The “Gonubie Turdy” — a sad, dying little river at German Bay — is still a sewage gutter for Gonubie suburb and Mzamomhle township, but there have been sudden dramatic changes.
A visit to three leaks into the coastal marine environment on Wednesday revealed that two were no longer spewing.
By Thursday, there was some hope that the Gonubie Waste Water Treatment Works, which has been flooding the coastal and marine zone with Gonubie and Mzomomhle’s raw sewage for six months, was finally being repaired.
But on Friday morning, the good news crumbled when images and videos appeared of large dying vulgaris octopuses, some weighing up to 2kg, crawling out of the Gonubie river.
Conservationists from Gonubie Estuary and Marine Community (Gem) were seen trying to return the creatures to the sea from the Gonubie tidal pool, but an activist from the Green Ripple environmental public interest group said it looked like a “die-off”.
By midday, a new video was shared showing men in a Buffalo City Metro (BCM) bakkie (JDV 114 ED) using a mobile pump to pump raw sewage into the Gonubie river from the reserve tank or sump of the Gonubie Marine Club pump station.
This sent the community into an uproar.
Conservationists shared a note stating that the BCM staff carrying out so-called “routine maintenance” intended to clear sand from the sump had been notified to stop immediately and get a honeysucker in to empty out the pump station.
Attempts to get comment from BCM were unsuccessful but an official BCM notice was posted online soon after the news broke stating that Gonubie beach was closed.
But the vague language used justifying the closure raised tempers even higher.
BCM stated: “The city engineering department took this decision after inspecting contamination in the nearby Gonubie river.”
On the Nubians Facebook page hundreds of residents shared their outrage with comments and angry or shocked emojis.
Kerry Lee Keightly, in the first of 63 reactions, said: “Yes, close the beach because a couple of hours earlier you were caught on video pumping sewage into the Gonubie river just upward of the same beach.”
Save Nahoon’s Kevin Harris commented: “Please stop polluting the ocean.”
Aphiwe Fervent Meki reacted: “Viva comrades of … [five poo emojis]. Even our streets are filled with this.”
Gonubie resident Vaughn Driessel, who has taken up exposing the environmental disaster caused by the sewage system from the estuary around Gonubie Point up to German Bay, demanded to know how the city was able to dump sewage without legal consequences.
Why, he demanded, was no BCM official made accountable for breaking the law?
The official in charge, Mkhuseli Nongongo, who has been the acting head of department for water and sanitation services since 2025, then released a statement saying the pump station stopped operating due to severe sand and silt accumulation.
He said the station had, before breaking down, been pumping sand and silt into the main pipeline (rising main) “resulting in a complete blockage of the pipeline”.
After explaining that a maintenance team had “reset” the station but BCM needed more time to fully remove all the silt from the system, he stated: “A contractor has been secured and is scheduled to arrive on site first thing tomorrow morning [Saturday] to complete the removal of sand and silt from the pump and rising main.”
He did not explain how his team pumped sewage into the river, saying only that the river mouth remained closed until the pump was “successfully recommissioned”, adding the rider that their scientific services was sampling water “from the beach” and after tests which would “inform a decision on reopening the beach”.
Green Ripple spokesperson Kevin Harris said: “This looks like a catastrophic failure of the system. There seems to be little or no flow in that rising main.
“We know the Gonubie sewage treatment plant has been broken for six months.
“Does this not impact on the entire line? When BCM finally dredged the lowest point of the Nahoon bulk line, there was an immediate reduction in spills into the Nahoon Turdy.
“Here we see on video BCM apparently committing an environmental crime.
“Where were the honeysuckers? Where is the plan to deal with these emergencies?
“The solution looked to be a thoughtless discharge of sewage into the Gonubie.
“Who can say the sewage spill did not impact on the sudden die-off of so many octopuses soon after?
“How did Mr Nongongo’s staff think it was acceptable to set up their pump and pollute the Gonubie river and beach?”
On Sunday, a honeysucker and maintenance crew were seen hard at work at the Marine Club pump house.
Daily Dispatch
