With sewage spills springing up all over town, local schools are becoming particularly concerned about health hazards and damage being done to their infrastructure.
With sewage spills springing up all over town, local schools are becoming particularly concerned about health hazards and damage being done to their infrastructure.
It's taken the municipality nearly a month to deal with sewage on the grounds of Victoria Primary, while Kingswood College is in a rather sticky situation as it's currently co-hosting a national hockey festival.
Kingswood maintenance manager Richard McNully said from 18 to 21 April they are hosting about 180 extra pupils for the festival, but there is sewer water running through the entire campus.
“This issue has been reported many times, and absolutely nothing is happening,” an irate McNully said earlier this week.
He blames a three-and-a-half-metre deep manhole on Trollope Street, near the school's astroturf, for the havoc.
Municipal workers placed a concrete block over the manhole on Monday evening but no other work had been done to remedy the situation, he said.
“We spent R12 million on the City Lords Complex, this includes R7.5m on the astro and the sub-surface drainage system. We also pay R250 000 per month for services to Makana,” McNully said.
Keeping the school grounds safe and dry is becoming increasingly expensive, and in a desperate attempt to save the City Lords sports complex Kingswood business manager Steve Gardner contracted a private plumbing company to deal with the situation on Tuesday morning.
On the other side of Grahamstown, raw sewage has been seeping onto Fergusson field at Victoria Primary School since Saturday 23 March.
The school phoned the municipality numerous times and contacted the Department of Health, but to no avail. It took almost a month and calls from Cathy Miekeljohn of the Good Shepherd Trust across the road, whose grounds were also affected, to get a reaction from the municipality.
Eventually municipal workers covered the sewage with ash last week. “The hockey field is a health hazard and the girls can't play on it,” said school secretary Ilza Lang.
“Once it dries up, they will have to sanitise the ground where the sewage was.”
