BCC major polluter of Umguza River

The Cold Storage Company (CSC), Belmont Leather and Prestige Leather were each fined $500 each for illegal dumpsites while another tannery was fined $1 000 for deliberately channelling toxic effluent, which included mercury, chromium 6 and cyanide, into the city’s storm drains, which ended up in the river.

During a tour of Bulawayo’s environmental hotspots by the EMA’s board yesterday, it emerged that most companies had cleaned up their act.

However, EMA provincial environmental manager for Bulawayo, Mr Decent Ndlovu, said council was only addressing emission points that were identified by the agency, while seemingly hiding those that had not been discovered.

“Although council has worked hard to solve the issue of pollution into Umguza River, rectifying 35 of the 38 points that they were ordered to fix, we think they are being unfair, as they are not declaring points that the EMA team has not discovered. Discharge from the industrial areas has relatively decreased,” said Mr Ndlovu.

The EMA board was shown a collapsed sewer pipe that was overflowing with human waste that found its way into the river. The pipe is at a house in Sauerstown.

“The collapsed sewer trunk is discharging raw sewage into Mazayi River, a tributary to Umguza River. This is the major discharge point of raw sewage that causes pollution in the river,” said Mr Ndlovu.

The board was also taken to a blocked canal that was supposed to take waste to Aisleby treatment plant.

Mr Ndlovu said the canal was noted discharging large volumes of raw sewage into Mazayi River in July last year and an inspection carried out in September, seemed to indicate it had stopped.

“However, it stopped on the eastern side of the river and moved to the west. Council has indicated that it needs to dig about 24 metres to reach a pipe that is suspected to have about one kilometre of blockage. They said about $4 million was needed to fix the problem,” said Mr Ndlovu.

Ms Tapiwa Munezvenyu, EMA’s Bulawayo quality officer, told the board that the human waste was increasing the phosphate and nitrate content in Umguza. She said this resulted in an oxygen deficit that was killing animals and plants in the water.

On the positive side, the board commended the Bulawayo City Council for repairing a pipe that had been spewing untreated human waste directly into Umguza River in Trenance suburb.

The community sweeping groups employed by the local authority to keep most of the western suburbs clean also impressed them.

Mr Middleton Nyoni, Bulawayo’s Town Clerk, who had been invited by EMA for the tour, failed to attend.

Today, the board will be touring Matabeleland North.

There has been a uproar over Umguza River pollution in recent years with a medical doctor saying chromium 6 and other metals could result in villagers getting cancer, while in the long run, children could be born with deformities or mentally retarded, if people continued using the polluted water.

Crops that are being irrigated using the water have been deemed unfit for export due to high toxin levels.