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ActionSA notes, with dismay, the closure of yet another City of Cape Town beach due to a sewage overflow. 

The closure of Fish Hoek beach follows on the heels of shocking photos and video footage of sewage streaming into Gordon’s Bay. Residents of Gordon’s Bay took to social media, repeatedly requesting the City of Cape Town to urgently prevent what they called a “colossal” disaster.

In the research paper entitled “Pollute the bay and poison the people” published in 2020 by Neil Overy it was highlighted how the City of Cape Town pumps 40 million litres of untreated effluent into the Atlantic Ocean from the Green Point outfall pipeline every day. This is just one of three pipes that pump raw sewage out to sea in the city.

Sewage infrastructure in the City of Cape Town has worsened over the past few years. GroundUp reported how the City’s three major recreational vleis were closed for months due to frequent sewage spills. Water quality tests in these vleis showed dangerously polluted water. Residents of Khayelitsha have protested over blocked drains and sewage running down their streets and into their homes. Only three months ago, Khayelitsha’s all-girl soccer club pitch was flooded with sewage.

ActionSA KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Chairperson, Zwakele Mncwango, recently initiated a legal challenge in the Durban High Court to compel the eThekwini Municipality to fix its leaking sewerage system, which causes an average of 700 million litres of untreated effluent to flow into Durban’s rivers, waterways and oceans daily. While eThekwini blamed their sewage problems on recent flooding that damaged infrastructure, the City of Cape Town cannot use the same excuse. It is rather the lack of preventative maintenance over many years that has caused the sewage problems in Cape Town. 

The failure on the part of the DA-led City of Cape Town to maintain the city’s sewerage infrastructure is not only a violation of the Constitutional right to an environment that is not harmful to health or well-being, and to have the environment protected, but is also highly prejudicial to those in the tourism and hospitality sectors, whose livelihoods are reliant on clean coastal waters and open beaches.

We reserve all our legal rights to protect and advance the fundamental human rights of the people of Cape Town.

ActionSA calls on the City of Cape Town to, within seven days, confirm that the release or leakage of all sewage or untreated effluent into the environment (including any ocean, river, estuary or water source) has been arrested.

Issued by ActionSA Western Cape Provincial Chairperson Michelle Wasserman