Pick ‘n Pay Knysna Oyster Festival 2012 – Pollution Update
Download or listen to the audio version – ‘Parody of Poo’
June 23 2012: Nicci Rousseau-Schmidt (head of Knysna PR, PR for Knysna Tourism and employee of Worldsport) rushed to calm tourist fears about the upcoming Pick ‘n Pay Knysna Oyster Festival.
“Yes, there’s faeces-induced bacteria in the Knysna Estuary but there is absolutely no reason for this season’s visitors to worry at all. Our oysters are safe because they aren’t our oysters. We import them from Port Elizabeth, Mosselbay and Saldanha Bay. I know that’s confusing but we also call our estuary a lagoon. If anything, we should be given credit for how seriously we regard tourist perception management.”
Shaun van Eck, the CEO of Knysna Tourism and an upstanding member of the local christian community, supported her: “There really is no reason to worry at all! The majority of Knysna’s population is non-white and we keep their participation to an absolute minimum. Additionally, Black and Coloured people do not swim so there would have been few casualties. Even then, we have over 100 events so, if we do choose to cancel watersports, it would not affect the festival at all. The heart of the festival is the running and cycling races. We plan seriously! We plan for any eventuality! We even plan our excuses.
“As for the Oyster, it is more like a mascot. We are considering changing the event’s name next year. It really is too long. German tourists often get confused because they can’t find the town of Pick ‘n Pay on the map. The Knysna Estuary Festival is one name being bandied about. Maybe just The Knysna Festival. But let’s concentrate on this year first so please do not let the good brand that is Pick ‘n Pay be tarnished at all. They truly do not have much to do with Knysna as they are based in Cape Town. They just manage it. We’re responsible for the marketing.”
Business Day followed up on the latest incident with Lauring Waring, Knysna’s Municipal Manager. Although “disturbingly high,” was how she assessed the bacterial levels, she insisted that, “This is not our fault! We did our job, even if it’s a temporary fix. This is not a spill from the treatment works. The cause of the problem is that business people are not cleaning their fat traps properly. The Knysna Keep suggested that we monitor CBD businesses more closely but, after all the politicians arrived at consensus, a true statement for our Rainbow democracy, they voted for a salary increase which unfortunately never left any budget for the extra manpower that was needed.
“Besides, the biggest instigator of this problem is laziness. The majority of Knysna’s population now resides in the Northern suburbs, up on the hills of White Location, Concordia and Khayalethu. So long as they choose to be unemployed, they will never install plumbing. Wanting the best views in Knysna should not be a right. It should be earned. But opinion isn’t my job. Action is. At the highest level, in association with Mayor Georlene Wolmarans, I formed a committee called Steering Health In Transformation. They are getting to the bottom of this. They’ve already identified why the problem is inflated during and after the festival. It’s because of the high fibre athlete diet resulting in ‘floaters’. Please follow their advice on how participants and Knysna citizens can alleviate this environmental problem.”
Laughter is the best medicine so the Knysna Keep will be giving each visitor a complimentary toilet roll.
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I’ve repeatedly said that the Knysna Municipality doesn’t give us the truth or whole truth depending on the situation. They’ve done it again with regards pollution in the Knysna Estuary a.k.a. the misnamed Knysna Lagoon. The purpose of controlling information is done in the name of protecting Tourism. Provincially, it’s done so as to make Helen Zille look good (just look at what happened with the riots in Plettenberg Bay).
Problems not fully admitted to will never get the full attention they deserve. Lies are short term gain which runs hand in hand with why our short-term, local politicians (DA, COPE and ANC) fail us in the long run (which matters the most).
Obviously, shit in our beautiful Knysna Estuary doesn’t assist positive tourist perception. After all, they got poisoned last year and, heaven forbid, they miss-associate.
Compare the report in the Business Day to the statement on Knysna Municipality’s website about the Pollution in the Knysna Estuary (and take special note of the header).
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Mike, it is good we can see the humour in this, because otherwise we should all just jump off a cliff. The smell near there is bad, especially high tide, at night. I think our little sewer plant just cant cope, especially when the town is full of visitors. We need someone to take the e-coli tests at these times, and publish them in the papers. This is not an impossible task. Watch this space. Bumper sticker idea: “save our lagoon. dont poo in knysna.”
Or “Don’t Poo in the ‘Goon”.
I believe that we sometimes have to make fun of seemingly hopeless conflicts for sanity’s sake but hopefully parody assists attention too. The nature of Knysna’s public is to hoo and ah but then forget as governing bodies sweep problems under the rug e.g. the woman who was allegedly raped by the police, the councillor who lost her ward but became our mayor, the issue of drugs after the Carte Blanche report etc.
As i’ve said many times, apathy is the greatest danger to Knysna and South Africa. And opinion without action changes nothing at all. At the very least, we have to keep people talking about the issues. If we don’t, the issues “don’t exist”.
Did van Eck really say that? Could he have been so sub-consciously racist? Or perhaps he was just being overtly racist and not giving a stuff about who thought what?
Me thinks i just caught you at your own tongue-in-cheek game:)
Urgh! You see how gullible I am.
I’ll put up a warning sign: SKIM READING IS DANGEROUS – ha ha:)
Mike whether he said it or not is immaterial that is unfortunately what the majority of our fellow white compatriots are thinking of blacks and “coloureds”. The fact of the matter is that the lagoon or the river has been full of bacteria for as long as I can remember and it poses a health risk to the inhabitants of Knysna and more specifically those who are making a living from the lagoon (subsistance fishermen etc) The municipality has a constitutional obligation to protect its citizens from these kind of health risks and it is simply not doing that. They have an obligation to notify all inhabitants and visitors of this health risk! Nevermind this oyster festival!
It’s a perfect example of their continued deceit. When the pollution story first blew up, SANPARKS, Environmental Health, Health (Knysna and Eden) and the Municipality would not respond to me. It was obvious that they were controlling information but it was a relief when one official confirmed that it was a directive from Knysna Municipality.
Whoever leaked this info to Mike should be worried about their jobs. Look what happened in Plett. Since the political hit man “Kaalvoet Thysie” got rid of all the honest officials at Bitou who stood in their way to financial greatness, Thysie was busy: he awarded a 10 year lease agreement to a DA supporter for R17 000-00 p.m while a bid for R55 000-00 was ignored. The court ruled that the Lookout Deck bid must be re-advertized but this did not stop them. He further created a post at Bitou for a close friend of his for exactly the same hourly rate and “job description” as his CC use to earn at Bitou, before this dubious and illegal contract was exposed by these ex-officials. The silence from the media, rate payers and public are deafening…….
It’s parody. Of course they wouldn’t say that in public. The “high bacteria” was admitted to Business Day. However, as much as i’m mocking and joking, there is a lot of truth in here i.e. the Pick ‘n Pay Oyster Festival is racist, they did lie about the pollution and “our oysters” are not our oysters. If anything, i hope to highlight how the Knysna Municipality and Knysna Tourism continually manipulate the media so that the public is fed lies. The sad reality is that a lot of the public would rather hear lies and hang on to fantasy whilst the world erodes around them. That will cost us all. We need to face problems head on, be honest what we can solve and what we can’t.
The Knysna Ratepayers Association is extremely quiet of late. I can remember the meetings upon meetings and press release after press release when the ANC was in control of Council. Like we say in afrikaans “Berge val op ons hemele bedek ons”.
The DA wouldn’t have any meaningful dialogue with any organization i.e. Chamber of Business, Knysna Accommodation Association and the Ratepayer’s Association. The latter may not even exist anymore. I couldn’t get anything meaningful out of “them” (seemed to be have become an organization of one). I can understand why the richer areas set up their own micro taxpayer’s associations but they are concerned with their suburbs rather than Knysna as a whole. Everyone should have banded together so as to show real teeth. Instead, they hung on in the hope of eventual handouts. Even if they eventually get a trickle, the cost, overall, to Knysna, would have been too much. Too many pretend diplomats and diluted organizations. We need leaders with passion and balls.
E. Coli levels reached as high as 6 times more than safe limit – http://www.knysnaplettherald.co.za/news.aspx?id=29595&h=Update:-Action-against-bacteria-water.
I am concerned about the chlorine that is used to treat culverts flowing into the lagoon from areas without services. This is treating the lagoon as an extension of the sewer plant, and is not a good solution to the e-coli problem. How does a seahorse or a pipefish, or any other small creature in the lagoon cope with chlorine in their stomachs? they probably die. When some dead Knysna pipefish were sent to The SA National Biodiversity Institute for tests, nothing conclusive was found but they were very concerned about the chlorine in the lagoon, and so should we all be.
I don’t want to rush to an opinion on something i’m no expert. So backlogged at the moment but maybe if you get the time you could sum up a 1985 report by the EPA in the USA that i just emailed to you:)