Overwhelmed town gets help to treat wastewater

A Gauteng municipality flagged for poor maintenance of its wastewater treatment plant has hired Rand Water to take over its facility. 

The auditor-general (AG) sounded the alarm on Rand West local municipality and Tshwane metro whose poor maintenance of wastewater treatment plants posed a risk to the public and the environment.

In her consolidated general report on local government audit outcomes 2021/2022 released last week, AG Tsakani Maluleke warned that lack of maintenance of wastewater plants often resulted in untreated wastewater sipping into water sources such as rivers.

The AG had inspected the city’s Randfontein plant earlier in the year and found flaws in its management and maintenance. The municipality services Westonaria and Randfontein, west of Johannesburg. 

“This had a negative effect on the municipalities’ ability to provide clean water to communities and to preserve the environment. We notified the municipal managers of material irregularities because the discharge of untreated wastewater is likely to cause harm to the public,” she said.

The warning came as the City of Tshwane and the department of health scrambled to contain a cholera outbreak that had resulted in 24 deaths in Hammanskraal, one in Mpumalanga and another in the Free State.

Rand West municipal manager Thabo Ndlovu, however, said it had intervened to fix its Randfontein plant by hiring Rand Water to maintain it and upskill their workers meant to carry out work on the site. 

“There was insufficient knowledge and capacity in reference to the operation of a bio-wastewater treatment works plant. The municipality has since contracted Rand Water which has been tasked to assist with the operation and maintenance of the plant. This is a capacity-building programme which incorporates the transfer of skills which have been included in the agreement,” said Ndlovu.

The council appointed four process controllers in April and they are doing monthly sampling of the water. The council will soon add 16 more process controllers to its staff “so that the municipality would be in a position to run its wastewater treatment plants by itself”.

In 2018 the municipality invited companies to bid for the refurbishment of the Hannes Van Niekerk water treatment plant which has so far cost the council R70m. The Badirile plant has cost the municipality R31m. 

When Sowetan visited the Hannes Van Niekerk plant we saw what looks like new structures, some with broken switches, but there were no workers on site. Some of the old structures were carrying stagnant sewage and there was overgrown grass. Some buildings appeared vandalised and had broken windows. 

According to DA caucus leader in the area Hullet Hild, the plant’s pump station has not been functioning which led to a huge backwash of sewage into residents' yards.

Areas such as Bekkersdal and Randfontein have been experiencing sewage backwashes.

“This is as a result of years of lack of maintaining waste treatment plants and a shortage of skilled personnel to run and maintain the infrastructure. Pump stations are meant to pump raw sewage into the system and rework it into levels where is safely discarded back into the system or into rivers and small streams.

“If the pump stations are not working the system will build up the sewage to a point of spilling over. This problem is prevalent throughout the whole city because the infrastructure is not functioning as it should.”

Bekkersdal residents said they had been struggling with overflowing communal sewers for years.

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