KNYSNA NEWS - The Knysna Municipality has received written notice of intention to be issued with a directive from the regional head of the Western Cape department of water and sanitation, Rashid Khan.
This follows the municipality's alleged failure to take reasonable measures to prevent pollution caused by the Knysna, Brenton-on-Sea, Belvidere, Rheenendal and Sedgefield wastewater treatment works (WWTW).
According to the notice, dated 5 April 2018 and in possession of the Knysna-Plett Herald, this is a contravention of the provision of chapter 3 of the National Water Act, which imposes this responsibility on the municipal manager who, according to the notice, has failed to take reasonable measures to cease, modify, control, contain or remedy the effects and source of the pollution.
'Numerous correspondences'
The notice states that “numerous correspondences including letters, noncompliance notices and emails were sent to the municipality regarding the contraventions dating back to 2014 following site inspections by both the department and the Breede-Gouritz Catchment Management Agency (BGCMA)”.
It also states that the last notice of noncompliance dated 19 May 2015 was issued detailing the department's concerns relating to potential pollution of the resource, the lack of appropriately classified process controllers and associated lack of treatment optimisation, and that the notice requested the municipality to submit a comprehensive action plan in response to the concerns highlighted.
'No action plan'
“To date, no response or and/or submission of an action plan was received from the municipality. More recent site inspections at the aforementioned sites conducted on 30 August 2017 confirmed that, with the exception of upgrades taking place at Sedgefield WWTW, conditions across the remaining WWTWs had either remained the same or had worsened.
"Based on the final effluent results loaded onto the department's Green Drop System, Knysna, Belvidere, Sedgefield and Rheenendal WWTWs have consistently failed to comply with final effluent quality standards,” states the document.
60 days to take action
According to the document, the department requires the municipality to take certain steps within 60 working days from date of receipt of the pre-directive, as follows:
• To submit a comprehensive plan outlining the corrective actions to be undertaken by the municipality at all WWTWs to ensure the optimisation of treatment processes and the consequent minimisation of pollution of the water resources. The plan must be detailed in actions and stipulate time frames for completion.
• To ensure that routine preventative maintenance schedules are in place and that breakdowns of critical equipment are dealt with swiftly.
• To submit a long-term plan that should indicate what the municipality will put in place to ensure it complies with national regulations, including regulations relating to the operation and registration of water care works.
Department to follow up
The municipality was also advised that failure to respond to the pre-directive constitutes an offence. The document also stated that once the action plan has been received it shall be reviewed by the department to ensure that all concerns are adequately covered. Compliance monitoring of the action plan shall then be conducted by the department.
A list with questions sent to the municipality, asking about the pollution and why the municipality allegedly failed in its duties, was not responded to in detail.
The municipality only stated, “We have met with the authors of the document to clarify the outstanding issues. A final implementation plan between the municipality and national and provincial departments of water and sanitation will be finalised within two weeks.”
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