The clock is running down for Buffalo City to make good on its promise to protect thousands of Surfers Challenge runners from being affected by the “Gonubie Turdy” on Saturday.
The metro has four days to get the Gonubie Waste Water Treatment Plant cranked up after six months of stop-start work and a relentless flow of sewage into the little river which runners must cross.
Race organiser Neville Wilkins and Gonubie’s DA councillor, Val Knoetze, are upbeat that a solution will be found.
Wilkins said BCM had promised to build a wooden bridge over the river which has a point about a metre wide where the path crosses, but Knoetze feels the water will, by that stage, be treated grey water — good enough to discharge but not for drinking.
Wilkins said his team had already collected two truckloads of plastic from the route, including near the river, and he had also seen the Buffalo City Surf Riders (formerly Border Surfing) organise tons of sabunga to be brought in to fill a muddy, potholed section at the start of the run at Yellowsands Point.
He said runners would be instructed to not throw any plastic into the environment, and to use the extensive system of nets and bins to dispose of their sachets.
Daily Dispatch
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