Oil spill into dam provokes outrage

According to The Star report, an estimated 1.2m litres of jet fuel spilled into the airport\'s storm-water drain last November. This enraged the Environmental Conservation Association (ECA), which pressed charges against Airports Company South Africa (ACSA). Following recent reports of ACSA’s failure to clean the stream ‘properly’, ECA spokesperson Nicole Barlow said the organisation would give the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry five days to get ACSA to clean the stream. ACSA was charged under the National Water Act, which stipulates that ‘no person may unlawfully and intentionally or negligently commit any act or omission which pollutes or is likely to pollute a water source’. Full report in The Star

With a global warming effect about 21 times more potent that carbon dioxide, ageing equipment at the Athlone sewerage works is allowing enormous quantities of methane to escape into the atmosphere, a Cape Times report notes. And because of budget constraints, it appears that this climate-changing methane will continue to pour into the air for the next three years. The amount of methane generated daily is equivalent in global warming effect to about 30 tons of CO2. Ossie Asmal, Director of the city\'s Environmental Planning Department, said he was aware of the problem and was encouraging all departments to reduce their carbon footprint Full Cape Times report

The Green Scorpions have shut down a medical waste incinerator in Benoni South after months of negotiation with the owners to clean up the site, which was littered with expired medicines, needles, blood and amputated limbs. Business Day notes that the Agriculture, Conservation and Environment Department said in a statement that an onsite inspection of the property in Dunswart, owned by Aid Safe Waste, had revealed ‘unacceptable disregard for the facility\'s permit conditions, including improper storm-water management that resulted in blood-contaminated water leaking into the soil and potentially contaminating groundwater’. The department said the facility would stay shut until all health requirements were complied with. The facility was closed last month but was allowed to challenge the suspension of its permits. Full Business Day report

In other pollution-related news, environmental watchdog groups are frustrated by the government\'s failure to shed light on how it intends to resolve a legacy of mercury waste contamination, reports The Mercury. About 3 500 tons of mercury-contaminated sludge and ash is still thought to be piled up in drums in several warehouses and outdoor storage dams at the old Thor factory in Cato Ridge, outside Durban. There have been reports that a large volume of poisoned soil from Thor had been trucked away in secret and buried in a hazardous waste dump on the outskirts of Johannesburg, but local environmental watchdog groups say the government is keeping them in the dark on how it plans to resolve the problem. Full report in The Mercury