Looking down on the lands surrounding Hennenman, one could easily think that the farms are part of an idyllic flood plain.
On the ground, however, it is a different story. An unbearable stench hangs in the air due to dead animals and the severe sewage pollution that floods the area.
A businessman and farmer from the town, Sallie Buonadonna, says he is suffering millions of rand in losses due to sewage that covers about 600 ha of his farms.
Buonadonna already approached the High Court in 2019 to order the Matjhabeng municipality to get the sewage plant in working order, and to submit a report on it to the court.
None of the three sewage plants at the town, at the Whites settlement, or at the Phomolong township have been repaired yet.
The town’s sewage plant was still partially working in 2019, but has since been vandalised by metal thieves.
In March, Buonadonna brought forward a second court application about the sewage crisis and asked that the municipal manager, Lonwabo Ngoqo, be added to the court application as a respondent.
He again asked the court to order the municipality to submit a report to outline what has been done to solve the sewage crisis since 2019, and how the municipality has complied with the court order.
The location of Buonadonna’s farms Sement, Vredefontein-Oos, Ventersvlakte, and Whites 747 are so situated that approximately 50 000 people’s sewage flood these four farms.
Other farmers in the area are also affected by the crisis.
At a small settlement on Ventersvlakte, Oranje Mynbou, the houses are often flooded with sewage.
The town’s borehole and reservoir are only a few meters from large sewage spillages.
Buonadonna operates his transport company from here and 16 families live in the settlement.
“It is unbearable for us and our workers who live in the village,” says Buonadonna’s life partner, Marthie Kasselman.
Buonadonna and Kasselman recently suffered thousands of rands worth of damage while they were overseas.
The pool pump next to their home failed on account of sewage overflowage, which caused a short circuit.
All the fridges and freezers in the house were without power for weeks.
Kasselman, who manages the ranch’s hunting operation, says she had to cancel hunting packages hunters from overseas for April. These packages are worth thousands of rands, she says.
They were also forced to have deep unsightly ditches dug everywhere to divert the polluted water so that it did not flood houses, boreholes, and other infrastructure.
She says large numbers of livestock and wildlife, including exotic wildlife, have died in the past two years due to the polluted water flowing into intakes and natural water sources.
Kasselman says sewage bubbles out of manholes and flows into ditches and creeks to the farm, while sewage flows through the pumping stations and sewage plant and forms floodplains on the farms.
“There is no presence of any sewage plant. Sewage only flows into the farms from pipes, manholes and the sewage network.”
She says sewage flows into the Whites Dam outside the town and from there it runs to the famous Swalukrans outside Virginia, before ending up in the Sand River.
According to Kasselman, she repeatedly addressed letters, representations and attorneys’ letters to the municipality before it was decided to approach the High Court in 2021 and again this year.
Tshediso Tlali, spokesperson for the municipality, said in response to a media query that he was waiting for the relevant department’s director and the divisional manager to provide him with more information.
