Fiery spill poses risk to KZN residents' health

When toxic black smoke engulfed Blackburn informal settlement in Durban on the night of July 12, Kwanele Msizazwe instantly smelled trouble.

"It was like tyres burning. When I went outside I saw the warehouse on fire. It went on for days and no-one knew the smoke was harmful," said the 29-year-old.

Msizazwe is one of thousands of KwaZulu-Natal north coast residents, from Phoenix to Umhlanga, affected by hazardous toxins that spewed out of the United Phosphorous Limited (UPL) chemical warehouse in Cornubia after it was torched during July's unrest.

Firemen fought the blaze for 10 days as it gutted the 14,000m² warehouse and burnt thousands of tons of chemicals. It was "the most serious environmental catastrophe in recent times", according to environment minister Barbara Creecy.

Msizazwe said: "Every time the wind changed direction the smoke blew into our community. The Ohlanga River runs through here and it changed colour as the chemicals leaked into the water. It went from black to bright green."

Though comprehensive studies into the environmental damage were compiled days after the disaster, medical tests have not yet been conducted on people in Blackburn, who live within a kilometre of UPL's facility.

"The government doesn't care about the people; the ecosystem is more important than our lives," said resident Sibongile Cetshwayo, 38. "Now they want us to go and vote for them?"

Cetshwayo aired his concerns as workers in hazmat suits dredged parts of the Ohlanga River and after Creecy revealed that UPL, based in Mumbai, India, was compliant with only one of the seven legal requirements for it to operate in SA.

The revelation emerged in a report that is part of a criminal investigation of the disaster headed by the Green Scorpions.

The report also recommends that property developer Tongaat Hulett and real estate investment trust Fortress be included in the investigation for possible infringement with regard to environmental compliance.

Tongaat Hulett spokesperson Virginia Horsley said though the company still owns land in the precinct, it had sold the land on which Fortress constructed the warehouse, which it then leased to UPL.

"The sale agreement imposed conditions requiring compliance with the environmental approvals and Tongaat Hulett was not privy to any commercial engagements in respect of the land," said Horsley.

Steven Brown, CEO of Fortress REIT (real estate investment trust), confirmed it was UPL's landlord. "The lease terms are confidential between us and all the tenants in our portfolio, so we are not able to disclose specific terms," he said.

In October 2015, the KwaZulu-Natal department of economic development & tourism granted environmental authorisation to eThekwini municipality and Tongaat Hulett for phase two of the Greater Cornubia Development, a project initiated by then-president Jacob Zuma in 2014.

However, the "blanket" environmental authorisation did not cover the activities of individual companies.

UPL told the Sunday Times it had rented the warehouse since April 1 from Fortress REIT, which developed and built it. "What keeps getting overlooked is the fact that UPL was the victim of an arson attack during a period when there was a catastrophic breakdown in the rule of law in KZN and parts of Gauteng, which led to wide-scale damage and destruction of property," it said.

"There is simply no way in which UPL could have been reasonably expected to foresee the unprecedented violence that broke out in July."

eThekwini municipality's health unit has been tasked with assessing the effect of the fire on residents. Spokesperson Msawakhe Mayisela said a mobile clinic had been sent to the Blackburn community and staff would collect data from health practitioners in the area to determine the extent of the impact.

"Complaints analysis and door-to-door assessments have also been undertaken in the Blackburn area," said Mayisela.

Msizazwe and Cetshwayo disputed this, saying the community had only been consulted and required to fill out questionnaires by a company contracted to UPL. "The mobile clinic was here before the disaster. They were doing basic health checks. We filled out surveys by a company but no-one has given us feedback," said Msizazwe.

Professor Tracy-Lynn Field of the school of law at Wits University said the failure to move expeditiously on the health risk assessment was concerning. "This is shocking," she said. "While the environmental tests were carried out by experts appointed by UPL, it is likely that the human health testing requires mobile clinics set up by eThekwini and funded by UPL, or that UPL must set up a well-resourced mobile clinic in consultation with the health authorities."

UPL is expected to pay for a multi-stakeholder forum set up by Creecy's department which will keep the public informed about developments relating to the spill of hazardous chemicals.