He has been walking his dog (and his children) around the Military Base area for years. But even Somerset Heights resident Dean Haefele could not have predicted that Lucky, his two-year-old bull terrier would dive into a ‘pool’ of human waste for a drink last week.
He has been walking his dog (and his children) around the Military Base area for years. But even Somerset Heights resident Dean Haefele could not have predicted that Lucky, his two-year-old bull terrier would dive into a ‘pool’ of human waste for a drink last week.
“He was thirsty and didn’t listen to me when I called, ‘No Lucky, don't jump – no!’,” Haefele said. Lucky jumped in a metre-wide and metre-deep channel dug up about 18 months ago, when the main sewerage line from the Military Base was blocked.
“He was full of s**t and I had to wash him with Dettol; and I even gave him mouthwash!”
As distressed as Haefele is with his dog’s day in the muck, he is more worried about the impact this black, gooey, and untreated waste is having on Grahamstown’s water system.
Gravity appears to have taken the sewage down from the Military Base, through the soils on the outskirts of Somerset Heights and into the waterways that pour into Selworthy Dam, then on to the fields of Graeme College and all the way into Belmont Valley on the outskirts of Grahamstown East.
Residents on Selworthy Road say it’s unusual for the Selworthy Dam to be so full at the height of summer (as it is now), and they suspected that some of the water was being flushed from baths, toilets, showers and kitchens at the military base, and ending up in the dam.
Grocott’s Mail photographer Bridgette Hall got a bird’s eye view of the problem when she flew in a microlight plane with Sharon McGillewie of Larry McGillewie Outdoor Adventures, and photographed the black-and-green mess snaking its way down from the Military Base.
From the dam, the water makes its way into Belmont Valley, where some of the vegetables sold in Grahamstown are grown.
“When you see how green your veggies are, now you know why,” Haefele laughed, “s**t makes things grow.”
Contractors working on replacing a section of the sewerage on Thursday said they had a 60m section to complete by this week, but would have to replace the entire length of this line (about 800m).
“This pipe was made of concrete and obviously it broke down after years of use,” said Eugene Derrida, a contractor with Peninsular Pipeline Service from Cape Town, via Port Elizabeth.
The contractors said they were doing exactly what Makana had asked them to do and could not be drawn on why there was a 30-40 metre section of open sewer.
“We don’t know why the soil was not buried after the new pipe had been laid,” Derrida said, “or why this area was not fenced off, if the soil is still on the sides."
As it is, there are little mountains of soil on eithe side of a metre-wide gape in the shrubbery down from the entrance of the Miltary Base.
It’s not clear who the previous contractors were, but residents in the area say the open sewer has been this way for almost two years.
Municipal officials were unavailable for comment at the time of going to press.
