In deep water: The sad, sorry state of Gauteng’s Hennops River

First published in the Daily Maverick 168 weekly newspaper.

The estate is one of those ubiquitous South African residential bubbles, growing in popularity exponentially as security and service delivery fail. It is a well-treed and landscaped property, characterised by large, multimillion-rand properties built around a golf course about 30 years ago, and the province’s signature Hennops River running through the middle.

A late-afternoon stroll across the golf course, when the cursing golfers have left, provides magnificent sunset views, with lapwings and Egyptian geese bedding down for the night. Riding on the back of the cooler evening air, through this almost pastoral scene, is the foul stench of sewage.

Hennops Revival

Tarryn Johnston of NPO Hennops Revival, who lives close to the river, says the smell always worsens in winter owing to lack of rainfall to clean the water. “When the sun warms up the water, sludge from the bottom bubbles up from underneath and releases gasses into the air.” Johnston is just one of an army of volunteers and NGOs working to rescue our rivers and bodies of water.

Water rights activist Willem Snyman, who runs another water activist NPO, says the thick odour is the “direct discharge into streams from household toilets”. I think of Paul, a rough sleeper who makes his bed in the reeds alongside Johannesburg’s Braamfontein Spruit, and who recently explained how he cleans himself after “a number two”, and consider Snyman’s description as the sanitised version.

Seen from the Gautrain above, as it pulls into Centurion Station, it is clear that the growing informal squatter camp on the banks of the Hennops River, with the quaint name of “Mushroom”, provides plenty of Paul-type opportunities. But the abuse of the river is about more than human faeces.

Anthony Duigan of Action for Responsible Management of Our Rivers (Armour) says that, although the Vaal has a major problem with sewage, the Hennops is far worse off. It is “drowning in chemical and industrial effluent”, says Duigan, who lives closer towards Hartbeespoort Dam, into which the Hennops flows.

Johnston, who regularly has the river’s water quality tested, attributes the “astronomical” and multiple pollution levels to the fact that there are so many tributaries that flow into the Hennops, most coursing through industrial areas.

Duigan says it is probably South Africa’s most polluted river. His wife Helen, who started Armour, speaks of the river sometimes having run “red and blue”.

Tembisa and Kaalfontein

The river has a few sources, in both Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni metros. A significant one is Kaalfontein in Tembisa, a wetland “fountain” where the water emerges from the ground, flows as the Kaalspruit through the Johannesburg Metro and then via Irene into the Tshwane Metro as the Hennops River.   

Like Duigan, Johnston and Snyman, Samuel Mashimbi, a community activist who runs an NPO called Envirocare, is devoted to the river’s resuscitation.

“Nature is very important for any living thing, hence human beings must take nature as an important part of life. I am part of the community, and taking care of our environment should be a responsibility of any individual.”

It is testament to humankind’s ignorance of nature’s functioning that, much like with the first construction of settlements on the Cape Flat wetlands, the Ekurhuleni municipality and relevant authorities have seemingly allowed developers to build and dump rubble on the Kaalfontein wetland, nature’s water filter.

Kaalfontein falls into councillor Derek Thomson’s ward. He confirms that it is illegal to dump, but that “this current ANC-led metro doesn’t care”.

Raw sewage from the Olifantsontein Wastewater Treatment Works flowing into the Kaalspruit destined for the Hennops River and Hartbeespoort Dam. (Photo: Angus Begg)

One of thousands of illegal homes and toilets pumping human waste directly into the Kaalspruit. Hennops River activists say this happens in Ekhuruleni and Johannesburg metros. (Photo: Angus Begg)