Cape Town - Despite deteriorating water quality that has been reported at some city beaches, thousands of residents flocked to the seaside as hot weather conditions hit the city over the long weekend.
By 1pm yesterday, Boulders, Seaforth, St James, Surfers Corner, Strand, Gordon’s Bay and Melkbos beaches were already at full capacity, the City reported.
At Milnerton Lagoon Beach, where signs had been put up warning beachgoers not to swim in the polluted waters, many simply disregarded the warnings to the disapproval of a local conservation group.
Bakoven Beach on the Atlantic Seaboard remains closed after a sewage spill last Thursday which the City attributed to an electrical failure at the Beta sewer pump station as a result of continuous load shedding.
Since the start of December, the City has closed parts of Muizenberg, Fish Hoek and Bakoven beaches due to sewage spills caused by load shedding. Muizenberg and Fish Hoek have since been reopened.
Milnerton Central Residents Association environmental head, Caroline Marx, said City water tested at Lagoon Beach showed Enterococci levels of more than 2 419 cfu/100m (colony-forming unit) on December 7, and that the “real” result could have been much higher.
She said over 200 cfu was regarded as at risk, and over 500 cfu as a significant risk of illness transmission.
Marx said seawater at many other beaches like Clovelly, Hout Bay, Strand, Big Bay, Blouberg and Long Beach were also infected.
“City signs state that swimming is at your own risk but beachgoers don’t understand this, especially children.
“The signs need to be clear and state ‘swimming here is not safe, you risk becoming sick because of infected water’. These signs should be at all beaches with poor water quality,” she said.
Marx said the City should define the standards under which beaches are closed as happened recently at Fish Hoek and which beaches are currently closed, including those that currently have poor quality water where swimming carries an increased health risk and how holidaymakers access that.
The City said results at Bakoven before the long weekend indicated the E Coli levels were elevated. It said an Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS) was installed at the pump station late on Friday and was being tested over the long weekend.
“Once it is shown to be working, more water samples will be taken to confirm that the water quality has been cleared. Only then will the decision to open the beach be made,” it said.
The City said for the last 48 hours, testing had been conducted to ensure that the UPS system that was installed at the Bakoven Pump Station was operational without failure, and that if working properly, the water quality would improve immediately.
Mayoral advisory committee chairperson on water quality in wetlands and waterways, Alex Lansdowne, said the increased sewage spills were another example of how the economy and the country’s international reputation were being damaged by load shedding.
“We are at the height of a bumper tourist season. It is heartbreaking to see sewage overflow into our oceans which people should be using,” he said.
A UK tourist took to the ReThink The Stink Facebook page to air his dissatisfaction over the “disgusting stench” at the Milnerton Lagoon beach.
Upon revisiting the lagoon and the beach over the long weekend, he said he was horrified that the situation remained unchanged.
“It was also horrifying to see children playing and swimming in the black, murky water.
“The smell around the lagoon was disgusting. It's nothing short of a scandal,” he said.
Peter Walsh from #ReThink The Stink called on the City to “power up” its pump stations with localised solar/generators via public-private partnerships. Walsh said the capacity to resolve the power issue was in the hands of the City.
“The fact is that the City is aware of the challenges with regards to electricity and has been for years. Ideas such as covering municipal buildings with solar power, and adding in more generators and batteries to keep critical infrastructure up and running, should be properly investigated,” he said.
Walsh said in the short term all developments should be put on hold, water restrictions put into place, a disaster declared and municipal officials held accountable for not delivering on their mandate.
Lansdowne said pump stations were failing because they were not designed to have intermittent power supply and that the City was doing everything it could to break free from load shedding.
mthuthuzeli.ntseku@inl.co.za