Ugly Duckling

For the last 2 weeks, the sewer has been overflowing on and off into Wilgerood Road opposite the Kloofendal Nature Reserve’s entrance. This raw sewerage then flowed into the storm water drains and into the stream that flowed down into the Little Falls Nature Reserve and through Muldersdrift before finally joining the Crocodile River.

The poor Crocodile River must be so polluted by now, with our sewerage leak down in the Witpoortjie Kloof that was finally sorted out in the beginning of this month. Then it is also the raw sewerage that is coming out of Pinehaven Estate, Mogale City. And now this!

Raw sewerage has being flowing into the Little Falls stream, on and off for the last 2 weeks. After numerous escalations to the Joburg Water and Sanitation, it was reported today that the problem was finally fixed, so I decided to go check for myself. And yes the sewer has stopped overflowing but for how long. Walking around the area of Kloofendal and Little Falls Nature Reserve I think I was more shocked to find that the area between the Kloofendal Nature Reserve’s main gate and the sewer leak has become a dumping ground for garden refuse, rubbish, and building materials. Eish!

I decided to make this polluted stream in Kloofendal my topic for today and to show were this stream flows into I decided to go to the other side of the Little Falls Nature Reserve, and show a photo of the waterfall that this raw sewerage is flowing over. Now that is when I discovered the Ugly Duckling, the Little Falls Resort.

Why call the Little Falls Resort, the ugly duckling, well compared to the Walter Sisulu Botanical Gardens with it’s bigger waterfall, the Little Falls is well just like the ugly duckling, all runned down and just a mess even the road up to the gate was shocking. Speaking with City of Johannesburg’s Sports and Recreation Department staff who look after the resort, they said that they have plans in place along with the little Falls Community to fix up the place, but with only 1 grounds man that seems nearly an impossible task.

They too have the same problems that we do here at the Witpoortjie Kloof, the church people coming for the holy sewerage, sleeping over night in the veldt, litter, snares, and the naked demon exorcisms but with this one luckily they have had no naked bodies being washed up compared with the 12 fatalities so far that we have had due to the exorcisms. They even pointed out the cliff face were 2 months ago they had a sewerage waterfall, double eish! The main pool was sparkling but up towards the waterfall was this mosquito cesspool.

The Mayor of the City of Johannesburg, Herman Mashaba, has just launched the AreSebetsebeng initiative which aims to do a monthly volunteer clean up the city. This needs to extend to the West Rand Ridge System which includes the Little Falls Resort and the Krans Alwyn Nature Trail which goes through the Witpoortjie Kloof. I believe the cleanup days are the last Saturdays of every month with the next one on the 30 September.

Would you believe it, that the City of Johannesburg has just won the award for the cleanest city in South Africa, really? Where did they hide this ugly duckling from the judges? The factors considered in the Greenest Municipality Competition included waste management; energy efficiency and conservation; water management; landscaping; and tree planting & beautification. So obvious they must have left out the West Rand.

But this is not just the City of Joburg's problem, this is our problem too, as stakeholders, we need to join the mayor and clean up our city, our neighbourhoods, and the especially the West Rand Ridge System; then maybe, just maybe this ugly duckling called Little Falls can become the beautiful swan it was meant to be.

This last photo shows the remains of the raw sewerage waterfall that poured down the cliffs into the Little Falls Resort, the sewerage was then carried by the stream into the already polluted Crocodile River.