Recently residents of Denneburg in the vicinity of Jan van Riebeck Drive in Huguenot raised their concerns about thick black plumes of smoke coming from a nearby factory which was evidently polluting the air. The source of this pollution came from Distell Monis in Eiland Street.
On enquiry to the Drakenstein Municipality about this and how they are monitoring air pollution, Jacqui Samson, Director of Planning, Development and Human Settlements said that Distell Monis have two steam boilers operating at the factory which are registered and may legally operate in accordance with the Drakenstein Air Quality Management Bylaw.
“One of their boilers had been scheduled for maintenance over the past weekend, and they therefore switched over to their standby boiler on the morning of Thursday, 13 January, which started producing dark smoke during start-up”, she said.
Samson said that while it is expected to see some black smoke during start-up of a combustion-fired boiler, akin to starting an old car, the operator noticed that the dark smoke was more severe and continued longer than expected and the decision was made to switch off the boiler.
Distell Monis arranged for their service provider to do repairs on the boiler the following day.
To find the problem, their engineer had to run the boiler which resulted in some black smoke being released, but this was necessary so they could get the settings right.
The boiler is now operating adequately and will be put back in service during the course of the week so the boiler currently in production can undergo the required maintenance.
In terms of the Drakenstein Municipality Air Quality Management Bylaw, industrial boilers are regulated as fuel burning appliances.
It is an offence to emit dark smoke from their stack under normal operating conditions, however there are provisions made for start-up, soot blowing, and upset conditions which is what happened in this scenario.
If the public see dark smoke being emitted from these stacks, or any industrial stacks in Drakenstein they should report this immediately to the Drakenstein Municipality for investigation, at 080 131 3553 toll free.
