The FF Plus on 4 August 2021, lodged a complaint with the Green Scorpions and the Human Rights Commission (HRC) about the pollution of the Fouriespruit intermittent stream and an adjoining dam with sewage coming from the Rothdene sewage purification plant in Midvaal.
The FF Plus has asked the Gauteng MEC for Economic Development, Agriculture, Environmental Affairs and Rural Development, Parks Tau, to urgently investigate the sewage pollution.
The party took action after a cattle farmer in the vicinity of Meyerton lost 14 of his Brahman stud cattle, game, fish and ostriches after they drank polluted water from the farm dam and the Fouriespruit.
The sewage flows even further along to the Klip River via a pipeline.
The Rothdene sewage purification plants’ apparent inability to treat raw sewage could also lead to the pollution of underground water sources.
The Midvaal Municipality (De Deur/Walkerville, Eikenhof, Meyerton, Vaal Marina) had been warned as far back as five years ago that the sewage purification plant had reached its maximum capacity and that it can no longer treat the great influx of raw sewage caused by increasing development in the area.
The Municipality’s attempt to use pumps to pump the sewage out of the farm dam into the Fouriespruit is unacceptable and has brought about even greater pollution.
In 2015, the Department of Water and Sanitation had appointed a contractor to upgrade the plant, but in 2017, the contractor had left and the work remains unfinished.
The Midvaal Municipality has failed to fulfil its oversight role by not taking timeous action. Further construction work is expected to commence early next year to complete the unfinished upgrade of the facility.
In the FF Plus’s view, the problem must be addressed at once, it cannot wait until 2022, and so, the party will put pressure on the Midvaal Municipality and Tau to take urgent action to prevent any further pollution.
Read the original article in Afrikaans by Kobus Hoffman on FF Plus
