[Image: Wikicommons]
There has been an outcry on social media following an Atlantic Seaboard woman’s story about her daughter’s “near-death experience” due to an E. coli infection following a swim at Saunders Beach in Cape Town.
The post unleashed a flood of similar stories describing similar gastrointestinal and other bacterial infections caused by the contaminated sea water along Cape Town’s beaches.
Several residents from the Atlantic Seaboard Community Forum responded with similar stories to the Facebook post, which seems to be about an incident that the young woman shared on Instagram early in December.
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The Facebook furore comes just a week after a citizen-led investigation, RethinkTheStink’s Project Blue, uncovered shocking contamination along our beaches.
Widespread contamination was discovered in Table Bay during November and December 2024, with 42% of sampling dates exceeding safety limits for E. coli and Enterococci. The City has, however, refuted the claims in January and showcased numerous readings done that contradict the data.
CEO of the National Sea Rescue Institute told the Cape Argus that the cause of contamination was very likely unsafe waters along our coast.
“I agree that Saunders’ Rocks is polluted and it is possible that these people are getting sick because they swim there. The cause is a storm water outlet that flows directly onto the beach.”
“The storm water is clearly polluted and contaminated, a problem all over Cape Town. Storm water is not captured and treated by the City, it should be.”
“Cape Town has serious water pollution issues as evidenced by its own inland water quality reports and it is trying to catch up! Too slowly. It’s a huge engineering, health and environ-mental problem.”
Hopefully, the City of Cape Town will finally do something after yet another ‘viral’ incident. A day at our ‘Blue Flag’ beaches should not be Russian roulette.
[Source: IOL]
