Almost 300 sign a petition against Ujams
Although the complaint was brought against Ujams Sewage Works, the plant falls under the municipality of Windhoek.
“Join us in demanding immediate action to stop Ujams sewage works from dumping raw sewage into our river. Sign this petition to protect our health, preserve our environment and restore the quality of life in Elisenheim!”So reads a recently launched complaint against Ujams Sewage Works based on the allegation that they dump raw sewage into the Klein Windhoek river near the Elisenheim estate, north of Windhoek.
Around 300 aggrieved parties had already signed the document by Tuesday afternoon.
It is an online complaint on change.org under the heading "Stop Ujams Sewage Works from Polluting Our River".
"Our river is polluted with substances that harm the wildlife and degrade the environment. We cannot just stand by while this continues to happen in our backyard," the complaint reads.
This follows after residents of the estate complained at the beginning of the month about the smell of sewage - an issue that has apparently been occurring constantly in recent years.
Le-Hugo van Rooyen, the CEO of Trustco Properties, confirmed to NMH last week that the smell is caused by the alleged dumping of sewage by the plant and said the issue was reported to the Windhoek municipality some time ago.
According to the complaint, the raw sewage in the river causes an unbearable stench in and around the estate.
"I'm tired of the rotten smell hanging around here. It is not pleasant to be here at all," one of the residents said.
"It's not only a health risk but is also detrimental to the environment. The untreated waste pollutes our water, poses waterborne disease threats to the community and damages local ecosystems," the document states.
Municipality reacts
The municipality of Windhoek appointed Ujams Sewage Works to manage the plant near Elisenheim.
The spokesperson for the municipality, Lydia Amutenya, admitted at the time that the plant sometimes receives volumes of sewage that exceed the design capacity. "This may lead to the implementation of rain mode protocols to manage the increased flow," Amutenya said.
According to informed sources, sewage water is dumped into the river during this process and the water has not been fully treated. It is believed to have only been treated by the fine sieves and gravel removal and this partially treated water is then discharged into the river together with the fully treated water.
NMH saw an e-mail that the general manager of Ujams Wastewater Treatment Company (UWTC), Thomas Honer, sent to the municipality on 24 May this year. In this, he explains that during the design phase of the plant, the municipality decided to build a "dry weather buffer tank and not a wet weather buffer tank with more buffer capacity".
The decision was apparently made to save costs.
According to Honer, the plant has been experiencing intermittent power outages since November 2014, which appears to be just one of several challenges facing the UWTC team at the plant.
"The problems with electricity supply were mentioned several times and finally part of the supply cable was replaced and since then the power and supply problems have been sorted out. The cause of this problem was beyond the responsibility of UWTC," Honer's email said.
He added that incidents in the past were caused by external factors, and were beyond the control of the team on site. These incidents reportedly included fire/smoldering, dumping of waste by third parties into the old dams and other issues. – [email protected]