Ten months after sewage gushed into Brighton Beach, turning one of Gqeberha’s popular swimming spots into a health hazard, the metro has reopened the shoreline.
This follows R10m spent on repairs to the crippled Fishwater Flats wastewater treatment works.
The facility was left nearly incapacitated in 2024 when vandals broke into it, stealing cables and damaging critical infrastructure.
As a result of the damage, sewage from Fishwater Flats was discharged into Brighton Beach, with high E.coli levels recorded at the beach.
The mayhem left by intruders incapacitated several key sections of the plant, affecting the quality of expelled treated sewage into Algoa Bay.
Bay wastewater treatment director Anderson Mancotywa said that since 2022 the plant had suffered theft and vandalism, with security guards unable to stop it.
“The guys stealing here were heavily armed and workers couldn’t just approach them.”
Mancotywa said following the recent refurbishments and comprehensive, daily water quality testing over the past two months, results had confirmed that Brighton Beach was safe for public use.
“We analyse the water every day to check where we are with compliance,” Mancotywa said.
“By August, indications were that Brighton Beach could open again, and we decided, together with our colleagues from SRAC [sport, recreation, arts and culture] to open it up while closely monitoring.
“The results of samples that we’ve taken from the coast around our discharge point and 100m on both sides, whether you say left or right or south or north, those results are within the prescribed levels of bathing.
“There are incidents which are very small where the sample can peak, and that we can associate with perhaps the type of the sample that was taken at the time, but generally the samples are quite compliant.
“Our colleagues from SRAC, which runs the beach monitoring, also take their own tests, and of the tests that they have taken, all the results are compliant and then we are confident that it’s safe to swim at the beach.”
Fishwater Flats is responsible for treating about 64% of the municipality’s wastewater.
Some of the work done includes refurbishment and reinstatement of the motor control centre, the installation of new LED floodlights, restoration of communication systems, the rehabilitation of sludge and pumping systems, and the refurbishment of the main substation and 22kV switchgear.
Operational capacity is now sitting at 85%, up from 10%.
With seven wastewater treatment works in the city, Mancotywa said underperformance was directly related to the unavailability of equipment and machinery due to theft and vandalism of infrastructure that had taken place over the past few years.
Mayor Babalwa Lobishe said they had actually planned to open Brighton Beach in September.
“We are hard at work.
“More than five wastewater treatment plants are either at advanced levels of refurbishment or currently being upgraded across the metro.
“This work connects to other critical initiatives such as pump station, pipeline repairs, unblocking systems and general maintenance.
“We are pleased that residents can once again enjoy Brighton Beach as we enter the summer season.”
Lobishe said the ablution facilities at the beach needed to be refurbished.
“They have been vandalised and we’re going to have to fix them again,” she said.
“In the last financial year, we ventured into that, and we’re now again going to fix them because they have been vandalised.
“These are public amenities and they are meant to be protected by the public.”
The Herald
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