The Buffalo River, a vital waterway for our region, faces a looming ecological crisis driven by the relentless dumping of raw municipal sewage from broken treatment plants.
An expert has warned that immediate action is needed to prevent irreversible damage and even death of the river.
“Without swift, sustained intervention, the Buffalo River’s unique biodiversity and the communities depending on it will suffer catastrophic losses,” renowned entomologist Prof Julie Coetzee, who works at Rhodes University’s biological control office, said.
She told the Go! on Monday that unchecked pollution from poorly treated wastewater is fuelling explosive growth of invasive water hyacinth mats in the river system.
These thick mats block sunlight, reduce oxygen in the water and suffocate aquatic life.
“When phosphorus levels drop below 0.05mg/l and nitrogen below 1mg/l, water hyacinth growth slows dramatically,” Coetzee said.
“But currently, nutrient loads in the Buffalo River are 10 to 20 times higher, allowing the invasive plant to double its biomass in as little as a week.”
The excessive “nutrients” enter the river through sewage spills laden with organic waste, detergents, and fertilizers, causing rapid eutrophication (overload of chemicals and minerals).
This favours invasive plant growth, leads oxygen depletion, and death of fish and all river biodiversity, or ecological life.
This dramatic loss of biodiversity leaves only a few pollution-tolerant survivor species.
Coetzee warned that biological control methods, while helpful in managing invasive plants, would not replace the critical need for proper wastewater treatment.
“The hyacinth is a symptom of a larger pollution problem,” she said.
Continuous pollution also threatens human health, particularly for communities relying on the Buffalo River for drinking water who are at risk of cholera, E. coli infections, salmonella, and hepatitis.
The situation is worsened by infrastructure failures.
Coetzee estimates 99.9% of the river’s crisis is due to wastewater management failures, urging Buffalo City metro authorities to urgently rehabilitate and upgrade treatment plants, fix leaking sewer systems, and enforce strict environmental discharge standards.
Comparing Buffalo River to Hartbeespoort Dam, which is 40% to 45% covered by invasive plants, she said there were clear signs that dams on the Buffalo River were resembling the start of Hartbeespoort’s ecological emergency.
Coetzee said the spectre of the Buffalo River falling into a near-permanent state of algae blooms, low oxygen, was real if the sewage spills continued — Buffalo River’s capacity to recover was diminishing.
RIVER OF HYACINTH: At Buffalo River near Phakamisa, a stretch of hyacinth blankets the water for kilometres, causing grave danger to marine life and the community. Pictures: MFUNDO PILISO
EASY ACCESS: A young boy goes through a fence at the Bhisho site where there are exposed sewer pipes channelling untreated wastewater to the ponds.
