The sewage plume as seen from the sky, take by Jean Tresfon in 2014.
The City of Cape Town addressed residents at Camps Bay High School last Thursday about the participation process which will allow them to comment on the City’s pumping of sewage into the ocean through three marine outfalls.
Minster of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, Barbara Creecy, announced on June 13 that she had reversed her decision to grant the Coastal Water Discharge Permits that allows the City to pump raw sewage from the Camps Bay, Hout Bay and Green Point marine outfalls in to the sea, (Minister pulls chain on City’s poo permits, June 23, 2023).
Mayoral committee member for water and sanitation, Dr Zahid Badroodien, said the public involvement procedure, which last took place in 2015, would start on Thursday September 21 and conclude on Tuesday November 21.
The City’s director of Bulk Services, Water and Sanitation, Mike Killick, spoke of the possibilities regarding the connection of marine outfalls and wastewater treatment plants.
“Looking at two main scenarios for each marine outfall, can we convey the water to an existing land-based wastewater treatment plant and or could we construct a new wastewater treatment plant in close proximity. A possible third scenario is extending the outfalls further out into the open ocean,” he said.
Jean Tresfon, a marine conservation photographer, and Caroline Marx from RethinkTheStink, are looking forward to transparency from the City.
“I am pleased that they had this meeting but distrust is high around the process because the last one was swept under the carpet, there were over two or 3000 objections and none of those were responded to or dealt with and it will be nice to see the responses this time and how it is handled but it’s good to see that the City is being transparent,” said Mr Tresfon.
“I’m encouraged that it’s referred to public participation and I’m hopeful that this will be a robust engagement and that we will get the result we are looking for in that a permit for continuing to discharge with no restrictions will not be issued,” said Ms Marx.
David Katz, a Sea Point resident since 1988, says he has seen the pollution that occurs near to the marine outfalls while Byron Herbert hopes that politics don’t influence the process.
“I hope the City can pull themselves together because the performance so far has been poor, I’m not impressed with what they have done,” said Mr Katz.
“I think Zahid is genuine about this but I believe there is politics behind it that are those that are not enthused and I think the big thing about this is to push it (permits) through rather than to look at the objections, hopefully national government will look into it. The fact that the outfalls go into nationally protected marine areas I believe it’s illegal activities,” said Byron Herbert.
There will be five public participation meetings throughout October:
Tuesday October 3 at the Simon’s Town civic centre at 5pm.
Thursday October 5 at the Hout Bay recreation centre at 5pm.
Saturday October 7 at the Council’s Chambers at the Cape Town Civic Centre at 10am.
Thursday October 12 at the Rocklands civic centre at 5pm.
Tuesday October 24 at the Sea Point hall at 5pm.
Following that, a comments response report will be given to Ms Creecy who will review the appeals and address the merits of the grounds of appeal.