The eThekwini metro has taken top honours in the National Cleanest Town Competition 2008, adjudged the cleanest metro in the country.

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The annual competition is organized by the environmental affairs department and judged by an independent panel of adjudicators.

The judges assessed pollution levels, general cleanliness, community awareness and waste management to determine winners.

Agriculture and environmental affairs MEC Mtholephi Mthikhulu congratulated eThekwini on the win.

Municipal manager Mike Sutcliffe was “delighted”.

“I’m really proud,” he said. - Mercury Reporter

    • This article was originally published on page 2 of The Mercury on June 16, 2008

Durban”s river of Shame

Hundreds of fish in Umgeni River’s mangrove breeding grounds have been wiped out after what is believed to have been a major sewage spillage as load-shedding hits local pump stations.

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And bad news for ecologists and estuary environments near any pump stations is that the city has no firm plans to install back-up generators at facilities that have the potential to spill hundreds of thousands of litres of sewage into local rivers.

According to Durban’s Water and Sanitation department it would be prohibitively expensive to install generators at the 160-odd stations that rely entirely on electricity mains. About 40 stations have standby generators.

“Load-shedding does affect us. The sumps fill up and then leak into the rivers. Some of the facilities are so huge that it would be extremely expensive to equip them with generators running into millions.

The most recent spillage played havoc with mainly juvenile mullet in the Umgeni River, near Athlone Bridge. The muddy riverbanks were lined with “hundreds” of dead fish.

A council pollution inspector summoned to the river confirmed the sewage spill and identified a pump station upstream as the culprit.

Municipal pump stations are not excluded from load shedding, the power utility needs to stockpile coal and fat cat bonuses are due for gross mismanagement, this incompetence can only happen in South Africa. What a shame!