“This stinks to high heaven. Literally!” were the words of an irate resident of the town when he came to the offices of the Zoutpansberger last week to complain about raw sewage running down an open trench in the industrial area. “This is yet another example of the municipality’s inability to provide proper service to the town’s residents. They simply don’t care that we might get sick or that we have to put up with the stench,” he continued.

The trench in question runs alongside the railway line through the industrial area. By all accounts, the trench was dug when the pump station in the vicinity started overflowing because of its inability to handle the large volumes of sewage being pumped to the already overburdened sewage plant. The municipality’s solution was to dig a trench along which the effluent can run off into the veldt.

The result has been that impromptu tributaries form when the effluent becomes too much. Now, the length of the trench is dotted with marshy areas which have formed every so often. One such tributary flows under the railway line and into the service road made by the railway company to conduct maintenance. The resident in question lives along the Sinthumule road and one of his vehicles used the service road. When the vehicle reached one of these impromptu vleilands, it became stuck in the muddy sewage and had to be dragged out by another vehicle; all this while everyone involved had to suffer the stench and discomfort of working in the sewage. This did not sit well with all concerned. The owner of the vehicle decided to take the newspaper on a tour of the vicinity to indicate the extent of the problem.

The trench runs through the industrial area, past a local abattoir, past Louis Trichardt Beer Distributors, where it is supposed to go under the road. However, the tarmac is usually covered with sewage which rises and falls as the effluent increases and decreases, with traffic having to drive through it in order to reach businesses along that road. According to Mr Johan van Nieuwenhuysen of the beer depot, they have had to become used to the smell and the potential health risks that go with this arrangement by the municipality.

“They keep promising us that they will attend to the situation, but nothing is ever done. Every so often, someone from the municipality comes along to tell us that something is being done and that money has been set aside to address the issue, but we have yet to see any improvement,” he said this week. “Fortunately, we don’t manufacture the beer on the premises; we just distribute the sealed product. The people at the abattoir, however, cannot say the same.”