Two refurbished waste water treatment plants worth R44, 4 million were recently handed over to the Emfuleni District Municipality in Gauteng and the Metsimaholo Local Municipality in the Free State by the Department of Water and Sanitation.

The plants are part of the department’s intervention to help remedy the dysfunctional treatment plants that spilled insufficiently treated effluent into the Vaal River.

The refurbishment of the Oranjeville Waste Water Treatment Plant cost just over R8 million before it was handed over to Metsimaholo District Municipality, and the refurbishment of the Leeuwkwuil Waste Water Treatment Plant cost almost R36,5 million before it was received by the Emfuleni District Municipality in Vanderbijlpark.

The intervention started in February this year after reports that sewage from both wastewater treatment plants spilled into Vaal River.

The department said this refurbishment was a part of its “effort to stem the tide of pollution of the Vaal River System which feeds the Vaal Dam”.

The department has set aside more than R300 million to upgrade 26 dysfunctional waste water treatment works in parts of Gauteng and the Free State to put a stop to the possibility of raw sewage flowing into the Vaal River.

Such leakages can cause a serious threat to the environment and residents that consume the water and also has an effect on the social and economic uses of the water.

In 2015 the department appointed an engineering and consultancy firm to determine if the Refengkgotso Waste Water Treatment Plant in Deneysville contributed to pollution in the Vaal River.

According to the preliminary report that was recently released, the Refengkgotso plant, which is managed by Metsimaholo Local Municipality, was originally designed to receive 2 Ml of effluent per day. By the end of 2015 it exceeded the capacity by more than 150%.

Instead, it received average daily inflows of about 57 litres per second which worked out to approximately 5 Ml per day. This meant that the plant was overloaded.

The water department said that a technical analysis was done on the infrastructure of the plant. It showed that the quarry to which the insufficiently treated sewage was being pumped was too small.

The Metsimaholo municipality said that it undertakes regular maintenance on the facultative pond, two aerobic ponds, bio-filters tanks, humus tanks, maturation channels and sludge dry beds. The municipality indicated that these were all in good condition.

The department also said it was confident that the emergency intervention it launched will in time bear fruit by ensuring that the 26 dysfunctional wastewater treatment plants identified for refurbishment will be worth more than the R300 million allocated for this function.