Surfing Through Sewage in South Africa

Raw sewage, piles of trash, floating carcasses—the quality of Rio de Janeiro's waterways have been the target of a lot criticism, testing, and media attention in the lead-up to this summer's Olympic Games, most recently in an ESPN investigation published last week. Rio, though, is not the only city where pollution threatens the health and livelihood of watersports athletes. Across the Atlantic, a similar scenario is unfolding along the coast of South Africa.

Nestled below the picturesque Table Mountain on the western edge of South Africa, Cape Town is home to some of the most popular beaches and surf breaks in the country. They bring thousands of tourists to the city each year.

"I would definitely say that the beaches are one of the key factors that come into play in Cape Town," says Jordy Smith, a professional surfer who lives in the city's Camps Bay neighborhood. "You have beautiful mountains and wonderful houses, but what attracts people is the white sandy beaches and beautiful waters."

That pristine image was threatened last June, however, when a local pilot and marine conservation photographer snapped an aerial photograph that showed a large grey sewage plume in Cape Town's Hout Bay. He posted the image on Facebook with the caption, "Another shit day in Cape Town!" People and the local media reacted with surprise and dismay, but the City of Cape Town has been legally dumping wastewater into the ocean for nearly 30 years.

"There have been situations when I haven't surfed because of pollution," Smith said. "It's a real bummer because the water is my office, my work, my life."

Cape Town disposes sewage using a single-stage outfall system, which relies on strong local currents to quickly dilute and diffuse the effluent, or wastewater, that enters the ocean through underwater pipes. In the Cape Town area, about 5 percent of the city's wastewater passes through a single grid filter before flowing into the ocean--the other 95 percent is treated and repurposed for irrigation or other uses. There are five sewage outfall sites along the Cape Town coast, pumping more than 10 million gallons of sewage a day—in some cases, just a couple miles away from beaches and surf breaks. Camps Bay, built in 1977, is the oldest.

The city of Cape Town has assured the public that Camps Bay and other local beaches are safe for surfing and swimming. The city tests daily for E. coli and Enterococcus spp. at the beaches closest to outfall sites, and weekly at beaches that are farther removed, including Llandudno, a hollow beach break just a few miles from Camps Bay.

"The combination of initial dilution, oceanic diffusion, and bacterial mortality reduces the bacteria to very low, safe levels," said Ernest Sonnenberg, a Councillor for the City of Cape Town and member of the city's Mayoral Committee for Utility Services.

But that science may be out of date, warns Jo Barnes, a professor at Stellenbosch University whose research focuses include water pollution and water-related diseases.

"There was an almost unshakeable faith in the ability of dilution/dispersion as a process to purify effluent or at least make it 'disappear'," she wrote in a letter to the City of Cape Town during a public participation process regarding the outfall sites last July. "The heavy reliance on dilution ignores the fact that continuous discharge will have an accumulative effect on a semi-restricted body of water such as Table Bay."

What's more, she says, is that both E. coli and Enterococcus spp. die off more quickly in seawater than viruses or parasites do, meaning that they may not live long enough to show up in a test. Additionally, she points out, even a small number of organisms of some types of bacteria are sufficient to infect a person. A tiny amount of dysentery, for example, could make someone sick, especially if that person's immune system is compromised. According to UNAIDS, nearly 13 percent of South Africans are living with HIV/AIDS, which puts them at an even greater risk for infection from contaminated water.

Even people with healthy immune systems could be at risk. A 2005 World Health Organization study acknowledges that scientists know relatively little about the potential ramifications of recreational interactions with contaminated water, though researchers estimated that the human cost of infections caused by pathogenic organisms in coastal waters is about 3 million disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) per year. Basically, polluted water can shorten your life.

Edda Weimann, a pediatrician and public health specialist from the University of Cape Town, believes that Cape Town's current dumping practices have led to high E. coli levels in the water and an increased risk of hepatitis, typhoid, and diarrhea. The cause of those diseases, however, can be difficult to determine since symptoms may take days to show up. Her hunch that contaminated water is causing an uptick in these ailments is, more or less, her trying to connect the dots. She also says that failing to improve the water quality along South African shores is shortsighted. Not only could contaminated oceans interfere with Cape Town's lucrative tourism industry, but a spike in water-borne diseases could also cause a major increase in healthcare spending.

Not surprisingly, untreated sewage can also have a harmful effect on marine life. Megan Laird, who works at an environmental consulting firm in Cape Town and has experience in effluent outflow modeling, said that large volumes of organic effluent could deplete oxygen levels in the water. Less oxygen can lead to "black tides," which can, in extreme cases, cause mass die-offs of marine life.

"Sufficient dissolved oxygen in sea water is essential for the survival of the majority of marine organisms," she said.

Though certainly no one wants to paddle through raw sewage or a black tide on their way to the lineup, the household chemicals that enter the ocean by this means may pose an equally large problem.

According to Zigzag Magazine, last July, Leslie Petrik, a chemistry professor from the University of the Western Cape, collected 10 sea urchins, four brittle star fish, one common starfish, and two household rags from the area surrounding the Green Point outfall, located several miles north of Camps Bay.

Among the toxic compounds that she found in the samples were bisphenol (BPA) and acetaminophen, as well as chemicals present in pesticides, stain repellents, and coatings from non-stick cookware. Petrik also found a higher concentration of the chemicals and compounds in the marine animals than in the rags, sometimes up to 70 times higher.

Wild fish stocks have been on the decline in South Africa for several years, and Petrik has pointed to these results as evidence that overfishing may not be the sole cause of the decline. Both bisphenol and acetaminophen, for example, are powerful endocrine disruptors, meaning that, in high doses, they can lead to the feminization of individual fish, leaving fewer male fish to fertilize their female counterparts.

Dumping wastewater into the ocean happens all over the world. Pacific Island nations have long struggled with algal blooms, reef die-offs, drinking water contamination, and disease outbreaks as a result of untreated sewage outfall systems. But in most developed countries where outfall systems are used, like the U.S., the water is treated before it enters the ocean.

According to Les Kaufman, a marine biology professor at Boston University, most American coastal sewage treatment facilities store wastewater in tanks before dumping it into the ocean or other bodies of water. This allows sludge to settle to the bottom and oils to rise to the top. Both can be easily, manually removed from the wastewater, which is then treated with bacteria that help break down organic materials in the remaining sewage. This is known as secondary level of wastewater treatment. When sewage is treated to this level, experts say, it should not pose a threat to humans, though solids from chemicals that could be harmful to marine life may still be present.

Cape Town uses one level of sewage treatment: a grid of evenly spaced metal bars designed to catch the big stuff. City councillor Sonnenberg says that South Africa's National Department of Environmental Affairs will advise the city on whether it should alter its wastewater treatment policies based on current research. And while Sonnenberg says that the city openly acknowledges that any pollution is bad, changing existing practices, especially in a developing country, can be a challenge.

"For coastal cities in developing countries, as well as many developed countries, scientific consensus has been that this strategy of wastewater disposal through an effective outfall with preliminary treatment is an affordable, effective, and reliable solution that is simple to operate and with minimal health and environmental impacts," he said.

People who use and enjoy the water regularly, like surfer Jordy Smith, hope that's true.

"As a surfer, I really respect marine life and nature, and as human beings, we need to treat it with respect," Smith said. "The ocean is so beautiful. It's like if someone got married, they wouldn't want to go out and throw rubbish on their beautiful wife."