Brown water in KZN: the good, the bad and the ugly

Brown water in KZN: the good, the bad and the ugly

Brown water in KZN: the good, the bad and the ugly. Growing up on the Umzimkulu River, as kids, we just couldn’t stand the brown water. It just meant one thing to us – sharks.

Not that it deterred anyone back then, as dumb and foolhardy kids, from going right in. As surfers, we were compelled to surf the sometimes chocolate barrels.

Until.

Until we started getting insanely bad earache from the brown. Ear infections spread between us like a Chinese virus (not contagious – but we were all in the same water together). We blew every speaker in the house when the doctor specialising in our collective plight jammed our ears shut with long strings lambasted in anti-biotic creme. We were even off school since anyone is a walking hazard – when not being able to hear a damn thing.

From about the 90s, things started to get really bad.

There was an upside – the dorado, billfish and other gamefish come and patrol the seam – the distinct line between the brown and the saltier blue, every year, in the wet season. This seam is like serious structure in the ocean and attracts serious attention. Baitfish and all sorts!

Even scientists.

The good – thirty years forward

The brown water is here still. It always was here, and always will be. But we’ve learned a lot more about it, historically -and scientifically – its role in the ecosystem.

Arguably the most important function of the silty runoff is the fact that the sand and soil is highly alkaline. Bringing the ph levels in the ocean back into check. This perennial cycle of water has been interfered with in most rivers worldwide. Causing the ocean to rise in acidity. Trouble for fish and fishers.

More locally, we have the mighty Umzimkulu River,South Africas last free flowing river. Still in a good start (Level B is current grading but it’s not taking into account the fact that the estuary is the last functioning free-flowing one in KZN.

Here is a quick break-down, of the good, the bad and the ugly. Concering brown water in the Umzimkulu.

The brown water in KZN

Starting with a nice story, that has a greedy beginning, but a pleasant result. Involving sugar. And a doubling of quotas acceptable by the sugar mills. Farmers jumped at the chance. New Mercedes motor cars were everywhere. The farmers made a heck of a lot of money. Mid 70s.

Unfortunately…in their rush to make this money, some farmers, not all, did not have the experience, or the wherewithal, to plough and develop their plantations considerately enough. And when the rains came, all their precious pesticide, washed into the rivers of KZN. Was absorbed over the decades, by the mud. Destroyed the rivers. Dead to the world. And silted up completely due to these inconsiderate farmers (most of our pristine rivers and estuaries closed for business indefinitely in this period – and still have not recovered).

Then, fortunately for the bigger rivers – the ones that we not completely silted up by excess topsoil and runoff – the half-life of the chemicals came about. In about 1995 or so. According to the manufacturers, this was at 20 or 25 years (meaning the stuff actually goes for 40 or 50 years) in the environment. And at half-life, the poisons are not that effective anymore.

The prawns came back. Mullet shoaled. We started catching fish.

It’s not like this was an immediate turnaround. But over a few years of trying for fun, soon we were trying for serious. And catching. A lot. We chucked them all back in fear of the chemicals we had learned about – and started tagging some nice kingfish, grunter and perch.

Yes. All sorts of fish started coming out. Word spread, and the Rory Lawlor/Chris Leppan team started catching trophies on lures.

Lure fishing in the Umzimkulu had come about. There had always been fly-fishers hanging under the bridge and catching and releasing oxe-eye tarpon. But nobody had been trolling or casting artificials that much at all. Now there were a few boats enjoying the spring tide afternoon push – and having a ball.

Here is a playlist of videos we were lucky enough to shoot and upload, over the years…

So this is just part of the good…there is even more…

As it turns out – the sea is over-acidic these days. Pollution can be the cause but one thing is for sure, it needs balancing out. And it turns out, that the brown water is alkaline. And for millennia has been performing this vital task of balancing the ocean’s PH levels for us.

The Bad

His name is Tripod. A huge green turtle that we found upside down in the river – barely holding on. Turns out one of his back fins was sliced clean off. Too clean to be a shark.

We righted the big guy, this was in January, and soon he hobbled off with a weird but happy gait into the depths of the Umzimkulu.

The next thing – in the newspapers, there was Tripod. He had made it back out to sea, only to have been beaten back to the beach by big waves, down in Margate. A good 20kms south.

Tripod was loaded up and sent up to SeaWorld, where unbelievably, my niece Gracie, was visiting with her school! Talk about coincidence!. Anyhow, Gracie happily reported that Tripod was looking happy about being looked after so well.

So what is bad about this? Well, it must surely have been a propellor that maimed poor od Tripod. And as of late, we have seen speedsters in all manners of craft, legal and illegal, charging through the no-wake zone in the brown water. Where you cannot see anything in the water. Designated a no-wake zone, to protect the beautiful sea creatures that use this lagoon as part of their lives.

Turtle come in to the brown, fresh water, to rid themselves of little creatures that cling on to their shells for a free ride. Slowing the turtle down. It’s called careening.

Zambezi sharks come up the river in flood times to give birth to their pups.

Otters have returned to the river in good numbers.

Huge salmon come into the river to hunt.

And so, a no-wake zone was demarcated by the municipality, and extends from just inland of Spiller’s Wharf, upriver. No-wake means not-on-the-plane. If you would like to tear up and down with your ski, or boat, do it in the part of the river demarcated for morons who understand nothing about delicate river estuary ecosystems.

The Ugly

Shit. Raw sewage. Flowing into the river because UGU cannot possibly do their job. Politics and corruption have destroyed the infrastructure and this is what we are left with.

Now with workers on strike, destroying and sabotaging, it looks like it can only get worse. The ugly. The very ugly.

Don’t swim in the river right now. And don’t eat the fish you catch. Let ’em all go and wash your hands all the time.

Only swim in crystal clear water.

Read more about Stapholococis right HERE.

Summary of Brown water in KZN

The good – a functioning estuary ecosystem teeming with life, and a balancing of the oceans acidity levels with each flood

The bad – inconsiderate and ill-informed users of the river

The ugly – a useless government that has destroyed the infrastructure left to them, and has allowed raw sewage to flow into the rivers with every load-shedding session

NOTE: the Umzimkulu River flushes every day with the tides (unless it’s flooding). Sometimes the clear blue ocean water comes right up to the bridges. So the sewage can’t hang around, it is soon swept out to sea and absorbed. When the municipality get their own shit together around here, maybe we will have a pristine river all the time again.

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