Durban - The eThekwini Municipality has said it was not at fault for the sewage infrastructure damage brought about by two “one in a century floods”, experienced in April and May last year.
This is according to the answering affidavit filed by the municipality in response to a court application brought by ActionSA.
The party filed an application in November last year in the Durban High Court to compel the provincial government, national government and the eThekwini Municipality to fix the sewage crisis across the City.
The party is seeking an order declaring that the respondents – the ministers of Tourism; Environment; and Water and Sanitation, and the MECs of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs; and Economic Development, Tourism and Environmental Affairs, respectively; as well as the eThekwini Municipality, and mayor Mxolisi Kaunda – were in contravention of several laws.
They had failed to maintain, repair, replace or install the necessary infrastructure to prevent the flow of sewage or untreated effluent into eThekwini’s waterways, rivers and beaches, ActionSA said.
In an affidavit, Ednick Msweli, the municipality’s Water and Sanitation Department head, responded on behalf of the City and Kaunda, and listed the consequences of last year’s floods and how they had affected the City’s ability to comply with environmental laws.
“Within the space of approximately two months we experienced two highly unusual and unexpected events.
“As would be expected, the floods wreaked devastating consequences on the network, which suffered significant damage.”
He said the damage was compounded by the fact that a significant proportion of the network exists in low-lying areas and/or adjacent to rivers, that were all flooded.
“Eighty-two out of a total of two hundred and sixty-three WWPSs (waste water pump stations) suffered extensive damage; Nine out of a total of twenty-seven (27) WWTWs (waste water treatment works) suffered extreme damage,” the affidavit read.
The municipality said one of the most significant hurdles that was faced in addressing the consequences of the floods was the unavailability of funding to undertake the necessary assessments, repairs and, where appropriate, replacement of the infrastructure.
The City said available funding had to be diverted from other programmes, with R74 million made available to the Water and Sanitation Department.
The Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs gave a total of R185m; however, of this amount only R49m was made available to the department for repairs to the sanitation infrastructure, and the balance of R136m was for repairs to water infrastructure.
“The funding that was secured was totally inadequate to address the demand for repairs and replacement. The municipality was obliged to prioritise certain repairs and defer others until funding could be secured,” the affidavit read.
The City said that apart from the availability of funding posing a major challenge, it was obliged to comply with lawful procurement processes in securing the services of service providers to assist in the repair process.
“(Kaunda) was obliged to issue a circular directing that priority be given to existing contracts or amendments to existing contracts to ensure that the serious effects of the disaster be prioritised.
“The emergency procurement mechanisms of the municipality were also invoked in such processes.”
The City said the relevant infrastructure had been restored to a level of functionality.
“There is currently no raw sewage discharging from any WWTWs. All effluent is either treated, or in the case of some of the flood damaged WWTWs the effluent is not treated to the required discharge levels.”
It said this was only applicable to Umbilo and the northern treatment works.
“All the flood-damaged WWPSs have been repaired, however there are some pump stations that are not functional due to vandalism or normal maintenance and equipment breakdown.
“These are being dealt with, but there are delays due to supply chain management procedures and maintenance and equipment delivery times.”
It said all WWPSs when they overflowed, discharged into rivers or the sea.
“Where possible vacuum tankers are used to remove the effluent. This has constraints such as access or volumes. The City has approximately 200 blockages a day, of which 90% is due to infrastructure abuse by the public.
“Most of the surcharging sewers discharge to stormwater, which ends up in either the rivers or the sea. Where possible the effluent discharge is treated.”