DURBAN - The dead fish that were seen strewn along the shore at Winkelspruit Beach and at the Winklespruit River mouth were picked up by a crew earlier this week.
This was after a pipe broke in the Kingsway 2 wastewater pump station in Warner Beach over the weekend.
In a Facebook post to the eThekwini Municipality on Monday, Tamlyne Hartwanger said there seemed to be a very big problem at the small river at Winkelspruit Beach, the smell was horrendous and there were dead fish everywhere.
She said she was extremely worried about the birds that were drinking the water and eating the dead fish.
In another Facebook post on Saturday, Bianca Ellis said what she saw was disturbing, to say the least.
She had decided to take her family on an outing to Winkelspruit Beach to get away for a bit but then they came across the situation at the beach.
“Fish were lying dead all over the beach due to the estuary either being contaminated or just polluted. Fish were lying dead in the estuary, some fish were trying to swim upstream to get out but couldn’t,” her post read.
“What I found most disturbing was that the lifeguards were sitting there, not telling people to stay away or not swim where the water was being pulled in by the sea.”
Speaking to the Daily News on Wednesday, ward councillor Andre Beetge said a pipe had broken off in the dry well at Kingsway 2 wastewater pump station in Warner Beach over the weekend, causing the dry well to flood.
“Officials worked around the clock with pumps to drain the dry well and isolate the incoming valves,” Beetge said.
He said tankers were on site from Sunday.
“Old South Coast Road pump station (which pumps into Kingsway 2) was also put offline, with tankers working around the clock to disperse waste so that more was not arriving at a dysfunctional pump station,” Beetge explained.
“Over the weekend there were various pumps and tankers at the pump station in an attempt to drain the flooded dry well so that the valves could be isolated.”
Beetge said that by Monday morning an additional pump was secured in Richards Bay to assist with the effort. A welding crew and artisans were placed and ready to start the repair work as soon as the incoming flow was isolated.
“Following the arrival of the additional pump, the dry well was drained by 10.30pm and welding commenced, rendering the pump station fully functional on auto at 1.35am on Tuesday morning.
“A crew was also dispatched on Monday morning to remove dead fish in the Winklespruit River mouth,” Beetge said.
Daily News