SOUTH AFRICA: ONGOING RAW SEWAGE SPILL IN OLYMPUS STREET, FLORIDA HILLS

To Whom It May Concern

I am a resident in Olympus Street, Florida Hills, Roodepoort. There are a number of office buildings across the road from my residence. At the top of Olympus Street is an office complex called ABSA Park. For a number of years there have been frequent sewage spills from next to these buildings. From what I can gather, there has been severe damage to the sewage line running down Olympus street and it would appear that this problem has escalated over the years.

In recent months the sewage spills have become more frequent and for the past 4 weeks, there has been a constant flow of raw sewage down Olympus Street and from there into Kenya Street. The majority of this raw sewage end up in the storm water drains from where it probably end up in our rivers and dams.

As the damaged pipe is on the pavement, it is a Council problem. This has been reported to JHB Water on countless occasions over the last few years and even more frequently over the last few month and probably on a daily basis over the last few weeks. After a constant flow of raw sewage for several weeks now, I got to the point where I started posting this on social media constantly. After I put up a big fuss yesterday and got the companies that occupy these office buildings involved as well, eventually yesterday (4-6-2018) JHB Water sent someone to see to the problem. They spent less than 15 minutes unblocking the pipe, stuck a rock over the gaping hole in this broken pipe and left. Less than 24 hours later, raw sewage was streaming down the road again, past my front door!!

This damaged pipe should have been fixed years ago already, but due to the utter incompetence and shear negligence from JHB Water and the local municipality, this problem has just escalated over the years! My neighbors and I have to now live with a river of raw sewage flowing through our streets constantly. This is a serious heath issue and also doing major damage to the environment. Our residents walk their dogs and our children ride their bicycles in these streets now riddled with human waste. Cars drive through toilet paper, feces and urine every day, spreading disease and contaminants to who knows where...

Think for a moment how you would feel if you had to live with a constant stream of human waste right outside your front door. Feces, toilet paper, urine and whatever else gets flushed down these toilets, running over your driveway every day. The stench of human waste and swarms of flies day in and day out.

We, the residents of Florida Hills, have now had enough!!!!

If you cannot help, I ask that you please forward this to someone who can assist. This cannot continue....

Thanking you in advance.