Cape Town's Deputy Mayor and Mayoral Committee Member for Spatial Planning and Environment, Eddie Andrews, has announced that the city's coastal water quality is not as safe as previously thought. The results for 147 water quality samples show excellent water quality across Cape Town's critical recreational nodes or beaches, with 95% of water samples being well below the single sample standard of 180 enterococci per 100ml. This confirms water quality is good and excellent by global means across famous beaches.
However, the latest water quality data on the city's water quality dashboard show concerning water quality data at some of these beaches and tidal pools. The city says the bad results from the review are almost always due to a localised issue at the sampling site. For example, at Camps Bay Tidal Pool A, the sampling point is next to a sewage pump station outlet, part of the ablution building in the middle of the tidal pool. Almost certainly, any poor result here will be caused by leaks or failures of the pump station and ablution facility.
The results come against the background of increasingly constrained sewer systems in Cape Town, which have caused sewage spills and resultant beach closures, as well as condemnation of the city's pumping of sewage into the ocean through its three marine outfalls or pipelines, located 1.5km offshore in Green Point, Camps Bay, and Hout Bay. There have been calls for alternative solutions to dispose of the sewage. A study published in December 2022 found that the outfalls affected marine-protected areas in Camps Bay.
Emeritus Professor Leslie Petrik of the Department of Chemistry at the University of the Western Cape warned that the "red labelled" beaches presented a significant health risk to people. Petrik cautioned that the results were often posted by the city long after a pollution event and said more frequent water quality testing and publishing were needed. Dr Jo Barnes, a senior lecturer emeritus at Stellenbosch University’s Department of Global Health, said posting updated notices about beach water quality would damage the city’s image as a popular tourist destination. Hence, its efforts at informing the public were often half-hearted.
There has been significant controversy about the water quality and Blue Flag status of Camps Bay Beach. The city’s latest water quality reports classify Camps Bay tidal pools A and B as "poor," yet Camps Bay beach is classified as "good" despite its proximity. The beach was also one of eight in Cape Town recently awarded Blue Flag status by the Wildlife and Environment Society of South Africa (Wessa) for meeting stringent criteria related to water quality, environmental management, and safety services.
Deputy Mayor Andrews urged the public not to fall for "baseless misinformation about our coastal water quality, especially where these allegations are not backed up by scientific evidence, namely enterococci data from more than just one sample, over some time, at a specific beach. He added that visitors to Cape Town beaches could be confident that Coastal Water Quality guidelines were being met and monitored continuously.
Cape Town has been criticised for its marine outfalls, which have been found to cause raw sewage and used sanitary pads to float in the water. However, the city claims that its environmental summary reports for each outfall, written by marine experts using seven years of data, have determined that none of the three outfalls caused National Coastal Water Quality Guidelines to be exceeded at any point on the shoreline.
Camps Bay and Glen beaches have excellent water quality, while Hout Bay is affected by discharge from the Disa River, which carries high pollution levels. Green Point has multiple sources of impacts from the shoreline via stormwater drains, with Three Anchor Bay being an example of illegal discharges via the stormwater drain.
ActionSA provincial chairperson Michelle Wasserman has taken photos of raw sewage drifting on top of the water, arguing that the city claims that the outfalls safely disperse wastewater deep underwater, far from the seashore. A second round of public participation concluded on 21 November, with members of the scientific community, activists, opposition parties, and civil society objecting to the marine outfalls and the impact of discharging sewage into the ocean. They hope their comments will be considered and that the city will not be permitted to pump sewage into the sea before it has been treated to a tertiary level.
This article is republished from the Daily Maverick. Click here to read the original article.
