Promoting Water Justice and Accountability
Citizen science in the rivers and on the beaches
WaterCAN and Adopt-A-River are working together in the eThekwini Water Monitoring Partnership to promote water justice, healthy water resources and accountability. This project started in August 2022.
Residents have been pleading with the City of Cape Town to address the unacceptable pollution of the Milnerton Lagoon and surrounding areas. Their appeals for urgent assistance have not resulted in a solution.
We’re helping Cape Town fight for clean water systems
The pollution of Milnerton Lagoon, the Diep River estuary and surrounds has been an ongoing problem for years. After endless appeals to the City of Cape Town which were ignored and despairing of any real change, residents’ associations appealed to OUTA for help with applying pressure on the City and finding a solution.
On 7 February 2020, OUTA sent a letter of engagement to the City of Cape Town requesting to engage in finding workable solutions to fix the sewage pollution problem within the Diep River and Milnerton Lagoon.
Milnerton Lagoon, which is part of the Diep River estuary, forms part of the Table Bay Nature Reserve which is run by the City of Cape Town.
OUTA tasked independent consultants to take water samples as part of our investigation. Reports on water samples taken on 23 January 2020 and 3 February 2020 point to the Potsdam Wastewater Treatment Works (WWTW), which is managed by the City of Cape Town, as the main source of the pollution.
OUTA’s water results pointed to various contributors to the pollution but the root causes were identified as the lack of adequate sanitation infrastructure in Joe Slovo (and other surrounding informal settlements) and the collapse of the Potsdam WWTW.
Tests on water samples since then confirm that the contamination problem is ongoing.
The management of the wastewater, including the responsibility to prevent hazardous waste from contaminating water resources, is the responsibility of the City of Cape Town.
OUTA will continue to monitor the progress of the interventions being taken by the City of Cape Town.
