Sanitary sewer havoc in Marikana Wes

TAKATSO TONTSI (Marikana)

Sanitary sewer is a separate underground carriage system specifically for transporting sewage from the house and come and commercial building to disposal or treatment. The system of sewers is called sewage.

The sewage system in Marikana is a problem, now that there is water everywhere on the streets from the sewers of the houses. They are houses with blocked and burst pipes, so the water flows to the streets. This sewage is water is a water carrying waste in solution that is intended to be removed from a community. It is more than 99% of water and also contains physical condition, chemical constituents, and bacterial organism. This solution smells very bad as it contains human waste and germs from the bacteria.

On the 13^th of June I spoke to Mrs Mphahlele about her neighbours drowning yard. “Her yard might be a dam of sewage water, but the smell goes a long way. She as reported this problem at the municipality offices and they promised to help. Every year it’s the same problem. We don’t know how this problem because it persists. The smell is just all over the place. We are literally living in a smelly toilet”. That’s how the neighbours are affected.

“We can’t smell the aroma of our food; we can’t open windows for fresh air”. They do not know how much damage is done, as they feel it’s the bad smell that annoys them, there is more to it than just a bad smell but health wise they may be highly affected. Maybe their lungs are affected more than their sense of smell.

Mr Albino Cuna thinks the smell is the least to worry about. On the 13^th June he said “we hardly make movements in our own yards, we reported so many times and even gave up and dug furrows to open way for the water to go the streets. Never mind the smell; it just gets too messy with water, dirty water all over the yard”

Now the water goes straight to the streets.

1.       Where are the children?

Playing with the sewage solution

2.       Where is the way to walk?

The streets are drowned, cars splashes dirty water where people should walk.

3.       Wasn’t this solution intended to be removed from the community?

It was, but now it has just become part of the community of Marikana.

People who fix the sewage pipes are far from Marikana, they work in Rustenburg and they work at many places all over town. “If ever we had labour from around it would be better, people would not wait for long” says Nomxolisi Macokocoko from the municipal office in Marikana. She alleges that she does not know how Lonmin can help or ever helps.

The only way is to install bigger sanitary sewers in Marikana as the number of dwellers has extremely increased. The health of the community depends on them.