Online Reporter
Saturday, May 20, 1975 — As stretches of the river Umgusa runs green with pollution, Bulawayo farmer Mr WW Speid (84) is becoming blue in the face trying to persuade the authorities to clear it up. For years Mr Speid has been bombarding the Natural Resources Board with letters about the condition of the river and the Umgusa Dam, possible causes and remedies.
His urgings have not gone unheeded, because much money, time and effort has been expended in a bid to clear the river. But the pollution persists.
Mr Speid believes it is caused by effluent from the Bulawayo municipality’s sewage farm at Aisleby. So the City Council extended the farm to use up more of the effluent and installed more pumping machinery.
Mr Speid was told that they had stopped discharging effluent into the river last September, and the pollution had been washed away by the heavy rains.
An analysis of the water showed it to be harmless. But Mr Speid will not allow workers or animals at his Amanza Farm to drink the water. It may not be poisonous, but it can’t be harmless, he says.
He claims that despite the extension to the sewage farm it is still not large enough to cope with the increased sewage that comes from a growing city.
He believes that effluent seepage through the ground is still invading the lower Umgusa Dam and has suggested that surplus effluent, adequately treated, should be taken by canal to the Umgusa plotholders further down the catchment.
