Eben Engelbrecht - Pollution, especially sewerage spilling into the rivers of Polokwane, continues progressively and there are fears that the entire system may collapse. According to local scientists, the sewerage plant has for a long time been incapable of treating the massive volumes of human waste water and dangerous volumes of sludge return to the riverine system every day. The core of the problem remains the fact that the municipal wastewater plant is hopelessly ineffective and the only way to avert a major river pollution crisis and eventually a drinking water disaster is to build another sewerage plant. Environmentalists in Polokwane are utterly disgusted that the provincial budget for 2010 did not provide for such a development. To find sludge, or raw sewerage, is easy. The environmental desk at Polokwane Observer has been exposing river pollution on a constant basis over the last six months. This week we exposed yet another contributing factor, namely the three storage dams behind the sewerage plant. These three dams are supposed to contain treated water, the quality of which must meet the standards set for water safe enough to pump back into the rivers. These standards stipulate that the water should be sludge free and meet the prescribed levels of E Coli and other bacterial and mineral contents considered safe for release. If you go to Google Earth and scrawl to Polokwane, you’ll clearly see the three dams, at the time of the satellite picture taken, clean and functional. Since then two of the dams have been overgrown by reeds and are loaded with sludge. This implies that the water going back to the rivers are not nearly meeting the standards set for release. The authorities are trying their best to hide this mess behind high fences and razor wire, but alas, this problem is becoming too big to conceal.