Cape Town - Environmentalists have hailed Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment Minister’s Barbara Creecy’s decision to reverse a permit the City was granted to continue pumping raw sewage into coastal discharge sites, saying the public participation process was “inadequate, outdated and should be redone”.
The City had applied for the permits in 2014 in terms of the National Environment Management: Integrated Coastal Management Act which allowed for raw sewage to be pumped into three coastal outfalls in Camps Bay, Hout Bay and Green Point.
Five parties appealed against the issuing of a further five-year permit on grounds that the outfalls permit was based on “factually incorrect information; contravened the Marine Living Resources Act; contravened the Bill of Rights including the right to a healthy environment, and there was no evidence that a public participation process process or risk assessment was conducted”.
Creecy said it was unclear where the advertisement for public participation was placed.
“It need not be mentioned that the permits granted have potentially far-reaching consequences because the discharge of sewage into the ocean can have significant impacts on the environment and public health. It is therefore essential that the public have an opportunity to provide input and feedback on these decisions.
“Indeed, meaningful participation serves to increase transparency and accountability in decision making, as it provides an opportunity for stakeholders to provide input into decisions prior to them being taken to ensure that decisions are robust, transparent and made in the best interests of the community and the environment,” said Creecy.
The City has been ordered to give notice in the Government Gazette and one local newspaper widely distributed, also to give notice in one national newspaper and advertise it in three languages.
Following the decision, Water and Sanitation mayco member Zahid Badroodien said an environmental consultant has been appointed to get public insights.
“Because the Minister is only deciding the appeal eight years after public participation was conducted, the Minister has determined that the City should collate fresh public inputs to enable her to decide the merits of the appeal. The
City welcomes the opportunity to do this, and has already briefed consultants to undertake the public comment process.
“Since the initial public participation, seven major studies have been undertaken by different marine science experts.
“These studies included bacterial samples, toxicity samples, mussel growth monitoring, animal tissue samples, preliminary biodiversity surveys, chemicals of emerging concern (CEC) studies, dissolved oxygen and detailed numerical modelling.”
He said the City had further commissioned a study that would determine the feasibility and costing of various higher level pre-treatment interventions at the outfalls.
The draft scoping report was anticipated to be completed by June 30.
“Community engagements are planned for later this year regarding outfalls once the City has had an opportunity to consider the outcome of the study,” said Badroodien.
ActionSA and the NSRI, who were party to the matter welcomed Creecy’s decision.
ActionSA provincial chairperson, Michelle Wasserman, said: “Of particular concern to ActionSA is, firstly, that there is clear evidence that the raw sewage returns on the bays and beaches through tides and wind action which presents a clear risk to public health.
Secondly, that the raw sewage is released into the Table Mountain National Park Marine Protected Area which is detrimental to marine life.
This is totally unlawful and a clear violation of the right to a healthy environment.”
NSRI chief executive, Dr Cleeve Robertson, said: “We operate in the ocean.
“Our crews have to operate in the ocean and it’s a problem where we have several bases in the Table Bay area. Our volunteers have to work in that polluted environment.I think this is is unfair. The point is that there are several environmental acts and the City pumping raw sewage into the ocean kind of goes against all that legislation.
“I think the public participation process which they are now ordered to do, is good and will bring more awareness to the marine environment.”
UWC’s Department of Chemistry Emeritus Professor Leslie Petrik, said the decision was welcome after a “long saga” which included her and a number of organisations objecting to the public participation process which was advertised in a newspaper in 2015 but said when they made follow-ups about the permits, they were sent on a “merry go-round”.
“During that time the City also commissioned a very flawed study to try and justify the continuance of discharge of sewage into the marine environment…This argument has been going on for about eight years now and I think the City has realised that they cannot keep discharging those huge volumes of sewage into the sea. We have asked the City to consider land-based systems. At some point they will have to stop what they are doing," said Petrik.
Strategic lead for eco-justice organisation Green Connection, Liz McDaid, said: “The Green Connection remains concerned that the City of Cape Town continues to want to do this. We have had a number of instances of our beaches closed due to the high eColi counts and clearly it's a non-acceptable future way of continuing to pour raw sewage into the ocean.”
Cape Times