News
Posted 17 August 2010 @ 09h25am
Hopes rising for River Mile to get pollution all-clear
PORT Elizabeth's annual Redhouse River Mile could return to its traditional venue next year as the municipality has started work to stem chronic pollution being discharged from Motherwell's stormwater canal into the Swartkops River.
After work on the R7.5-million project began a month ago, Zwartkops Trust official Jenny Rump said the bottom part of the Motherwell canal had been cleaned completely.
We had to threaten the municipality with legal action before they started to clean up the pollution, Rump said.
The pollution - including toxic levels of human waste - was so bad that this year's 86th river mile, held in February each year at Redhouse, had to be moved from the Swartkops River to Cannonville on the Sundays River.
But now, Rump said: We are excited and grateful to see that they (the
municipality) were really threatened enough to send some people to clean up the
canal.
The go-ahead for the project was given last year by the municipality.
The canal runs north-south through the length of Motherwell before emptying into the Swartkops, upriver from the Aloes brick fields, between the Swartkops and Redhouse villages.
Rump said that in 20 years she had never seen the Motherwell canal being cleaned, even though the trust had identified the problem areas and had submitted a report on their findings to the municipality.
We are thankful to the people who are working very hard to get this canal clean.
I've seen the bottom part of it completely cleaned and the workers have taken out the litter.
"They are busy cleaning up the rest of the canal," Rump said. Once it had been cleaned, tests would be conducted to determine whether the water was suitable to be used for the River Mile next year.
The historic event's organisers and the trust would make the decision after the test results had been supplied by the municipality.
Municipal spokesman Kupido Baron said workers were at present deployed on the side where the canal flowed into the river and would be working backwards on a 5km stretch.
The causes of the canal's water being polluted had been the build-up of sludge, the incorrect disposal of litter, and the dumping of objects such as tyres and stones, he said.
"The municipality conducts weekly tests of the canal and river water to determine its cleanness."
Baron said the municipality would clean the canal monthly to maintain the standard.