Three departments from the City convened an interactive session regarding suggestions for a feasibility study into the future of the three marine outfalls in Camps Bay, Green Point and Hout Bay.
The workshop on January 31 follows the City’s 60-day public participation period about the marine outfalls discharge permit applications, which was concluded in November last year, as well as the process of finalising its appeals decision report for submission to the Department of Fisheries, Forestry and Environment (DFFE), which is due on Thursday February 29.
Zahid Badroodien, the mayoral committee member for water and sanitation, said in 2022, the Green Point and Hout Bay marine outfalls both received Green Drop Awards.
“This was achieved through the combined efforts of ongoing investment in infrastructure and our teams who are determined to work towards introducing treatment at our marine outfalls, and is a testament to the City’s commitment to improving good practices in our wastewater treatment systems holistically.”
However, last year the DFFE Minister Barbara Creecy said the City had failed to notify interested parties that the permits had been granted or to make a public announcement regarding sewage release permits in 2019 and 2022.
She had reversed her decision to grant the Coastal Water Discharge Permits that allows the City to pump raw sewage from the marine outfalls into the sea.
Professor Leslie Petrik, group leader of environmental and nano sciences at the University of the Western Cape (UWC), says a feasibility study may allow planners to start considering the options.
“Unfortunately, every time in the past such studies were done by the City, over the last 100 years or more, the decision was to continue dumping untreated sewage into the sea. So I am watching this space for the moment of decision about which option, if any, will be selected. From our studies, the marine environment will only be adequately protected if full treatment of sewage on land to modern, tertiary level is implemented,” said Professor Petrik.
Dr Jo Barnes, senior lecturer emeritus in the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences at Stellenbosch University, says the workshop is a step in the right direction.
“There seems to have been some progress as this was some admission that the sewage released into the ocean was basically untreated except for passing through a sieve. That was in contradiction to earlier denials. That already acknowledges the realisation of increased risk,” said Dr Barnes.
“Releasing raw sewage into the ocean carries increased health risks, not only for the few disease-causing organisms that we do test for, but for a whole range of diseases present in sewage, as well as all the chemicals carrying health implications as well. On top of that, the mere presence of chemicals together with pathogens result in those organisms becoming increasingly antibiotic resistant. That is an added health risk seemingly ignored by local authorities who used this cheap and easy option to get rid of sewage. I am, however, concerned that the ultimate engineering ‘solutions’ will be deliberately made so complex that it fails to be adopted on the basis of ‘unaffordability’. That is a manoeuvre that we have encountered before,” she said.
Mark Jackson, who made the short film Bays of Sewage, says he is pleased that the City wants to introduce treatment to the three marine outfalls that, according to the permits, push out 41.3 mega litres per day of screened sewage.
“It might seem expensive to some, but in terms of the City ‘getting away with avoiding treatment for decades’, it seems to me a price worth paying. And when actual tenders come in, prices might well drop significantly under the competing bids. These current prices are just ‘scoping’ prices, so need to be taken with a pinch of salt,” Mr Jackson said.
Byron Herbert, a Camps Bay resident, says they just want the truth from the City.
“It’s irrational and irresponsible to use the ocean as a dumping ground and the fact that our sewage goes into a Marine Protected Area makes it even worse. Let’s hope that the apparent millions spent on the Zutari report is a call to action rather than simple electioneering at ratepayers expense,” said Mr Herbert.
