Sardine situation? This photo tells it all…

Sardine situation? This photo tells all…

The sardine situation this year is vastly different to that of last at this time.

A sardine spy sent this picture in the other day. You can hardly see much. There are sardines. Way out the back. And there is the Indian Ocean alright. But it’s dirty!

And although the recent flooding has most to do with it, our infrastructure’s inability to cope with flood conditions is all to blame. More specifically, the government’s complete failure to maintain and upgrade the floodwater and sewage systems with time and urban growth.

Whole houses and roads fall away to nothing. Because there was nothing underneath them to hold them in place in the first place. Entire homes and streets were washed completely away. Development and urbanisation has outpaced the ability of the government to keep upgrading the infrastructure that all this new development relies on.

Why?

Well because the ruling party have absolutely crippled the state. And its ability to function as a cognitive whole that garners goodwill and respect from the people by serving the people.

By exploiting the system that is meant to maintain the infrastructure, they have failed the people in their entirety. No water. Rolling blackouts. Looting. Demonstrations. Road closures.

No matter which class you are from, upper, middle or lower, this government does not care about you. It only cares about its ability to advance itself as the ruling political party.

Politics is to blame. The fact that a ruling party can appoint sorely qualified or completely unqualified personnel in key positions. This is the end of any credibility a democratic society can believe in or be a part of.

Let the best person for the job, do the job.

Brown water – what is it?

When an entire mountainside collapses into a mudslide and washes into the ocean during a flood – what effect on the seawater would that have? Which officials gave the permission to build so dangerously?

When an entire chemical factory is looted and burned by an unhappy populace, and the chemicals leak into the bathing beaches of Durban and surrounding tourist towns- who did that?

When the sewage that is supposed to be filtered and purified and put back into nature, does not happen and raw sewage perpetually goes into the stormwater drains, our rivers and into the sea – who did that? (see Margate Beach being polluted by non-functioning UGU sewage pumps in the gallery below 1. load-shedding rendered the main pumps useless you can see the raw sewage bubbling out of the overflow valve, and flowing right into the Margate Estuary. 2 It flows unimpeded down towards the coast. 3. passes the holiday accommodation area featuring dead fish floating and being eaten by birds 4. the raw untreated stinking sewage spills out right into the sea where tourists are bathing – the inshore counter-currents take this sewage to neighbouring beaches like Uvongo).

So when a family of 24 come on holiday to Uvongo, and 23 end up in the hospital poisoned from swimming in the lagoon – who let that happen?

When 99% of our estuaries are rendered completely non-functional by erosion and fatal land management- what happens when they flood? They break their banks and cause untold chaos and misery. And death. Who failed us there?

When an illegal berm that threatens the estuarine functioning of the mighty Umzimkulu River is procured by UGU and gets washed away within a week of installation – where does all that soil go? Who did that? And the R5 000 000 odd that it costs each time? They have built it again and again…who did that?

The government did all of these things.

Well, that is what we are dealing with. A solid band of brown dirty disgusting polluted and stinky water that is now choking the inshore surf zone waters of this entire coastline. Countercurrents and prevailing onshore winds keep it right under our noses. Until finally the Agulhas Current can dissolve and hide it from us forever.

So what is it actually again?

Well, it will definitely give you an earache. First-hand experience. Was deaf for months from treatments. Blew every speaker I could find.

It is made up of engine oil and other grime from the roads and floors everywhere. Its dirt and dust from every town in the country. It is rubbish and discarded everything. It is fertilizer and pesticides. It is rotting foodstuffs and decaying packaging. It is lethal hospital waste. It is toxic chemicals from that burned plant in Durban. It is untreated sewage.

And it’s keeping the sardines out. Sardines swim in clean clear water when they come on holiday. Not the stinking mess left here by the people in charge.

Just like tourists.

And that is the current sardine situation.

What’s nextfor the sardine situation?

Well, the prevailing east winds have been extra-mean recently. These onshore winds cause upswelling and blows the dirty stuff right back into the beaches and estuaries. Then the west winds come along and reverse the procedure. Until all the brown stuff is finally dissipated into the Agulhas Current and taken into the depths. This would normally have taken a month or so. But with the double-whammy storms this year, we have maybe 20x more pollution to deal with.

As for the future. Well, we need to restore our rivers and estuaries. Catchment areas. And floodplains. This is the system that would quite easily handle floods like the last two. But as greedy humans, we have ripped out all the indigenous vegetation that acted as the primary sieve and sponge for these radical flood conditions. This savannah-like bush was insensitively removed and sugar cane and other cash crops planted. Pesticides were used to increase production in the 70s. And demand-induced careless ploughing and drainage saw topsoil heading for the coast. The next barrier to disaster – the flood plains are now golf courses, farms or houses. And finally, the rivers and estuaries are silted up so much that 99% of our estuaries in KZN do not function as estuaries at all. They have all been systematically destroyed. They break their banks and cause water to divert through towns, and settlements – undermining roads, buildings, and foundations at huge cost in life and property damage.

We really need a responsible government already. If we don’t stop immediately and reverse the damage we have done to 99% of our rivers and estuaries in KZN, then we have failed ourselves. Miserably. The knock-on effect will wipe out every endemic species that use our rivers and estuaries as breeding grounds and nurseries. With devastating effects on the ocean environment and its inhabitants waiting on down the line.

By Sean Lange

Never miss a sardine situation update by tuning in to The Sardine News. Where we run a Sardine Sightings map each year. Making it easy for you to compare seasons.

If you are in the Port Shepstone area, Umzimkulu Adrenalin can take you out on the water. Ocean Safari, fishing and estuary trips – depending on tides and conditions. We have accommodation at the Umzimkulu Marina and at Spillers House. And great food at The Port Captain and Fish on the River.