Politicians usually try to avoid a stink. Not Michelle Wasserman, who kayaked 2km out into the Atlantic to witness raw sewage spewing from a marine outfall pipe off Cape Town.
Knysna's former deputy mayor, now the Western Cape head of ActionSA, is so appalled by the pumping of sewage into the sea that she is laying criminal charges against the city.
“It was absolutely horrific,” she said of her kayak trip earlier this year to the Green Point marine outfall pipe — one of three managed by the city under its coastal discharge programme.
“There were hundreds of seagulls eating sewage, and sewage floating everywhere on the water.”
The other outfall pipes are off Hout Bay and Camps Bay.
Wasserman shared pictures on social media, causing outrage. To her surprise, a city official claimed she had faked the trip. “The mayoral committee member at that time said I was lying — that it was not possible to kayak 2km out to sea,” she said.
The city denied the floating sewage she photographed was from its discharge pipe.
The experience strengthened her resolve. She obtained detailed records, via a Promotion of Access to Information Act request, of the city’s sewage discharge rates in Hout Bay, which she alleges show it to be in breach of its permit conditions — by discharging much more into the ocean than it should without proper oversight.
In a statement to Cape Town central police this month, she said records showed the city had exceeded the maximum allowable discharge rate of 5-million litres of municipal effluent per day in Hout Bay for 57% of the period between January 1 and June 30.
“The daily discharge volume reached up to 12.5-million litres in a single day,” Wasserman said. “Despite the hundreds of times the effluent discharge exceeded the limits prescribed by the permit, there are only two entries in the 'incident logbook'.
“The City of Cape Town must be held to account for its noncompliance with the stipulations of the permit and the impact thereof on public health and marine life, and I therefore request that the police investigate,” she said.
The city’s coastal discharge policy has long been controversial, not least because of recent scientific research suggesting it is releasing harmful chemicals into the environment. The city is seeking to renew its discharge permit, issued by the department of environmental affairs and forestry.
A study co-authored in December by South African scientist Leslie Petrik found evidence of contaminated seaweed and marine animals in Camps Bay, a protected marine area that includes a popular Blue Flag beach. It linked the contamination to ocean sewage.
“The levels of emerging contaminants found in marine invertebrates and plants in this marine-protected environment show that the dilution of the sewage by the ocean as the means of dispersing the detected ECs is not adequate to prevent accumulation in marine organisms,” it found.
Another study, published in March in international journal Toxics, found waterborne contaminants, specifically pesticides and pharmaceuticals, may affect male fertility and the offspring of exposed parents. The spread of these chemicals worldwide coincides with an increase in infertility rates in developing countries from 8% to 35%, the study says.
“Over the past two decades, various diseases and mass mortalities in marine invertebrates, mammals and birds have been attributed to chemical exposure,” it found. “Human health is equally compromised, as was shown by repeated studies linking long-term environmental chemical exposure to various diseases, including cancer, asthma and hypersensitivity. Furthermore, evidence is mounting that such compounds are likely to interfere with human reproduction and offspring health.”
According to the city’s figures, roughly 30-million litres of “treated” sewage — degritted and screened — is discharged daily from the three sites.
“Sydney, Australia, by comparison discharges up to 950-million litres a day.”
Mayco member for water and sanitation Zahid Badroodien said seven major studies by independent marine science experts concluded that “the marine outfalls are meeting their design objectives in reducing potential deleterious ecological and/or human health effects of discharged effluent by taking advantage of increased effluent dilution offered by deep water”.
About 95% of Cape Town’s wastewater is discharged from wastewater treatment works, compared with 5% from the three outfalls.
However, a 2017 report by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research found substantial evidence of marine pollution linked to the coastal discharge.
“Regardless of the source of the bacteria, their counts in shoreline water samples at many sites were high enough to suggest a significant periodic risk to humans recreationally using nearshore or shoreline waters,” the report concluded.
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