Trash bins: It's not just sewage that pollutes Gauteng's rivers. They are being used as garbage dumps, as this garbage trap installed in Ekurhuleni by NGO Fresh last winter shows. Photo: Fresh
It started like any other day in early September when Cort Steinberg fell seriously ill after accidentally ingesting sewage-contaminated water from the Henops River.
He enjoyed his usual full breakfast prepared by his wife Leah. The couple danced a little, as they do most mornings, at their farmhouse in the scenic Henops River Valley. They laughed a little.
Then Cote, still active and healthy at age 76, drove with one of his employees to a friend's farm and used water from the nearby Henops River (about a kilometer away) to flush the toilet. bottled.
Their water troubles began in August when a heat wave dried up their boreholes. For drinking water, Cote bottled clean water from a nearby well.
“He didn't want to waste clean water, so he and one of our workers filled bottles with water from the Henops River for the toilets so as not to waste good well water in this severe drought. I’m satisfied,” Leah said.
They also ordered water from Rand Water and another water company every five days, paying R1,800 for 10,000 liters each time. This was used to fill several water tanks on the farm for the tenants and livestock, and to irrigate the fruits and vegetables grown by the coats.
For generations, the Steinberg family has lived and farmed in the Henops River Valley, a state preserve.
Koela (or Cort as he was known in his community) had lived in the area all his life, growing vegetables primarily by the river.
“That day [when they both fell ill]I wanted to make him a cup of tea,” said Leah, crying as she recalled the series of events that led to her husband's untimely death.
“I asked Court to pick up one of the very heavy bottles to make the tea and he did it right away. He poured it into the kettle and I brought it to a boil. I let it happen.
“And when I tasted the tea, I said to him, 'But it stinks.' I took one sip. It didn't taste good. I asked him if there was anything wrong with it. I got it [neighbours’] As for the water in the borehole, he said that there is fresh water in the borehole and it is very good. I thought it was water from a well, so I said it was okay to drink. ”
Court took a sip, then another. Leah saw him frown.
“He looked into the cup and said, “Oh, there's something wrong with me.'' He picked up the bottle and poured water from it into the kettle. When I said I had something, he looked at it, poured it into the sink and said, “There's something wrong with the water.''
The couple determined that one of the bottles containing contaminated river water for flushing the toilet had somehow been accidentally replaced. Unbeknownst to Leah, she was using this contaminated water to make tea.
“I got sick and Kourt got sick,” she said. “My stomach started moving as well as my coat.
“There were two bottles of water for the toilet in the downstairs bathroom, but his stomach, like mine, was completely overflowing with water and the water for the toilet couldn’t keep up. It kept running for over a week. It was terrible.”
Court had only had two sips of tea. Rear bite.
“I can’t imagine the whole outcome of that,” she said.
“It shows the terrible condition of that water. [in the Hennops River]”
After a week of suffering from severe stomach problems, Cote spent the weekend with her daughter and husband in Middelburg, Mpumalanga.
Leah, who was also still ill, had traveled to Kleinmond in the Western Cape for her son's birthday.
“In the middle of the night [in Kleinmond] —And like Cort, I’m a very proud person, so it’s sad and wrong for me to say this—I woke up to find my stomach spilling out onto my bedding.
“It was so bad. It came out of my body.”
But within the few days she was there, her son gave her medicine and gradually she started to feel better.
However, Kurt remained in a critical condition, so when he returned from Middelburg, his daughter took him to Grunkloof Hospital in Pretoria.
He was isolated in a hospital ward, given an intravenous drip and released after three days.
Leah said: “When I was in Cape Town, one of my sons called me and said, 'Mom, dad isn't feeling very well and I think you should go home.'
She immediately went home and picked up Mr. Court. Court said she was “very happy” to be discharged from the hospital. They returned to the farm.
“He felt fine for a day after getting the IV, but his stomach didn't heal. It started all over again. And when we got home, his stomach was stirring for another week or two. I continued.
“It was so bad. We didn't have any water and all we had to do was fill water bottles,” Leah said. “We had two full bottles in the kitchen to make food that we could keep inside.”
However, Leah soon fell ill again.
“After Kurt was discharged from Fluenkloof, in the 10 days I was looking after him at the farm, my stomach started moving again. I lost 15 kg during this whole ordeal.”
Leah, who describes herself as a “very young” 72-year-old, had medication to stop her watery diarrhea, but it provided only temporary relief for the couple. They also took medication to combat dehydration.
Courto could only eat the fresh beef soup Leah made for him.
“Our bedroom was on the top floor and we had a bathroom there, but he would go to the bathroom up to five times a night and water would come pouring out of his body.
“I had to wash the floor with that water while he went to bed.
Leah said she couldn't wash his clothes because the washing machine wouldn't work without water. All she could do was stuff all his dirty clothes into plastic bags.
And since there was no water to properly bathe or shower, Leah could only boil a small amount of water in a kettle or gas stove and then give them both a “bird bath.”
On September 23, the children intervened and Cote was admitted to Netcare Unitas Hospital in Pretoria early the next morning.
After inserting the catheter, doctors were stunned to see that Cote's urine was black. He was immediately transferred to intensive care and kept in a ward separate from other patients.
“Doctors took several days to treat Ampath.” [the private pathology laboratory] This is to determine whether it is a bacterial infection or a virus,” Leah said.
Cote was eventually diagnosed with Clostridium difficile infection (CDI). This is a highly contagious bacterial infection that produces highly toxic toxins. His organs began to fail and he was put on a dialysis machine to help his kidneys.
Leah recalled sitting by Kurt's bedside and showing him photos of the young peaches, pomegranates and crystal grapes she had grown for them on the farm.
“I said to him, 'Look, you're going to come back to the farm this year and enjoy all the fruits of your labor.' He just smiled.”
His condition worsened after a gastroscopy was performed on October 4 to treat swelling in his stomach.
“All my husband could say to me was, 'I want to tell you something about us.' I said to him, 'Dearest, what do you want to tell me?'
“He was silent, but just kept staring at me with those bright blue eyes. I said to him, 'Why are you looking at me so weird?'
Those were the last words they said to each other.
“He turned around and he died. It was very sad. I had no idea Mr. Court was dead,” Leah said.
“I still can't accept this inside me, and it's all because of the dirty, stupid water of the Henopus River. All that water is so polluted that my husband says people use it as a toilet. I died from the contaminated water dispenser I was using. I will pass that on and I will abide by it.”
Mr. Cote was buried in the large family cemetery on the farm.
“My husband should have been here with me because he was a perfectly healthy person,” Leah said. “He was 76 years old, but he was very strong and energetic.”
The couple walked every day, danced a lot, and planned ocean cruises with friends.
“We're still climbing that mountain. [in the Hennops River Valley] — Part of the mountain was his, and he regularly checked the fences and wires — for the sheer pleasure of getting a great view from up there and checking for wild kudu. There was also. ”
As a qualified builder, Mr. Court built many homes for people living along the Henops River.
“He would crumble the biscuits for the tarts I made and cut up the vegetables while I was cooking. We did everything together. We never even went to town without each other,” Leah said.
“He was my best friend. I'm not the Lord, but I know it's not time for Him to leave. He wasn't sick, my husband has no problems on this earth. There wasn't.”
Water activist Willem Snyman said the tragedy on the Henops River (one of Gauteng's few largest waterways, which crosses Johannesburg, Tshwane and Ekurhuleni) was “the death of Kurt Steinberg from the river he was supporting.'' ” is reflected in this. Many lives until the river of death. ”
“It is ironic that Mr. Court had been growing vegetables on the river for so long, saving his life from the river, when the water was actually the cause of his death.”
Snyman runs Fountain River Ecological Reserve Henopus (Fresh), a nonprofit organization working to restore the Henopus ecosystem.
“It's crazy how over the past 10 years rivers have gone from being such a huge life-giving force to now life-taking. And Cote's death is one of the few deaths we know of. I think it's one.
He doubts that many more people may have fallen ill and lost their lives because it is “difficult to trace symptoms back to sewage contamination.”
Less than 10 years ago, the Henops River was still crystal clear and many households were using its water, Snyman said.
“Contamination is now so severe that most aquatic life has become extinct and contact with water is avoided.
“In the Moi Pras area, groundwater is already being contaminated by river sewage.
“The E. coli levels in Henopus are in the millions. The scale of the contamination is huge and truly threatens all life. Given how dependent we all are on life-giving fresh water, we I don't think it has much of a future.”
Snyman said this water poses serious health risks and flows directly into the Hartbeespoort dam, from where it is used to irrigate food crops that feed millions of people.
Illegal housing along the Hennops River also dumps large amounts of untreated sewage directly into the Hennops River.
The river is also a reservoir of “massive plastic pollution” that is flowing downstream.
“This is what Gauteng is doing as the largest industrial hub. We are just dumping waste into other parts of the country, into the ocean, without really seeing or caring about the consequences. “Snyman said.
“The responsibility lies primarily with the council. The sewage treatment plants are run by the council and the plastic is collected by the council.”
These services are collapsing, and “we're sitting with a problem that won't go away. This absolutely ruthless pollution is going to stay in the aquatic environment.”
Snyman said the bigger tragedy is that it's not just the Henops River that's being polluted.
“Probably all the rivers in Gauteng are in this state,” he added.
The Henops River Valley is a state conservation area that protects important biodiversity. “Right now we have a river of death flowing through here. It actually has a huge impact on the ecosystem because all the animals drink this water and are affected by it. The river that flows from Tembisa is long. It's about 100km. It literally kills everything along its route.”
