Green Point marine outfall plant malfunctions

The City’s Mayoral committee member for water and sanitation, Dr Zahid Badroodien, said they are aware of the concerns regarding the Green Point marine outfall plant and reports of sewage reaching the shoreline.

“The pump station is currently operating under constrained capacity due to a failure of several pumps. This situation has resulted in a temporary overflow during peak flow periods,” said Dr Badroodien.

“The pump station normally operates with six pumps (four larger and two smaller). A scheduled refurbishment of two larger pumps led to an unexpected malfunction shortly after they were returned to service. At present, only one smaller pump is operational,” he said.

To address this, the City is adopting the following steps:

· A second smaller pump is being repaired and will be reinstalled today. This should be able to cope with the incoming sewer flows.

· One of the larger pumps is being expedited for repair to restore full pumping capacity. It is anticipated that this pump will be returned to service within a few days, thereby restoring additional capacity.

· The City is also initiating the procurement of an additional pump as an in-store backup to avoid reoccurrence in the future and to provide additional redundancy.

The Atlantic Sun inquired about when the breakdown occurred, but the City did not respond.

Mark Jackson, director of the short film Bays of Sewage, questions why the City delayed in alerting the public.

“It seems the total breakdown happened on (September) 25 (with other breakdowns happening earlier) but the City has only sent out press releases etc on the 27th? If it's true that the city has knowingly allowed the sea-going public to literally swim in poop for a period of 48 hours (and possibly a week or more, from when the pumps first started failing and discharging sewage onto the shoreline), then I believe certain officials might even be guilty of criminal offences,” Mr Jackson said.

“I'm no lawyer, but I'm led to believe that in terms of our National Environmental Management ACT (NEMA) (section 30(3), the City is required to notify ‘all persons whose health may be affected by the incident’. And ‘non-compliance is an offence bearing criminal liability’, so serious that this act prescribes fines of up to R10 million and/or years of imprisonment,” he said.

Mr Jackson said the Green Point outfall releases all of the sewage effluent from Sea Point to the City Bowl, as far as Woodstock, which is equivalent to up to 12 Olympic swimming pools each day.

“Whether the City's failure to inform us timeously of this serious environmental and public health threat is a criminal offence, I'll leave to legal experts to determine. However I'm sure we can agree it is, at the very least, a total disgrace for Cape Town,” he said.

Dr Jo Barnes, senior lecturer emeritus in the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences at Stellenbosch University, said while it is an engineering matter, the explanation by the City offered more questions than answers.

“Two pumps out of commission and suddenly, when they are reinstalled, only one small one out of the six are operational? How does that work?” Dr Barn

“I also see no concern about adverse health effects or environmental damage. None of these aspects will be addressed by simply erecting a sign. A sign is not a delete button. What else are they doing to intercept the large amount of leaking sewage in such a sensitive area? Do they even monitor the damage?

David Katz, a marine conservationist who kayaks around the Atlantic seaboard, questioned when the marine outfall plant (MOP) malfunctioned as he published a video, via social media, on September 14 regarding the stench and discoloration of the water close to the Green Point MOP.

“There was a bad smell and when the Gun Run was happening I posted a video about this, so I suspect it (malfunction) could have happened then,” Mr Katz said.