Metro races to fix sewerage fault that shuts down Kings Beach
The beach has been closed by the metro due to the contaminated water to prevent health issues.
The fault is on a 600mm sewerage pipe that runs through South End.
The sewage spill has carved a 300m channel through the sand, stretching from a grassy patch — now sprouting reeds — to the shoreline, creating a murky path straight to the beach.
On Monday, the spill spread across a large section of the beach parking lot, with pieces of toilet paper visible.
The sewage spills have affected beach activities.
The city had battled to locate the source of the leak since it was reported last week.
Municipal spokesperson Sithembiso Soyaya said the source of the problem was located at the weekend.
'This task was made difficult by the presence of swampy terrain, overgrown vegetation, and dense trees in the area,' Soyaya said.
'Despite these challenges, progress has been made, and specialised equipment is being deployed to the site to speed up the work.
'The contractor will now begin clearing the dense tree coverage to enable access to the submerged sewer manholes.
'Once these are fully exposed, bypass pumping operations will begin, which will help prevent any further environmental contamination.'
Soyaya said while this work was under way, teams continued to douse the affected areas to reduce E. coli levels and neutralise the unpleasant smell.
A driving school instructor who operates from the parking lot, and did not want to be named said, the regular flooding affected his operations.
'In my case as a code 10 instructor, I use the lines drawn on the concrete surface where it is currently flooded, which means I have to give the lesson from inside the vehicle because I can't stand here.
'The water makes it difficult for the learner driver to see the lines, and it doesn't help that there's a bad smell, but what can we do,' he said.
The PE Hobie Beach parkrun posted on Facebook that it its weekend event was cancelled because of the spill.
'Unfortunately, there is a big sewerage leak on our beach route towards the harbour wall,' the post reads.
'This used to be a trickle in the past, but has turned into a river of about six to eight metres wide.
'This is not safe for any of our participants or volunteers. Unfortunately, there is no way to divert around it at this stage.
'The matter has been reported to the municipality as it is clearly a huge infrastructure failure.'
Parkrun Eastern Cape regional ambassador Dale Mortimer said they cancelled the upcoming Saturday event as well because of the leak.
'We took this decision with the anticipation that the issue will not be resolved by then, and we will reassess the situation early next week,' Mortimer said.
'For a while now this used to be a trickle of clean stormwater overflow from what we were told but I can't confirm this, what I can say is that there was no smell.
'But lately it became such a big leak with so much liquid that it put our runners' safety at risk.
'From what we understand, there's a sewage leak that gets mixed with the stormwater which is why there's so much smelly water going out to the beach.'
Ward 2 councillor Sean Tappan said the sewage leak came from Allister Miller Drive, opposite the air wing base.
'That's been running for over a week now, and we've reported it every day and escalated it to the acting city manager [Ted Pillay] on Friday,' Tappan said.
'I got a photograph that there was a honey sucker there, and they were doing something.
'But every single day, on the weekend, including now this morning, that flow is still running into a stormwater drain.
'It's supposed to go out into natural areas where there's excess water and rain, but now raw sewage is mixing with the stormwater and that is why you're getting that terrible smell.'
The Herald
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