The Metsimaholo Municipality says the problem is about to be fixed, but after enduring years of stench, flies and sewage washing up against their walls, the Deneysville and Refengkgotso communities near the dam deeply distrust the municipality and do not believe the situation will soon be resolved.

Because of a lack of maintenance and inadequate capacity to treat the sewage from an expanded population, sewage spills out of pumps and manholes in the area when pumps fail or become too full.

Maria Sefatsa shows how sewage running up to her walls has eroded her home in Refengkgotso, where she has lived for 18 years. (Photo: Julia Evans)

The sewage surrounds Refengkgotso settlement — bordered by two pumps — sometimes running through it and into farmlands, and eventually flowing into the Vaal Dam, which is a water source for more than 12 million people in the Sedibeng district. 

The Refengkgotso Wastewater Treatment Works has the built capacity to treat only two megalitres (a megalitre is 1,000,000 litres) of the approximate 4ML of sewage that the area produces a day, according to the Gauteng Department of Water and Sanitation (GDWS). 

Kathy Manten, a Deneysville resident and member of the non-profit organisation Save the Vaal Environment (Save), said that the plant manager of the wastewater treatment works told her that the excess water that could not be processed is diverted through open trenches dug throughout Refengkgotso, or past the two pump stations, or into what has become a “quarry” or wetland right across the road from the works.  

Sewage spills out of manholes near houses in Refengkgotso. (Photo: Julia Evans)

Sewage also spills out of manholes and sewage pumps, the GDWS said.

“If the pumps are not operational, the sewage will continue to gravitate to the pump station, and with the pumps not operational the sumps fill up and [sewage] then spills out into the surrounding area,” and makes its way into the Vaal Dam.  

Daily Maverick has records of the GDWS and the Metsimaholo Local Municipality being aware of this issue since 2010, when the GDWS issued a letter of non-compliance to the municipality. The letter detailed the department’s investigation of Refengkgotso, which found  “disturbing issues” of a pool of sewage around the pump station and signs of recent overflow. 

This was in contravention of the National Water Act and the department told the municipality to clean up the sewage and prevent future pollution from occurring. 

But, 12 years later, sewage visibly runs into the Vaal Dam near the Lake Deneys Yacht Club and snakes through the outskirts of Refengkgotso.

Mayor of Metsimaholo Local Municipality, Jeff Zwane, addresses sceptical Deneysville residents at a municipality and community engagement, 8 September, 2022. (Photo: Julia Evans)

The Metsimaholo Local Municipality told Daily Maverick that construction of a new wastewater treatment plant began in 2015, attributing the delay to financial constraints, community unrest and a contractual disagreement between the municipality and the contractor that halted construction from 2019 to 2021.

“We had to apply for a municipal infrastructure grant [MIG], and we are not the only municipality in the country that makes use of MIGs — more than 280 municipalities [do so],” said Gino Alberts, communications manager for the Metsimaholo municipality, explaining why construction began only five years after the non-compliance letter. 

The new plant is anticipated to be completed in the next two months. 

“Yes, we can be criticised for the past, but please don’t criticise us for trying to make things right,” said Graeme Fenwick, a project engineer contracted by the municipality, at a Deneysville community and municipal engagement on Tuesday, 6 September. 

The Refengkgotso Waste Water Treatment Works has been under construction on and off since 2017. The project is set to finish in October 2022. (Photo: Julia Evans)

The GDWS and the municipality presented their plan to solve the pollution problem to community members.

The department said the existing wastewater treatment works is a ponds system, which is not operational at present, and neither are the pump stations required to pump the sewage to the treatment works. 

The municipality has a project to fix the pump stations and expand the wastewater treatment works, to enable it to treat 6ML per day — which will be enough to treat the present sewage of 4ML per day, and stop the pollution into the dam, say the department and the municipality.

Alberts said this new capacity would be sufficient for Deneysville, Refengkgotso and Themba Kubheka, and would only require selected expansion in 2037.

Met with disdain

But their plan was met with disdain from community members, who say the Vaal Dam has been polluted for more than 12 years. 

Glen McCarrol, chairman of the Deneysville Ratepayers Association, at the meeting between the municipality and the community on 8 September, 2022. (Photo: Julia Evans)

“We do not trust the municipality to keep the dam clean,” said Glen McCarroll, the chairperson of the Deneysville Ratepayers Association. 

Maria Sefatsa has been living in Refengkgotso for 18 years. Her RDP house is near the border of the settlement, close to a pond that formed as a result of sewage spilling from manholes and the Sasolburg Road Pump Station.

On the other side of Refengkgotso is the Cemetery Pump Station, where a pond or “quarry” of sewage lies just metres from the Refengkgotso Wastewater Treatment Works. McCarroll said this pump station had been dysfunctional for years due to lack of maintenance, vandalism of infrastructure and political disputes.

The GDWS told Daily Maverick that sewage pump stations are used when sewage cannot gravitate to the wastewater treatment works (WWTW).  

“In cases like this, the sewage gravitates to a low point where it is collected in a sump from where it is pumped to either a high point from where it can gravitate to the WWTW, or to another pump station which will pump the sewage to the WWTW,” explained ​​Mpho Manyama, the director for infrastructure at the GDWS.

A quarry filled with raw sewage in front of Refengkgotso Waste Water Treatment Works. When the pumps are not operational the sumps fill up and sewage spills into the surrounding areas. (Photo: Julia Evans)

Sewage runs into the Vaal Dam at Lake Deneys Yacht Club, 6 September, 2022. In Refengkgotso, sewage is backs up in the pipes and spills out of manholes or broken pump stations, overflowing across farmland and into the Vaal dam as it has nowhere else to go. (Photo: Julia Evans)

The department confirmed that when the pumps are not operational, the sumps fill up and sewage spills into the surrounding areas. If an operational pump fails, standby pumps and motors are in place as well as an additional “spare” sump volume which stores the sewage while repairing the problem. 

However, Sefatsa told Daily Maverick that many times a year, particularly when it rains, sewage washes up against her walls, eroding the cement on the outside and inside of her home. She said sewage flows inside the living room of another house.

There is no trust 

A GDWS engineer said at the meeting on Tuesday that since the appointment of Senzo Mchunu as minister of water and sanitation, the department had been working incredibly hard.

The municipality said ​​that once the project is complete, the sewage will be contained in the new treatment works, and thanks to the upgraded plants and refurbished pump stations, the water will be treated and transferred into the Vaal Dam via an effluent pipeline.

“This closed system prevents any untreated sewage from flowing into the dam,” said Alberts. 

But the Deneysville Ratepayers Association has launched a petition against the installation of the effluent pipe. McCarroll said: “We don’t want the water put into the dam. This dam feeds the whole of Gauteng’s drinking water, it feeds our water in this community and we do not trust the municipality to keep it clean.”

At the meeting, Fenwick said, “The quality of treated effluent water is of a way, way higher standard than in the dam.”

Community members chanted: “No to the pipe!”, but the GDWS and the municipality explained that the pipe was installed to return treated water back into the dam, which is necessary as the department requires that the treated effluent is returned to the original source of extraction, to replenish the source and to prevent resource depletion.

Plan of sustainability

Fenwick admitted: “Historically, [the municipality] has a shocking track record”, but said that things would change under new leadership, and there was a plan to ensure the multimillion-rand treatment plant does not fall into disarray. 

The municipality said it was appointing a new qualified supervisor, four process controllers, a laboratory technician and other support staff, who will be trained and monitored by a specialist engineer and trainer in the municipality’s consulting team. 

Additionally, the municipality will have a testing laboratory, where the local municipality will conduct daily tests, the district municipality and the GDWS monthly tests, and all results will be recorded and available to the public. 

Consultants for the municipality recommended “an external private water services laboratory be appointed by Metsimaholo for biweekly testing, which would be independent, and used to compare the test results, which should be organised through the Deneysville Residents Association, for controlled testing, and could be done as frequently as they wish”. 

Despite these promises, Manten, the Save committee member, is not convinced and says that when municipalities run out of money, services fail.  

“Municipal staff, operational and political, change all the time. The next municipal election is only four years away. Who knows what will happen then?” asked Manten.

This situation is by no means unique to the small town of Deneysville or even the Vaal Dam — it’s what Maureen Stewart, the vice-chairperson of Save, calls “a story of South Africa”.

Last year, the South African Human Rights Commission released a report which found that the Vaal water system, on which about 19 million South Africans rely for water security, was polluted beyond acceptable standards, mainly due to the “the kilolitres of untreated sewage entering the Vaal because of inoperative and dilapidated wastewater treatment plants which have been unable to properly process the sewage”. DM/OBP