The first thing that hits you in Pefferville, KuGompo City, is the smell.
It hangs thick and sour in the air, seeping into your clothes, your skin, your breath; an invisible cloud that residents say they have long stopped noticing because they have learnt to live with it.
Along Lanark Road, the ground glistens under the sun not from rain, but from streams of raw sewage snaking past homes, collecting in puddles that never seem to dry.
What was once a road is now barely passable, choked by filth and stagnant water.
Cars turn back, pedestrians pick their way through carefully, stepping over and sometimes through the sludge.
Children dart between houses, their laughter cutting through the heavy air, but their playground is a landscape of waste.
Just beyond the road, an overgrown field stretches out, thick with weeds.
Residents say it was once a sports ground, but now it is a swamp, fed by a steady flow of sewage that trickles down from the surrounding streets.
For 62-year-old Maria Turner, this is home and has been for more than two decades.
But home, she says, has become a place of sickness and despair.
“My backyard is always a swamp, standing just metres from a pool of murky water, edging closer to the house.
“The sewer pump overflows all the time. It never dries.”
She said inside her yard, the ground was soft and damp underfoot.
Turner’s voice trembles as she speaks about her three-year-old grandchild.
“She has a skin problem because of this and also a respiratory infection. I do not know how I am expected to keep a child safe in such an environment.
“I also struggle with asthma. This air is not right. It’s not healthy. But where must we go?” she asked.
Like many residents, Turner says she has reported the problem for years. The complaints, she says, have led nowhere.
“It is not just the smell. It’s the health risk,” Turner said.
“Children are playing near this sewage, and we are forced to walk through it every day. This is not a safe environment.”
A criminal case has been opened against the Buffalo City Metro over allegations that raw sewage is being discharged into the Buffalo River, posing serious environmental and public health risks to residents of Zwelitsha and surrounding areas.
Police confirmed this week that a case of contravention of the Municipal Systems Act had been registered after complaints of persistent sewage pollution linked to the Schornville sewage treatment plant.
The case follows an official complaint lodged a year ago by Mzwandile Vaaiboom, who accused the municipality of failing to address severe pollution of the river despite repeated warnings and engagements.
According to Vaaiboom, the case names the BCM mayor, council speaker and city manager, as well as accounting officers responsible for municipal operations, alleging negligence that has allowed untreated sewage to continuously flow into the Buffalo River.
“The pollution of the Buffalo River, the persistent stench, the health risks to residents of Schornville and Zwelitsha, the threat to livestock, and the degradation of the ecosystem left us with no option but to open a case,” Vaaiboom said.
He said polluted river water had also affected residents who used it for religious practices.
Vaaiboom said he had previously written to city manager Mxolisi Yawa, raising concerns about environmental health violations and the municipality’s constitutional obligations.
However, he claimed the responses failed to result in tangible improvements.
When responding to the initial complaint in 2025, Yawa said municipal staff working at the sewage plant had been redeployed due to ongoing criminal activity, including incidents where staff were allegedly held at gunpoint.
He also outlined plans to centralise sewage treatment at the Zwelitsha plant, with effluent from Breidbach, Bhisho and Schornville redirected there and the smaller plants decommissioned.
Despite these assurances, residents and activists say sewage continues to leak into the Buffalo River, with the Schornville plant still operating and reservoirs reportedly overflowing into the watercourse.
Residents living near the plant say they have endured years of foul odours and unsafe conditions.
Lizette Grobler, who lives opposite the facility, said the situation had worsened dramatically over the past three years.
“There used to be guards here, but within a week of them leaving it became much worse,” Grobler said.
“The smell is unbearable and sewage is running into the river.”
She said the area had become a gathering point for unemployed youth who smoked and burned objects near the plant.
“The place was fenced and guarded before. Now it’s not and people feel unsafe,” she said.
Police spokesperson Brigadier Nobuntu Gantana confirmed that a case had been opened and was under investigation.
Environmental experts have warned that the pollution could have far-reaching consequences.
Environmentalist Kevin Cole said untreated sewage entering the river posed a serious risk to human health and the environment.
“Raw or inadequately treated sewage contains pathogens that can cause gastrointestinal illnesses,” Cole said.
“The Buffalo River also feeds into Bridle Drift Dam, which is a major source of drinking water for East London.”
Cole said sewage spills introduced excess nutrients and pollutants into the river, leading to oxygen depletion, fish deaths and the proliferation of invasive plant species.
EFF councillor Mziyanda Hlekiso said accountability was needed, particularly given that some residents relied on river water due to a lack of reliable municipal supply.
“Some people in Ward 22 have no water and are forced to drink from the river,” Hlekiso said.
DA caucus leader Sue Bentley said the situation at the Schornville plant justified criminal charges.
“Environmental crime is a serious offence that threatens public health,” Bentley said.
She said poor maintenance and budget prioritisation had worsened sewage spills and negatively affected tourism.
The BCM mayor, council speaker, city manager and the metro spokesperson had not commented by the time of publication.
South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity (NRF-SAIAB) freshwater ecologist Dr Nompumelelo Baso-Mdiza said a river contaminated with sewage water would be “a serious environmental health hazard”.
“This is because the sewage introduces very high levels of nutrients within the ecosystem (leading to hyper eutrophication),” Baso-Mdiza said.
“This nutrient overload fuels algal blooms and oxygen depletion, which can lead to massive fish die-off.”
Click here to join the Daily Dispatch’s WhatsApp channel and get the latest news delivered straight to your phone.
Buffalo City Metro spokesperson Bongani Fuzile said the municipality had recently installed a 400mm pipeline in an effort to address the spillages.
However, he said vandalism and deliberate blockages had undermined progress.
“Several manholes have been vandalised, with individuals breaking into them in search of scrap metal,” he said.
“We have also found large stones and foreign objects placed inside, causing blockages.”
Fuzile said teams responded to reported spillages and were working on long-term solutions, including a community awareness campaign.
However, no clear timelines have been set.
For residents, those assurances feel distant, almost abstract, against the daily reality they face.
Here, the crisis is not in reports or plans.
It is in the air they breathe, the ground they walk on, and the stagnant water that surrounds their homes.
Community members warn that the combination of failing infrastructure, overcrowding and deepening poverty is pushing Pefferville towards a full-blown health disaster.
Across Pefferville, the story repeats itself.
Old, crumbling buildings line the streets, walls cracked, roofs sagging, windows patched together with makeshift repairs.
In between, informal structures have sprung up, crowding every available space.
Zinc sheets, wooden boards and plastic form homes for families with nowhere else to go.
The sewage, residents say, does not stay outside. It seeps in through yards, under doors, into living spaces.
The trickling Gonubie stream with no name is now spewing much of the suburb’s barely treated sewage into the ocean.
Information has been sparse and a request to Buffalo City Metro foundered and nothing came back.
Even local DA councillor Val Knoetze is slow to get back to me although her response indicates that action is being taken to address the issue.
But Vaughn Driessel, 50, is having none of it. He has lived here most of his life — fished and surfed these spots.
He is not prepared to accept the new normal where sewage gushes relentlessly into the fabulous Gonubie estuary and marine environment.
He took this reporter on a round trip to inspect the much-loved seaside village’s sewage pumps.
It is Sunday nearing midday and cyclogenesis — the cyclone season, with two brewing in the Mozambique channel and just beyond Madagascar — has sucked all the moisture from our skies.
It is so hot that sea grass, more a sedge, is a flat, colourless crunchy yellow.
Yet, the ocean is blue and pleasant, and this is pleasing at our first stop — the pump station at Black Rock in Ocean Way which is neutral smelling and looks in order.
Our next stop further down this BnB area is disgusting.
At the station opposite a marsh bounded by 3rd Street, 18th Avenue and Spring Road, we can see through the locked security fence that it is burbling through the cement lids.
We take a side path, stepping past the remains of a “poacher’s wetsuit” and other trash.
The picture on the beach tells the story — three or four cuts in the sand streaming with sewage.
We step onto the rocks and follow it to the sea. It is the soon-to-be-familiar colour of pale white and green which shocks as it fills an entire gully and, Driessel says, makes a clear semi-circle out in the ocean.
Further along we come to a culvert and there is that sewage stench.
Across the way are good homes, one a BnB. A long matted “gutter” runs over the rocks and into the ocean. How do people live and stroll here?
On to German Bay where we follow the usual route of the Discovery Surfers Challenge down a wide sandy path encircled with bush and some trash.
It opens out on a lovely valley vista to the ocean, except the two- to three-metre stream is gushing with that luminescent putrid pale-grey and green human effluent which is so poisonous to all life.
We pick our way around what should be the loveliest elbow in the river, except that you know that every bit of wet sand on your shoes is picking up a slick of foul bacteria.
The stream gurgles over rocks where runners in their hundreds will have to cross.
Further down, the effluent fans out in a flat delta hemmed in with a thick mat of green algae, then drops sharply to the rocks.
Earlier on the path we pass a dad and three little okies —was this where they played? We prayed not.
Two blacksmith plovers fly in and land in the septic delta. One pecks at something in the effluent.
This is normally a magnificent scene — blue ocean, frothing surf, a wide open beach framed by dunes covered in green forest with a fresh stream trickling out.
But with our poo lighting up the scene, it looks like something out of a dystopian sci-fi scene.
“When this happens, everything dies,” Driessel says.
We start a hunt for the source, and reach the entrance to the Gonubie Treatment Works where all is revealed — a huge rent in the earth with a rough sand path for big machinery leading down to a solid cemented tunnel spewing.
Above, in the sandworks, lies a large pipe and some other roll of stuff.
It looks chaotic and the road on top is carefully blocked off with BCM bollards.
The treatment works itself is locked. There is a security guard and it looks in need of grass cutting, and bits of litter lie here and there.
But, by today’s standards of disrepair and collapse, it looks passable.
But the plant is broken. And has been since August, says Driessel.
We visit the pumps on the banks of the Gonubie estuary.
A gutter which ran with sewage a few days ago is now clear and he points out some small red crabs scuttling for holes in the mud.
We check a station high up on George Randall Drive which towers over the estuary.
There is an obscure stairway down the hill — I am learning about the secret unknown places of my hometown! — and there it is, a row of lids and a brick structure.
It is clean, but I have smelt it many times on my way to swim in the river below.
The pump house at the Gonubie Marine Club is in good order.
All along the river residents are parked, braaing, fishing, hanging out in chairs, having a good time.
On my return after two hours, Knoetze is responding. She says: “German bay is horrendous and very contaminated.
“The [Gonubie] wastewater treatment works has been an issue since August last year.
“I have done regular site visits and everything that was needed is now in place, and the sediment in the bottom of the reactor reservoir is almost removed so that the works can work again.”
A blower had to be replaced and cables were vandalised and restored.
“Now just the [installation of] sand in the reactor tank, which should be completed in the next week,” she says.
“Unfortunately, German Bay and the damage done to the sea is a very heartsore affair as it can never be repaired or reversed.”
She visited the works last week and “everything is on track for a success story”.
Community activist Mandy Fortein said the social housing in the area was more than five decades old, there was no promise of rebuilding new structures.
“The double-storey shared homes are not conducive and not safe.
“The stairs are not stable, there have been children who have fallen [through stairs], because of the dilapidating structures.”
Fortein expressed how they felt neglected by the government.
“We have been pleading with the municipality to build new homes for us, even if it is temporary shelters.
“Some areas across the city are getting new, but we are left in the dumpsite.”
Electric wires hang low and exposed in front of homes, within easy reach of children.
In a place already defined by risk, they are yet another danger residents must navigate daily.
But beneath the collapsing infrastructure and overflowing sewage lies a deeper, more painful reality, poverty.
“The shacks in nearby informal settlements are more conducive than the old structures people live in,” Turner said.
Residents say the worsening conditions in Pefferville cannot be separated from the high levels of unemployment that have gripped the community for years.
With little to no income, families are unable to maintain their homes, relocate to safer areas, or even meet basic daily needs.
In many households, there is simply no money coming in. As a result, children are paying the highest price.
For many families, school feeding schemes have become the only reliable source of nutrition.
Pupils depend on the meal they receive at school as their main and sometimes only meal of the day.
Mother-of-five Mary-Anne Spogter lives in a shack with three of her children, who solely depend on the school nutrition programme for a fulfilling meal.
“I am unemployed and cannot afford to buy food for my children, so I always encourage them to wake up early so they can get porridge and another meal during the course of the day,” Spogter said.
“I try to get piece jobs that will sustain their livelihoods, especially during the weekend. I would rather eat a quarter loaf of bread and water.
“When schools are closed, you see the real situation.
“Some children go to bed hungry because there’s nothing at home. Their parents are not working.”
The founder of a local NPO, Doreta Prins, said hundreds of residents queued at her organisation on days when she handed out food.
“There are more than three organisations within the area, because of the situation that is happening in Pefferville,” Prins said.
“Poverty is a dire struggle in our community, people are in need of help.”
Young people are often seen in groups sharing a two-litre bottle of alcohol or smoking cigarettes.
The youth of the area feel left behind as they see themselves as not having access to any form of employment.
