Cape Town fights uphill battle against ocean and waterway sewage spills

 

Note: This story has been updated to remove several photographs. In earlier versions, the captions indicated that the discolouration in the water was caused by sewage flow. The City of Cape Town disputes this, saying it was caused by sediment in the water churned up by large swells. In the absence of water test results to confirm that the discolouration is caused by sewage outflows, we have decided to remove the pictures.

Camps Bay Beach was temporarily closed after a sewage pump failure at its marine outfall in July 2024. In Green Point, a mechanical pump failure at its marine outfall led to an “emergency” sewage release into the ocean in September.

In Hout Bay, the City of Cape Town has come under public scrutiny for the pollution levels of waterways after Dr Jo Barnes, a senior lecturer emeritus at Stellenbosch University’s Department of Global Health, revealed alarming levels of eight million E. coli per 100ml of water in the Disa River that flows into Hout Bay Beach from water quality tests taken by her and fellow researchers towards the end of 2023.

However, Barnes said that nothing much had changed over the intervening period since the city’s own data also show pollution above acceptable levels, from 30 April to 3 September 2024.

Every day, millions of litres of untreated sewage is discharged into the ocean through Cape Town’s three offshore marine outfalls at Green Point, Camps Bay and Hout Bay. The practice has been heavily criticised by residents, opposition parties and activists with the city now exploring future alternatives for marine outfalls.

Several short-, medium- and long-term options were put forward for the city’s consideration in a recent scoping study it commissioned on future alternatives. But the city said these options were subject to budget availability and the outcome of further feasibility and environmental impact studies yet to be undertaken.

These outfalls carry sewage from the entire City Bowl, Green Point, Sea Point, Fresnaye, Bantry Bay, Mouille Point and parts of Woodstock, as well as Camps Bay, Clifton and surrounds, and the entire Hout Bay area.

The recent spate of pump failures demonstrates the harm caused by this practice of pumping sewage into the ocean, which residents and local advocacy groups have been opposing for years for its harmful effects on both the marine environment and public health.

Speaking to Daily Maverick, residents, researchers and beach users have raised concerns about whether the public was being sufficiently notified when these incidents occurred and the long-term impacts of this contamination – as these alerts were primarily relayed via temporary beach closures, warning posts at sites, and sometimes on social media.

Is the public being warned and informed appropriately?

While any signage is appreciated, Barnes said that the single small warning sign at Green Point in September was totally inadequate for warning the public who were swimming or paddling even just 20m away.

Green Point marine outfall pump failure notice on 27 September 2024. (Photo: Supplied / City of Cape Town)

Emeritus Professor Leslie Petrik, from the Department of Chemistry at the University of the Western Cape, added that temporary beach closures were always belatedly made as it took about a week at best to turn around testing of water samples.

And when temporary signs are placed, Petrik said these were often not placed where they were highly visible and people tended to ignore the signs anyway.

“The words on the warning signage places the onus on the public and is used to exonerate the city for their failure to adequately treat sewage before its discharge into the environment,” she said.

Additional safety measures could include a warning system when conditions are not favourable, similar to the Shark Spotters’ flag.

This was proposed by Jamii Hamlin – a lifelong surfer and lifesaver in Strand and Helderberg – who has been advocating for the city to implement a water quality flag system that could be used by lifesaving clubs and the NSRI to warn swimmers when conditions were not conducive to safe swimming from a potential pollution point of view.

Read more: After bacterial infections, Strand beachgoers call for effective water-quality flag system

“Warnings have often been too little and too late. Immediately on finding a sewage spill, city staff should erect signs warning the public of possibly contaminated water. There is simply no need or time to wait for the city health or communications department to confirm. The health risk is immediate, not only when a sign has been put up,” Caroline Marx, director of the environmental advocacy group Rethink the Stink in Cape Town, told Daily Maverick.

Petrik said that as things stood and progressed, Cape Town would be surrounded by a dead sea with a very adversely impacted, stinking and poisoned coastline, which was already in evidence in places.

“This will certainly affect the city’s ability to tout Cape Town as a preferred destination for tourists,” she said.

The city has recognised the problems and made considerable progress over the past three years, acknowledged by various groups, towards improving sanitation infrastructure, however, it faces years of under-investment and backlog.

Some efforts have recently been made by the city to initiate the allocation of budgets to upgrade wastewater treatment plants, which has been welcomed. But there remains concern that these upgrades will have an impact only in the medium term, and only if they are adequately scaled for the ever-growing population.

Currently, there are only feasibility studies on the table for treating the raw sewage discharged by the various marine outfalls, and so far, Barnes said no budget had been allocated by the city to initiate the treatment thereof before release.

Hamlin said that until a budget was set and timelines given, this remained “a wish list activity and the contamination and the pollution continues”.

Green Point pump failure

Regarding the incident of pump failure at the Green Point marine outfall on 26 September, Hamlin said that this fault was initially picked up by a member of the public. Pump failure caused only one of six pumps to be working at the time and this led to an “emergency” sewage release into the ocean.

“It really reflects quite poorly on the city’s own monitoring dashboard… and the lack of other oversight within these facilities. Especially when there’s an instance where they have replaced pumps and sent other pumps off for servicing,” he said.

What transpired was that, as opposed to being pumped offshore, which was not desirable, sewage was simply dumped directly on to the shore, metres from the promenade.

Green Point marine outfall pump failure on 26 September 2024. (Photo: Supplied / City of Cape Town)

Deputy Mayor and mayoral committee member for spatial planning and environment Eddie Andrews said that the Atlantic had a very high assimilation capacity, and that no significant or long-term impacts would have occurred.

“Daily water sampling adjacent to the Green Point pump station showed good water quality throughout. Only a single elevated count that would be associated with a rainfall event was found, which was also not very high,” he said.

The city’s mayoral committee member for water and sanitation Zahid Badroodien explained that the pump station normally operated with six pumps (four larger and two smaller). On 26 September, an unexpected malfunction after two of the larger pumps that had recently been refurbished led to only one smaller pump being operational which was insufficient during peak flows.

“The failure was resolved on 28 September and there have been no overflows since this initial incident during which approximately 9,000kl of raw sewage was spilled,” Badroodien said.

Camps Bay pump failure

An unexpected mechanical failure at the Camps Bay marine outfall pump station occurred on Monday, 29 July 2024, which led to flooding of the outfall pump station dry well, a sewage spill that was pumped into the surf zone. The beach was closed for 12 hours.

Badroodien explained that the “screened” sewage was contained in the building until the following day, 30 July 2024. To gain access to the failed pump, a mobile pump was used to over-pump the contained spillage into the surf zone for about four hours (from 12:00 to 16:00).

Emergency repair work progressed rapidly, and by 30 July the issue with the pump had been identified and repairs were completed, Badroodien said.

A faulty flange on one of the pumps was the cause and once isolated, the repairs were finalised.

“Pollution advisory signs were put up at the overflow location, however, no recreational nodes were impacted and water quality testing was ongoing. Ocean conditions returned to normal on Thursday, 1 August 2024,” Badroodien said.

The pollution advisory signs were taken down on Thursday and a spare pump is in the process of being procured, which Badroodien said would serve as additional redundancy in case of future mechanical failure.

The city is exploring future alternatives for these marine outfalls.

Hout Bay pollution

Water quality experts have relayed that the situation in Camps Bay and Green Point was much the same as in Hout Bay, except that the failures or sources causing the pollution differed.

In the case of Hout Bay, Barnes said there was a systemic failure of services to parts of the town causing perennial pollution reaching the Disa River in very large volumes. This flows right into Hout Bay Beach.

A study done a few months ago and now submitted for publication, was undertaken by Barnes, Dr Cecilia Ojemaye of UCT and Petrik of UWC, to determine the extent to which the sewage pollution entering the sea by way of the Disa River in Hout Bay impacted on the environment.

Barnes said most of the samples were taken towards the end of last year and revealed alarming levels of eight million E. coli per 100ml of water in the Disa River.

“The Whole of the Disa River is somewhat impacted, and the E. coli counts increase as the river flows through the town towards the sea. The biggest intrusion of sewage comes from the informal settlement of Imizamo Yethu. Below the inflow of stormwater from Imizamo Yethu, the river measured >8 million E. coli organisms per 100ml water,” Barnes said.

This is a few street blocks before the river enters the sea. At the point where it enters, Barnes said the reading was 10,000 E. coli organisms per 100ml of water–substantially above the limit for safe recreational use of such water bodies.

The limit in the South Africa Water Quality Guidelines for Coastal Marine Waters recreational use is below 500 organisms per 100ml of water.

Barnes said the high counts they obtained cannot come as a surprise, since the city’s own more recent results from 30 April to 3 September 2024 were over the limit on 58% of the sampling occasions.

While the beach has not been closed, Badroodien said that permanent health warning signs had been in place at Hout Bay Beach and access to the Princess Road River public access areas for many years.

The warnings, he said, related mainly to the lagoon and river mouth areas to warn the public of the potential health risks associated with swimming and other recreational activities.

Badroodien said the river was generally highly polluted by a variety of contributing factors. The public was advised by the city as a general rule:

1. Don’t swim in the river;


2. Don’t swim where the river joins the sea;


3. Be aware that during and directly after heavy rainfall events water quality declines across the beach area for a short period as the polluted catchment flushes; and


4. Rainfall also affects the low-flow diversion that is in place.

Marx said the research confirmed long-standing pollution and health risk concerns around the river and Hout Bay Beach.

The city’s own coastal water testing shows Enterococci levels in the seawater of over 1,500 cfu/100ml in five of nine weeks in June and July 2024. How much more than 1,500 cfu/100ml is not specified, but that is still many times safe swimming or paddling levels, according to Marx.

The city and the Hout Bay Rivers Catchment Forum (HBRCF) have been working together on a comprehensive study, investigating long-term solutions to tackle the chronic pollution in waterways in the area.

Collapsing infrastructure 

Overall, Badroodien said the city was making major investments to improve wastewater treatment and upgrade sewers, to the benefit of inland and coastal water quality, with a 226% increase in the overall infrastructure budget, from R2.3-billion in 2022/23 to R7.8-billion in 2025.

“The City of Cape Town is committed to improving inland and coastal water quality, as well as upgrading and maintaining its sewer infrastructure. We are also calling on the public to partner with the city to help where possible so that together we can tackle pollution and better our inland and coastal water quality,” he said. DM

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