Dereliction and danger.
These two words that best sum up our visits to some of Buffalo City’s broken, dysfunctional, ravaged and unsecured sewage treatment plants.
We found signs of hardly any or no maintenance, or even municipal presence. Evidence of theft and vandalism were everywhere.
These glaring signs of official indifference have pushed Buffalo City metro’s wastewater treatment system to the brink of collapse.
Last week, people of the metro went into survival mode after the metro admitted that their central purification works, Umzonyana, had been vandalised and people were advised not to drink municipal water unless it had been boiled.
The plant draws its water from the Buffalo River, which was the focus of our investigation. A public health and ecological crisis of staggering proportions is unfolding before our eyes.
The deterioration has placed hundreds of thousands of residents at risk of long-term illnesses among them cholera, while also devastating freshwater and marine life in the Buffalo River, a major source of the city’s drinking water.
Go! sent media queries from November 17 and despite a promise of a response and three follow ups from us, no official response was received.
Go! visited four wastewater treatment sites — Bhisho, Dimbaza, Schornville and Phakamisa and were met with shocking scenes of eerie abandonment, vandalism and uncontrolled sewage spills.
At Phakamisa, untreated sewage was gushing out of the pump stations building’s walls and flowing straight into the Buffalo River, where cattle were grazing and drinking on the banks. The gates were unlocked, the buildings deserted, and there was no sign of any BCM personnel.
A young cattle herder, who did not want to be named fearing for his safety, said the spill began 11 months ago.
“It started flowing in January, but now it’s worse. I hardly see anyone here. We have no choice but to bring our cows to drink here.”
At the Bhisho works, raw sewage is supposed to be channelled into treatment ponds, but the system is not working.
Raw sewage flows in, bypasses six treatment ponds, gets chlorine thrown in and is released into the Buffalo River.
Perimeter fencing has been stolen, the gates are broken, open channels are choking with bush, the office block is vandalised and abandoned.
Walls and floors are fire-blackened, roofs have holes where sheeting has been stolen or smashed.
Electrical cables have been ripped out of the walls, sewage is everywhere, in ponds, in sodden ground, piles of used toilet paper are dotted about.
The devastation and brokenness is overwhelming. Children walk in and out this dangerous place.
Three settling ponds are dry.
Human waste is baking in large patches. Three more are stagnant cesspits. No treatment is taking place.
Thieves have looted electrical transformers with the cables, leaving the plant powerless. The control room is burnt and stripped, with only one small room still locked, but even this has a large hole in the roof. Cattle were drinking from the ponds.
Dimbaza was the only site showing progress. Contractors were seen at work rebuilding ponds and constructing new offices.
Go! was told that plants at Zwelitsha, Mdantsane, Reeston and Breidbach are at the point of collapse after years of poor maintenance and increasing amounts of effluent.
An industry insider, who requested anonymity, said BCM does not have enough working plants to treat the city’s sewage.
Rivers have become sewers, with Buffalo River becoming choked with alien hyacinth and salvinia near Phakamisa and Ndevana.
“The hyacinth is proof of heavy sewage contamination,” the source said.
The source claimed BCM “just pours chlorine into the water to mask contamination”.
The decline of technical maintenance and upgrades began after 1994 when engineering oversight collapsed.
“Today the plants cannot clean water properly and government has no engineering solution.”
Residents spoken to asked for their names to be withheld saying they did not want to get into “trouble by BCM”.
A source at Nkanini near Phakamisa, said hyacinth first started blooming shortly before the Covid-19 pandemic. It now spreads out along the river for kilometres.
A man in his 50s said: “People used to live off this river. Now you can’t eat anything from here. It’s not the same river we grew up admiring.”
A man living on the hill overlooking the Phakamisa pump station revealed how a helicopter would arrive during the pandemic and spray the hyacinth to kill it.
He said they did not know what chemical was being used, but they were never warned or addressed and did not trust the process. He said people would no longer swim or wash initiates in the river, fearing hazardous pollution, and walked to a distant dam.
At the Schornville treatment plant, a family seen collecting scrap told the Go! cattle were drowning regularly in the unsecured and untreated sewage ponds.
Unemployed Edmond Windgel, 31, who spends his time at the site, said five cows drowned there this year. He said animals mistook floating green growth covering the sludge for solid ground.
“Last week a cow drowned here. I’m sure the owner is still looking for that cow. There are cattle that eat here and they are all in danger.
“Last month we managed to save one cow. It was in the pond, struggling to get out. It was slipping. We beat it with sticks until it came out.
“We had to do something to save it from drowning because it was painful to watch,” Windgel said.
His wife, Marion, claimed they also saw the remains of an infant in one of the open sewage pipes last week and she recently slipped and nearly fell into one of the openings.
“It was at night, ‘yoh’! I just fell into the water shouting ‘boeti’, but my man saved me.
“But last week, it was bad for me. We saw a small baby in here, lying dead. We don’t know how it got there. The police came and took it.”
A retired resident living adjacent to the site said more than 20 homeless people were sleeping in the abandoned offices, control rooms and storerooms.
“There are a lot homeless people who are sleeping here. These ones who go around with the trollies.
“If I come out at 3am to check on my dogs, I see people running around here.
“It goes on the whole night. It’s different faces so you can’t keep track.”
He said the plant was a ruin. “They should just bulldoze it. If it is flattened the animals will be safe.”
According to national estimates, only 15% of wastewater treatment plants in SA are working properly, and even those suffer from years of inadequate maintenance.
A recent multi-department report found that 80% of the country’s treatment works are on the verge of collapse — only 40 of 826 water purification plants are operating properly, and 11% of households still lack sanitation.
An estimated R45bn is needed to restore dysfunctional plants and build new infrastructure.
CRIMINAL ELEMENTS: A box meant to house an electricity transformer lies on the grounds at Bhisho after thieves made off with all cables and parts inside. Pictures:MFUNDO PILISO
DEATH TRAP: At Schornville treatment plant, unsecured and untreated sewage ponds remains a threat to human lives and livestock owned by villagers who live nearby. Edmond Windgel, 31, and his daughter Monique, 9, point at one of the ponds where cattle drown regularly.
DILAPIDATED: Bhisho control room has been destroyed and burnt. Only one room remains locked, but it has a hole in the roof.
