The trickling Gonubie stream with no name is now spewing much of the suburb’s barely treated sewage into the ocean. Information has been sparse and a request to Buffalo City Metro foundered and nothing came back. Even local DA councillor Val Knoetze is slow to get back to me although her response indicates that action is being taken to address the issue.
But Vaughn Driessel, 50, is having none of it. He has lived here most of his life — fished and surfed these spots. He is not prepared to accept the new normal where sewage gushes relentlessly into the fabulous Gonubie estuary and marine environment.
He took this reporter on a round trip to inspect the much-loved seaside village’s sewage pumps. It is Sunday nearing midday and cyclogenesis — the cyclone season, with two brewing in the Mozambique channel and just beyond Madagascar — has sucked all the moisture from our skies. It is so hot that sea grass, more a sedge, is a flat, colourless crunchy yellow.
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Yet, the ocean is blue and pleasant, and this is pleasing at our first stop — the pump station at Black Rock in Ocean Way which is neutral smelling and looks in order. Our next stop further down this BnB area is disgusting. At the station opposite a marsh bounded by 3rd Street, 18th Avenue and Spring Road, we can see through the locked security fence that it is burbling through the cement lids. We take a side path, stepping past the remains of a “poacher’s wetsuit” and other trash.
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