The South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) has released a report containing findings that the Vaal River, the Dam, the Barrage and the Rietspruit (referred to collectively as ‘the Vaal’) is severely polluted.
This comes after the SAHRC’s Gauteng Provincial Office conducted an inspection at certain sites within the Emfuleni Municipality in September 2018. Raw sewage flowing in a small stream that cut across the Emfuleni Golf Estate awaited them, as well as two burst sewerage pipes on the banks of the Rietspruit that runs through the Emfuleni Municipal area; defective bio-filters at the Rietspruit Waste Water Treatment Works; clogged sewerage manhole at the Sharpeville Cemetery and children swimming in, and consuming, polluted waters in the area of a school.
‘The importance and economic value of the Vaal was made very clear during the Inquiry,’ SAHRC states in the report. ‘National Treasury emphasised that approximately 19 million people depend on the Vaal for water, for drinking and for domestic and commercial use.’
The SAHRC added that the pollution is impacting natural ecosystems directly dependent on the water in and from the Vaal. The population of Yellowfish peculiar to a few South African rivers such as the Vaal are under threat of extinction on account of the change to the balance of river flora and other competing species in the river caused by pollution of the Vaal.
‘It also became clear during the Inquiry, that the Vaal is now polluted beyond acceptable standards, and that the cause is 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,’ the report continued.
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