City of Cape Town urged to act fast on sewerage upgrades to prevent disease outbreaks
The city has allocated R1.25 billion of its R4.9 billion water and sanitation budget to upgrade Cape Town's ailing sewerage network.
This follows ongoing concerns about sewage overflows in various areas around the city.
Associate Professor for Epidemiology at UCT Dvora Davey said sewage contaminated water can transmit a variety of diseases.
"In sewage contaminated water there is bacteria, viruses and parasites and these pathogens cause gastro-intestinal illness, skin infection and even life-threatening conditions like hepatitis."
In a bid to address these concerns, Mayco member for water and sanitation Zahid Badroodien says sewerage upgrades throughout Cape Town are being planned.
"And so I'm excited about major projects like the Cape Flats rehabilitation of our sewer pipeline, the rehabilitation of bulk sewers in Milnerton, in Philippi."
Badroodien said other projects include upgrades to Koeberg, Rappenberg and Langa pump stations.
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Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Next Stay Close ✕ 'Ignoring men's health undermines progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals' (SDGs) pledge to leave no one behind.' Over the past 15 years, a handful of countries have begun addressing the malnourishment of men's health in public health policies. 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Advanced techniques can remove some contaminants, but Andrews said these were costly, energy intensive and impractical at scale for municipal systems. The city has been investigating long-term options to replace marine outfall pipelines with new wastewater treatment works, but no decisions have been made on the timing of these replacements. Andrews said that Cape Town faced many competing priorities, with underserved areas requiring basic sanitation upgrades and that the 'prioritisation of limited funding' needed to be weighed up in this context. An environmental monitoring programme was under way and the sampling of both water and tissue at sites near the marine outfall was providing insight into this issue, he said. Extensive impact zone The researchers found that chemicals in pharmaceuticals, including those in antibiotics, antidepressants and hormones, as well as those found in personal care products, are not being adequately diluted or dispersed. 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The researchers warn that the current sewage treatment is not enough to curb the pollution, and that the marine outfall 'was not designed to handle the ever-increasing volumes of chemical constituents'. Growing informal housing built over sewer lines means these systems are often blocked or broken, leading to raw sewage routinely flowing down streets and into stormwater drains, which feed directly into the river. Another key factor identified is Hout Bay's unique geography as a 'bay within a bay', which limits water exchange and circulation. Instead, it acts as a trap, causing pollutants to recirculate back to the shoreline rather than being flushed out to sea. Improving wastewater systems Zahid Badroodien, the city's mayoral committee member for water and sanitation, said that Cape Town was committed to continually improving its wastewater systems: 'While the Hout Bay marine outfall currently operates within its design parameters and complies with national discharge regulations, we recognise that CECs [contaminants of emerging concern], including pharmaceutical and personal care products, pose new challenges globally.' Research on the treatment of these contaminants was ongoing across the world, she said, and the city was 'evaluating multiple long-term options that may address this in the future' at all of its wastewater treatment works. Petrik said that the study aimed to focus attention on the peculiar way that the city measured impact zones, using a single snapshot model of enterococci levels, which are used to detect faecal contamination. But, she said, the marine outfall and the Disa River released untreated raw sewage continuously, '24/7/365'. Petrik said that the city should rather trace the chemical fingerprint of sewage to properly understand the impact zones. 'The city keeps claiming that the marine outfall dispersal works according to its design criteria, but the measure of dispersal they use is vastly inadequate. 'Enterococci die off after a while, whereas the persistent contaminants give a far clearer, longer-lasting and traceable measure of the dispersal and thus the impact zones around these point sources of sewage discharge,' said Petrik. River pollution The city acknowledged that the Hout Bay River, also known as the Disa River, was in a very poor state due to periodic and ongoing pollution from a number of sources. 'It receives flows from a catchment of approximately 37 square kilometres, which includes natural upper slopes in the Table Mountain National Park, formal residential areas and smallholdings on both sides of the Hout Bay River, formal housing with backyard dwellers in Imizamo Yethu and Hangberg areas, and informal dwellings in Imizamo Yethu, which includes a fairly large informal settlement with limited services,' said Andrews. City's plan to improve sanitation services in Hout Bay, particularly in informal settlements like Imizamo Yethu Immediate actions: Increased, proactive cleaning, rapid response to spills, door-to-door inspections to enforce by-laws, and public education campaigns. Medium-term plans: Exploration of temporary solutions like diverting flows at the Victoria Road pump station and investigating the feasibility of in-line water treatment. Long-term strategy: A feasibility study in 2028/2029, which will focus on a major upgrade of the Disa River sewer pipe to increase its capacity and resilience. Badroodien said these efforts were part of a broader R1.25-billion city-wide investment in sanitation infrastructure for the current financial year, with R355-million allocated for sewer pipe replacements and R241-million to upgrade pump stations across Cape Town. Andrews said that they agreed with the authors of the study that further research into the bioaccumulation of pharmaceutical compounds by bivalves, such as mussels, in a marine protected area was needed. He said measures of when these contaminants should be considered to be at a level that was harmful both to people and the environment were not yet established, but that the city remained 'engaged in this emerging science as it develops globally'. DM
