A video clip purporting that eThekwini municipal employers were dumping bags of sewage in Mount Moreland Conservancy near Umdloti on Wednesday, has gone viral. I Screengrab
DURBAN residents are pooped out by the constant emergence of “human faeces” in public areas and municipal officials have been challenged to “roll” in the “raw sewage” which was allegedly dumped in the Mount Moreland Conservancy at uMdloti earlier this week.
The latest incident went viral on social media when municipal employees in a branded council truck were filmed supposedly dumping bin bags filled with human waste in the area.
The witness who filmed the incident said he believed it was raw sewage because of the foetid smell emanating from the bags.
However, the video shows that when confronted, a council worker told the witness that they were transporting bags from Canelands. They then retrieved the bags and left the area.
Last night the municipality said its preliminary investigations revealed that the men were not “dumping” in the area and that the bin bags contained “silt and not faeces”.
“The staff member concerned stated that the bags fell off the truck as he was driving up a steep section of the road. The men seen in the video had disembarked to pick up the bags and load them back into the truck.
“The investigating official visited the site yesterday to investigate and found that the section of the incident is around a bend going uphill. There were traces of dried-up silt on the road and grass,” said municipal spokesperson Gugu Sisilana.
She said that videos were a problem because people were quick to jump to conclusions.
According to Sisilana the silt was extracted from the bottom of pump station sumps in Canelands and was on its way to the Ohlange Pump station which had four empty skips used for the disposal of silt.
It was stored in plastic bags to make it easier to handle and transport, she said.
“The Canelands Pump station does not have space for storing skips, therefore the silt extracted must be transported by truck to the nearest pump station that has skips on site. The Ohlange Pump station has four empty skips used for the disposal of silt.”
Following that the skips were transported to an authorised legal dump site to be disposed of safely, Sisilana said.
“The City has also noted incorrect and irresponsible media reports, purporting that the employees were dumping raw, unfiltered sewage into the uMdloti River resulting in a high E.coli count which affects beaches. The black plastic bags were not dumped into the river or stream and there is no link between the silt and E.coli.”
Sisilana emphasised that the health of residents and visitors was of paramount importance to the City. “While the Municipality encourages the public to take civic pride for the betterment of our City, the public is urged to do so responsibly and to refrain from making speculative accusations without concrete evidence. The City warns against speculative reporting by the media and the public which tarnishes the image of the City without basis,” she warned.
Hayley Jill Wagner, chairperson of the Mount Moreland Monitors Committee, said the video in which the men were caught “dumping” was posted on their security chat group.
She said further investigations into the bags revealed that it contained “human sludge” when it was thrown into the conservancy’s waterway.
“This is what's left in the pits after they’ve treated it. So it's full of chemicals, human faeces, iron and all the leftovers that's found in the bottom of a cesspit.”
Wagner said if the municipality believed it was silt, then “they should roll in it and let their children make sandcastles and have a picnic in it.”
She said complacency did not benefit anyone and she would pursue the matter until she got answers.
“It is so heartbreaking that you work so hard to build this little bubble away from the city where people can run and walk their dogs in the conservancy, and then you have the very same municipality that you pay rates to doing this.”
Last night Wagner returned to the site where the bags were dumped to investigate where the contents of the bin bags had seeped out before they were removed. She said no matter what the municipality said, it was definitely human waste. "You can smell it, it's disgusting. There's no way that it’s silt. It's slimy, grey sh*t."
Meanwhile the area’s councillor, Bradley Singh, said the City’s broken infrastructure was to blame for all these issues because the money for it was channelled elsewhere.
The Independent on Saturday