Municipality pro-active about effluent threat

LEPHALALE – Further investigation into the ever-growing body of water in the residential area near Gompou Street in Onverwacht, has revealed that the Lephalale municipality is urgently looking to find a permanent solution to solve the problem.

Northern News interviewed the Lephalale municipality's executive manager for infrastructure, Lawrence Thlako, about the water mass that is said to be treated effluent.

Thlako says this was one of the first points of business when appointed to the municipality. "At that point the municipal manager (Bob Naidoo) had an arrangement in place with Eskom to allocate the final effluent from the sewage system to Medupi for use."

However, he says Eskom later decided to rather use water from a pipeline that connects with the Mogol and Crocodile rivers.

Thlako says the Lephalale-area has a very high water table that further contributes to the high volumes of water that can be seen behind Gompou Street. "We had meetings with all affected parties including two families on whose property the final effluent dams up," Thlako said.

"Leon Fourie, one of the private owners, was eager to assist us and even brought in private engineers to advise us on how the water can be purified."

Thlako says the municipality encourages all industries in the Lephalale area to contact them to make use of the final effluent available. The municipality is already in discussions to allocate effluent to Waterberg Coal. "After careful consideration of all other possibilities I am still of the opinion that the most cost-effective and best strategy would be for the final effluent to be re-used at one of the mines," Thlako said.

He adds that the final effluent behind Gompou Street is tested regularly to ensure that it does not pose a health threat. "We will start a rehabilitation process of the area as soon as the final effluent is removed."

A previous employee of the municipality, who requested to remain anonymous, is less optimistic. "If you look at the rate at which this ‘purified sewage water’ is increasing, all the houses in that area could be under water in less than two years."

"A solution would be to build a pipeline from this swamp to the Mogol river," he suggests.

"If a sustainable solution is not implemented soon we will see millions of Rands’ worth of damage to the houses in that area."