Durban - Opposition party councillors in eThekwini Municipality have slammed the metro for its management of the beaches after independent test results show that several Durban beaches, which are open, had very high levels of E coli last week.
The councillors said the failure of the City to keep members of the public informed could lead to it facing legal action should a person fall sick as a result of swimming in contaminated water.
Independent company Talbot conducted water testing of the city’s beaches and found the E coli levels to be high with “critical water quality”. The samples were collected on June 29 and the test results were posted by the company on its website on Monday. Any reading above 500 is considered critical.
The readings by Talbot show that at Point Beach, it was a 2 382 count/100ml, at uShaka Beach it was 1 935, at South Beach it was 1 918, at North Beach it was 1 467, at Battery Beach it was 1 576 and at Country Club beach it was 1 989.
But the City said it was continuously monitoring the water quality at beaches to ensure their safety for use and challenged independent labs to take samples at the same time and place it did.
The City said yesterday it had reopened three northern beaches: uMhlanga Main, uMdloti Main, and Westbook beaches after experts conducted recent water quality tests that confirmed sufficient improvement of water quality.
Since the damage by the floods last year, the city has struggled with high E coli levels at its beaches.
IFP councillor Mdu Nkosi said the water quality in eThekwini remained a challenge. “This is not the first time, the issue of E coli has been raised. We should remember that there are people who will come and swim in Durban regardless of the season, whether it is winter, they will come and swim and our beaches have remained open, which poses a serious threat to the people utilising them.
“I call upon the City manager and deputy City manager concerned to quickly attend to this, we cannot always be in the media for negative publicity. Such things should be quickly attended to because if people fall sick, the council could face legal challenges,” said Nkosi.
ActionSA councillor Alan Beesley said ActionSA was of the view that keeping the beaches open despite what the independent tests revealed was putting the health of residents, tourists and employees of eThekwini at risk, and bordered on criminality.
“The municipality has an obligation to protect the well-being of all residents and tourists and they are clearly failing in this regard. These latest readings further highlight that the sewage crisis engulfing eThekwini is not getting better, and is in fact getting worse.
“ActionSA’s court case against the mayor and the municipality will continue,” he said, in reference to an ongoing court matter which the party brought last year in the Durban High Court to compel the provincial government, national government and the eThekwini Municipality to fix the sewage crisis in Durban.
DA councillor Yogis Govender said the municipality was acting recklessly and negligently.
“It is unacceptable that beaches remain open with such critical levels, and the City is silent about this.”
She said the City had recently been reprioritising budgets for critical infrastructure, but was failing to tell residents that the money was being taken away from another equally critical project.
“With this musical chairs-type shifting of budgets, the City will never eradicate the problems within Water and Sanitation. Notwithstanding that eThekwini simply does not have the political will to get things done, the budgets allocated are dismally short of the R128 billion required to properly address the failing infrastructure,” said Govender.
When The Mercury asked the City about the independent test results, it referred back to its statement. That statement said opened beaches included Point, uShaka, Addington, South Beach, Wedge Beach, North Beach, Bay of Plenty, Battery, Thekwini, Country Club, Laguna, Brighton Beach, Ansteys, Toti Main, Pipeline and Winkelspruit.
It further said Bronze, Reunion, Umgababa, and Warner beaches remained closed until further notice, and that it was continuously monitoring the water quality at beaches to ensure the safety of residents and visitors.
“It is worth noting that results for any water samples that have not been taken at the same place and at the same time could differ. Any external lab is welcome to test at the same time and at the same spot with the municipality so that the results can be compared. We would welcome this in the interest of transparency,” said the statement.