Upgrades planned for City’s marine outfalls

Infrastructure upgrades are planned for the City of Cape Town’s marine outfalls but some ocean activists refuse to be swayed by the City’s reports on water quality compliance.

The City provided updates on their plans for their various marine outfalls in Hout Bay, Camps Bay and Green Point during a Public Advisory Forum (PAF) meeting held at the City’s council chambers in Cape Town on Friday February 21.

In December last year, Sentinel reported on a a scientist and ocean activists telling a public meeting that Hout Bay Beach’s water quality remains a health risk for swimmers, (’Hout Bay Beach quality still in doubt’, December 7 2024).

At that public meeting, Stellenbosch University epidemiologist Dr Jo Barnes stressed that different bacteria could last for up to one or two weeks in the water.

“People don’t necessarily make the link, when they have skin, ear or nose infections or diarrhoea, that they’ve been to the beach the last Sunday when they get ill the following Thursday. But people expect to feel sick within 24 hours, and this is a great misunderstanding.

“Very often, the water link to someone getting an infection is not noted on their medical record... Disposing of sewage in dangerous methods causes more ripple effects than people are aware of. We do not need potentially avoidable cases at our public hospitals that are already so full,“ Dr Barnes said.

At the City’s PFA meeting, it was announced that recent pipeline integrity inspections at Camps Bay (October 2024) and Green Point (December 2024) confirmed that both outfalls were in good condition with the Hout Bay outfall inspection scheduled to follow.

According to the City’s quarterly environmental monitoring results (November 2024 to January 2025), 1 737 samples were collected across all three outfalls.

However, there were five of the 477 water samples that exceeded recreational guidelines for faecal enterococci.

There were two exceedances in Hout Bay (one at mid-depth and one at the bottom of the mid-bay screen) and two exceedances at the Green Point mixing zone (mid-depth) and one in the Table Bay screen.

“While the findings presented at the Permit Advisory Forum reaffirm that Cape Town’s marine outfalls continue to operate largely within their regulatory parameters, the City continues to invest in refurbishment programmes at these outfalls, while exploring suitable long-term solutions for improved wastewater management,” said mayoral committee member for water and sanitation, Zahid Badroodien.

At the meeting it was confirmed that the City will commence with the refurbishment of degritting installation at Hout Bay, implement odour control upgrades at Camps Bay and repair their screening systems within the current financial year.

However, representative of Rethink the Stink, Caroline Marx, says that although the City is doing ecological testing by testing the fertilisation rates of sea urchin gametes, this is only suitable for acute toxicity but not for chronic low-grade toxicity.

“Sewage plumes do not mix easily and as shown in photos can extend for kilometres, their movement being variable and unpredictable, so the low enterococci results are credible but illustrate that twice monthly testing 300m from outfall is statistically unlikely to detect them.

“During the recent spill from Green Point pump station, untreated sewage appeared to flow from the pipeline which the City had previously claimed had been closed off, it also appeared that the City were unaware of the problem until notified by the public. There were no warning signs put in place to warn water users to avoid the area,“ she said.

Oceans activist and Hout Bay resident, Dr Cleeve Robertson said:“I think they waste their time denying the undeniable. Why not acknowledge the problem. They are trying to confuse people with too many details.

“The principal issue is, pollution, undeniable. The water quality is poor and they're denying it and hiding it.”

The Department for Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment and the City could not respond to more queries before the time of publication.