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The City of Cape Town has been granted a five-year permit issued by the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and Environmental Affairs that allows the pumping of treated sewage into the ocean.

And while the Mayoral Committee Member for Water and Sanitation, Siseko Mbandezi, says that the city’s discharge of wastewater is done with “due consideration of the best environmental practices”, there is a mounting concern for the effect the sewage at our favourite swim spots has on our health and quality of life.

Not only does it make pretty places unbearably stinky, but it also supposedly causes frequent bouts of ‘the tummy bug’ to go around, and those are not fun at all.

There’s a pending appeal for the department’s issuing of coastal water discharge permits (CWDPs) for Hout Bay, Camps Bay and Green Point, reported TimesLIVE.

The city discharges “preliminary” treated sewage through pipes situated out at sea in these areas, which is a major concern as these plumes of contaminated water poses health risks.

ActionSA has been meeting with attorneys to appeal against the granting of these permits, fighting to ensure our swim spots are safe to splash around in.

However, the department said that sewerage pumping has no immediate threat to the environment and is a common practice worldwide:

“The findings of the study [a marine impact assessments conducted by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR)] indicated there is no immediate ecological disaster or major risks to human health forthcoming as a result of the effluent discharged through the Cape Town outfalls,” said the department.

“The department also considered alternative options during the decision-making process. However, no other feasible options are available. The city cannot cease the operations of the waste water treatment works as the municipality has a constitutional responsibility to deliver water and sanitation services to its citizens.

There lies the gruelling catch-22. What can the city do with all the kuk that its people produce?

“In granting the permits, the department made it conditional that the city must investigate ways to improve the quality of the effluent.

“It is important to note that the effluent discharged is not raw sewage but preliminary treated sewage.”

The problem is, that might not be totally true.

Filmmaker Mark Jackson, who produced a short documentary on the city’s coastal discharge, said that cleaning sewage water “by running it through a sieve” does nothing:

It’s either primary-treated in a settling tank [for starters] or it’s raw sewage effluent. I believe the city knows that,” said Jackson. “The sooner the public knows the reality, the sooner we can start figuring out how to fix it.”

The National Sea Rescue Institute (NSRI) has also questioned the legality of discharging sewage into a Marine Protected Area.

Pumping raw sewage into a Marine Protected Area is a clear violation of our constitutional right to an environment that is not harmful to health, ActionSA provincial chairperson Michelle Wasserman adds.

ActionSA urges all Cape Town residents, civil society groups and the South African public to also appeal against the issuing of the permits by writing to Adv. Mokete Rakgogo, Director: Appeals and Legal Review, E-mail: MRakgogo@dffe.gov.za and or appeals@dffe.gov.za.

Time to write that strong-worded, angry letter.

[source:timeslive]