Durban - Sydenham residents are angry over ongoing sewage spills in the area which has affected their quality of life, with one family being split apart while another keeps its children locked indoors.
Ward councillor Remona Mckenzie said residents in Sparks Road were severely affected, and very angry because this was a recurring problem.
“Three families are affected. The sewage spills into the one yard and flows into the second then the third,”she said.
Mckenzie said when one sewage drain gets unblocked another gets blocked. She said the affected roads included Barnes and Butcher, while Randles Road was affected by sewage spills as well as maintenance issues.
‘When we ask the municipality questions we are told that there is a lack of resources. There’s a lack of jetting machines, of staff. Residents are tired of this, they are paying rates but not getting service. Residents in Musgrave and Sydenham are paying exorbitantly high rates,” said the councillor.
Christopher Russon whose house is located between two other houses on Sparks Road which has been badly hit by a blocked sewage drain, said in two days it would be exactly a year since the problem started.
He said he had lost count of the number of reference numbers and visits from the municipality.
“The municipality has come out more than 20 times to unblock the drains and at least 50 times they came out to look into the issue” he said.
According to Russon, who has three sewerage drains and two stormwater manholes on his property, both the sewage and stormwater departments say the other is responsible for the issue.
“My two concrete precast boundary walls are on the verge of collapse, one wall is collapsing into my neighbour's yard because the ground is so wet. The foundation of my house is compromised and my driveway is also affected but the municipality says that there is nothing that they can do,” he said.
Due to the health risk, Russon said, he had to move both his mother and grandmother out of the house.
“It’s terrible I can't even put it into words. My neighbours on either side of me can't enjoy their yards and the children are not allowed to play outside,” he said.
Butcher Road resident Lana West, said the sewage issue in Sydenham was terrible.
“it stinks, we can't live like this anymore. Mary Road, it's the same sewage problems. It's terrible in Randles Road, we can't even drive our cars past there, you get splashed with the sewage hitting the vehicle. Spearman Road is the same as Barnes Road and Butcher Road with its ongoing sewage problems and the municipality does not want to come and sort the problem out,” she said.
West said the councillor and the residents had reported these issues multiple times to the municipality.
In response, municipal spokesperson Lindiwe Khuzwayo, said the City will never win the war against clogging of manholes unless residents change their behaviour.
“Over 70% of manholes that are clogged are because of alien objects disposed of in our systems, and these incidents are no exception. We attend to such leaks on numerous occasions and as soon we turn our back, we go back to square one,” she said.
The municipality appealed to residents to refrain from disposing of items such as tampons, condoms, diapers, and oil into the system.
“These are all the things that our teams retrieve in the event of attending to clogged manholes. Teams will be dispatched to investigate and will be attending to the matter,” said Khuzwayo.
But Mackenzie said the city needed to conduct a proper investigation.
“The Department says the drains are clogged with rags and sanitary products but for me, the department really needs to investigate because there is sand blocking the drains from the time of the floods(April 2022),” said Mackenzie.
Last month, The Mercury, reported that nearly 900 pupils from St Augustine’s Catholic Primary School in Greyville, Durban, were stranded for weeks due to a blocked sewerage line.
In a report the city said the blockage was bad and in several places.
“Why it's taking such a long time to unblock it, is that the rubble that is in the line is quite thick and there is a lot of it,” said Khuzwayo.