The Green Drop Report for 2022 states that there is a price tag of more than R8,4 billion to clean up the more than 60% of South Africa’s sewage and waste water systems that have been classified as being in a “poor to critical” state.
Cradock is one of the towns that has been suffering under “poor and critical” sewage and waste water systems and even regular delivery of clean drinking water for the past eight years, since the Chris Hani District Municipality (CHDM) – based 152km away from Cradock – took responsibility for these services away from the local Inxuba Yethemba Municipality (IYM) on July 1, 2014.
Upkeep of the sewage system stopped soon after the takeover and apart from spillages in the streets and blocked drains, raw sewage started flowing into the Great Fish River, passing the problems on to the riparian milk farmers, who have suffered enormous losses due to contaminated water.
These farmers do not want their names mentioned, but all agree that they tried to fight the matter through meetings and lawyer’s letters at the start, but the majority have now given up all hope of a solution. “The last five years all our requests and protests have fallen on deaf ears,” one of them said.
“The dirty water, containing E. coli, is detrimental to our animals’ health and although the cows are inoculated and milk tested regularly, the calves are born very weak and we lose a lot of them. I have had some of my dead calves and those who have serious diarrhoea tested and it all pointed to the poison in the water,” another one said.
Another dairy farmer, who in the past allowed his cows to drink water in the river or out of the furrow, has had to change this process. “I have now found that there is also E. coli in the boreholes close to the river,” he said.
The success of the Fish River Canoe Marathon, which brings a very welcome cash inflow into the town, was almost jeopardised by the malfunctioning sewage system. Although the finish line of the marathon is well upstream from the sewage plant, raw sewage from the prison, almost opposite the finish line, started flowing directly into river.
The marathon committee succeeded in solving the problem, just in time. A report in a Gqeberha English daily newspaper a few weeks ago, even stated that is was possibly E. coli from the Cradock sewage plant that was contaminating Gqeberha’s water.
CHDM’s media representative, Bulelwa Ganyaza, acknowledged an e-mail requesting her for an update about the sewage problem from CHDM side, but, despite further requests, never followed it up.
