Durban – Earlier this month a company was accused of dumping waste into the Ohlanga River in uMhlanga. The same company has finally spoken out about its role pertaining to the Ohlanga pump station.
The company, Camjet, specialises in the trenchless technology field of high-pressure pipe cleaning, intrusion rehabilitation, pipeline inspections as well as pipe data collection and GIS integration.
On its Facebook page, reviews as recent as this month, Camjet is accused of being a polluter and killing people and the future.
“Pollution is what they do best” and “Sies, Camjet! Killing your own people and the future. You are a disgrace!” is what the reviews said.
In an official statement issued on Wednesday, Camjet said the company received an emergency call out on November 28 to assist with the desilting and commissioning of the Ohlanga pump station which was out of operation, together with the opening of the inlet pipes (unblocking and desilting of drains) as the eThekwini Metro had been given an urgent mandate from the government to get the beaches open by December 1, 2022.
Camjet said that upon establishing an on-site pre-assessment of the pump station, it noted that the incoming bulk sewer lines were overflowing into the stormwater system within the pump station, and into a stream that runs alongside the pump station.
This was due to the pump station not being operational. The pump station was 90% full at 1 024cm3. This was made up of about 35% sludge and water, and 65% sludge and sand.
The company said in an attempt to isolate and desilt the pump station due to the environmental consequences of months of sewer inflow into the Ohlanga River, the pump station was isolated for a short period of time.
“Due to the urgency and the emergency nature of the work, temporary drying beds were allocated to Camjet by the eThekwini Metro within an unused service road next to the pump station.
“Once the incoming lines were plugged and the stream was free of overflowing sewage, Camjet commenced cleaning the pump station and was requested to dump any material at the designated temporary drying beds,” Camjet said.
It was advised by eThekwini Metro that the municipality would engage with their own contractors for the removal and remediation of the temporary drying beds.
“Images circulating on social media of Camjet dumping into the Ohlanga River are in fact of teams disposing of material at the drying beds allocated by the municipality which is located about 15m from the pump station’s main gate and not directly into the river, as claimed on social media,” Camjet said.
The company said it worked long hours and way into the night for days to achieve the cleaning of the pump station and unblocking of the incoming sewer lines. Camjet got the pump station operational on December 2, 2022.
“The following day the HP Jetting & Vacuum teams were then allocated to the eastern side of the N2 freeway to unblock and desilt all overflowing sewer lines to ensure that the lines were flowing freely into the now operational pump station. The lines were 90-100% fully silted and the teams sequentially unblocked and desilted all overflowing sewer lines to ensure that there was no further overflow into the Ohlanga River,” Camjet said.
It said that as of December 10, 2022 all lines represented in red were unblocked and flowing freely.
On the mitigating factors and remedial actions, Camjet said upon arrival on site and prior to the commencement of any works, it was noted that the pump station and incoming bulk lines were fully silted: 90%-100%, the result of this was that millions of litres of raw sewage were flowing into the Ohlanga River every day.
Camjet said that due to the magnitude of the problem, coupled with the tight timeline and environmental consequences of no action, it was determined by the municipality that creating temporary drying beds was the best practice. The volume of sludge removed was about 180 000 litres over two days.
“If we compare this to the rate at which sewage was flowing into the river at 30 000 000 litres a day, the municipality’s decision to utilise temporary drying beds was a reasonable one, which facilitated the efficient reinstatement of the pump station while ensuring that the sewage overflow was terminated as quickly and efficiently as possible to mitigate any further pollution,” Camjet said.
“It must be also noted that logistically, the traditional method of carting sewage and sludge away to treatment works would not have been practical, due to the long turnaround time which would have extended the project to weeks, compared to the minimal time taken to complete the project and thereby putting an end to months of pollution.”
Daily News