Cape Town may pump as much sewage into the sea as it likes

Environment minister has lifted quantity restrictions on the city’s three marine outfalls.

The City of Cape Town is now allowed to pump an unlimited volume of untreated sewage out to sea, following a decision by Environment Minister Dion George.

This was revealed in George’s parliamentary reply to a question posed by ActionSA MP Malebo Kobe on what steps the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE) was taking against the City of Cape Town releasing more than 30 million litres of raw sewage into the marine reserve per day.

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In his response in September, George said Cape Town had coastal waters discharge permits for three marine outfalls (underwater pipes through which sewage is pumped into the ocean) situated in Green Point, Camps Bay, and Hout Bay. The permits allow the city to discharge 25 million, 11.3 million, and 5 million litres of sewage into the sea per day from each of these outfalls, respectively. The only treatment the sewage receives before being released into the ocean is to be pumped through a sieve to remove solids.

Listen/read: Uncontrolled sewage damaging SA’s World Heritage Sites

However, the granting of these discharge permits, which set limits on the volumes of sewage that can be pumped and limits for elements such as nitrogen, mercury, and cyanide, among others, has been appealed by the public and various organisations, such as the National Sea Rescue Institute (NSRI).

“These three permits are all subject to ongoing appeals,” stated George. “However, an interim decision was taken on 28 August 2024, in which the effluent quantity (in other words, flow) limits in the CWDPs (Coastal Waters Discharge Permits) were suspended pending the outcome of the appeals.” He added that the City of Cape Town “is not limited to the daily discharge limits”.

Meanwhile, the city had already been exceeding the sewage quantity limits set by the existing permits.

According to Water and Sanitation Mayco member Zahid Badroodien, the average discharge during October was 1.8 million litres per day above the permit limit and was 700 000 litres per day above the permit limit for Green Point. The Camps Bay outfall remained well under the discharge volume limit.

The appeals

The DFFE granted the permit for the Hout Bay outfall in 2019, the Green Point permit in December 2022, and the Camps Bay permit in January 2023. Prior to their issue, the outfalls had been operating under a general authorisation from the national Department of Water and Sanitation.

But when the city received the discharge permits, it did not notify the public and interested and affected parties, which effectively denied the public the right to appeal. The matter only became known when the NSRI asked the city in January last year about the status of the permits.

Read: Failing sewage plants continue to pollute False Bay

The subsequent appeals to the DFFE by the NSRI, ActionSA, Capexit, Stefan Smit, and Tracey Satt were on the basis that, among others, the sewage was being discharged into a Marine Protected Area; pumping untreated sewage into the ocean contravened the constitutional right to a healthy environment; and there was no evidence a proper risk assessment or public participation process had been conducted.

This led to former DFFE minister Barbara Creecy ordering the city to conduct a new public participation process, which closed on 21 November last year. These appeals have still not been finalised.

Read: Cape Town ordered to hold public hearings on sewage pumped to the sea

This is despite Creecy stating in her 2023 decision to allow the appeals that “the discharge of sewage into the ocean can have significant impacts on the environment and public health”.

Criminal case

Documents obtained by ActionSA last year through the Promotion of Access to Information Act showed that the city had violated the conditions of its permit for the Hout Bay outfall by exceeding discharge volumes on 104 out of 181 days during the first six months of 2023. The city also failed to establish a Permit Advisory Forum, among other conditions of the permit.

As a result, ActionSA opened a criminal case against the city for contravening the Integrated Coastal Management Act.

Read: Sewage in the sea: City fails to meet Hout Bay permit conditions

But the city wasn’t just non-compliant with the Hout Bay outfall permit. George also revealed that the DFFE had in February this year – prior to George being appointed minister – issued compliance notices to the city for contravening “certain conditions of the permits” for each of the city’s three outfalls.

He said in respect of the Hout Bay outfall, a criminal case had been investigated and a docket sent to the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA).

The NPA has failed to respond to questions about the charges and whether they will be prosecuted.

Environmental concerns

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A 2017 report by the CSIR commissioned by the City of Cape Town, to which the city often refers in its presentations in response to criticism of the marine outfalls, states that the negative impact of discharging sewage into the aquatic ecosystem depends on the ecosystem’s assimilative capacity.

“The assimilative capacity is essentially a receiving environments ‘pollution diet’ – too much pollutant loading combined with inefficient dilution and dispersion and deleterious effects will manifest,” states the report.

It goes on to state that while the “high-energy marine environment” has a higher capacity to assimilate sewage than a sheltered water body such as an estuary, “of importance is the volume of effluent discharged”.

Read:
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It states that while the concentration of contaminants contained in sewage may not cause the death of marine organisms, “their persistent introduction may overwhelm the assimilative capacity of a receiving environment in the long-term and result in chronic toxicity (non-lethal effects, such as reduced reproductive potential and growth of aquatic organisms)”.

Environmental activist Caroline Marx, who sits on the city’s mayoral advisory committee for water quality, said marine outfalls are designed with a defined assimilative capacity for the environment.

“It is not understood why the minister has decided to completely ignore this so-called safe limit and allow the discharge of unlimited quantities of raw sewage for an undefined period.”

Marx said additionally, the sewage was being released into a Marine Protected Area. The Table Mountain National Park Marine Protected Area extends from Granger Bay, around Cape Point, to St. James in False Bay.

She said it was also concerning that the city and the DFFE appeared to ignore the city’s non-compliance with the conditions of the Hout Bay discharge permit for four years until ActionSA laid a criminal charge.

City growing

Badroodien said the previous permits under the Department of Water and Sanitation granted in 2011 allowed up to 17.5 million litres of sewage to be discharged per day in Hout Bay and up to 85 million litres per day off Green Point.

He said the new permits, under the DFFE, make no allowance for stormwater when it rains or higher volumes caused by peak period flows.

“The reductions that were applied are not in line with the design capacity of each outfall and appear incorrect when one has regard to the City’s growth and most importantly its compliance with the original 2011 permitted volumes,” said Badroodien.

He said the city is growing, and so are volumes of sewage, and there was no other option at the moment but to utilise the outfalls.

However, he said the city was looking at developing other options for the future.

GroundUp has previously reported on the city’s study of options, such as establishing new wastewater treatment works to treat the sewage before releasing it into the ocean or piping it to existing wastewater treatment works.

Read: Cape Town’s ocean-bound sewage options unveiled

© 2024 GroundUp. This article was first published here.

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