting False Bay by failing to treat sewage properly.
Thus, read in conjunction with the latest Green Drop Report, during 2023 more than 382 million litres of partially treated or untreated sewage were released every day into the rivers, estuaries, and oceans in and around Cape Town. Separately, the City’s scientific services tests water quality at 99 coastal sites every two weeks , but in March last year, then Acting Mayco Member for Water and Sanitation Siseko Mbandezi stated the City’s laboratory was unable to test for enterococci since at least November 2022 “due to delays and quality challenges experienced with chemicals and consumables received”.
As studies have shown the predominant current in False Bay is clockwise, effluent released from the Cape Flats WWTW might be expected to move eastwards along the coast from Strandfontein toward Mnandi and on toward Gordon’s Bay. In line with this, the Cape Flats WWTW is mentioned as a likely pollution source in the City’s 2020 Know Your Coast report.
City’s response Mayco Member for Water and Sanitation Zahid Badroodien said the City is “ramping up its investment” in sewage treatment works “in order to address a number of challenges relating to infrastructure, capacity challenges, and treatment processes”. Although the Gordon’s Bay WWTW functions relatively well, it is in an Eskom supply area and “loadshedding does cause some issues for it,” he said. Similarly, a request to exclude it from loadshedding was denied by Eskom. He said the Bellville WWTW, from which effluent flows into False Bay via the Eerste River, is in the final phase of a refurbishment and treatment process upgrade.
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