Residents were furious this week as smoke from the municipal dump on the Cradock Road again clogged the city's air.
Residents were furious this week as smoke from the municipal dump on the Cradock Road again clogged the city's air.
The smoke began on Sunday morning and the fire department confirmed that a water tanker had been dispatched on Sunday morning to extinguish the fire there.
At the dump on Thursday 4 July Grocott's Mail spoke to a man who works at the dump and who said he had seen the fire.
"There was a huge fire here a few days ago and the fire department people came to put it out," the man who did not want to be named said.
"People start these fires all the time here, some stay here in the dump so they cook food by making fire," said the man.
Residents have complained that the smoke has been unbearable this week. One said in a letter to Grocott's Mail, "Smoke produced by fires at the municipal dump made Grahamstown an unpleasant place to be on Sunday. The stench was stronger than it usually is and probably convinced many visitors to leave our town as soon as they could."
Another resident complained of being choked by the smoke. "Smoke from the dump was choking me on Prospect Field, Rhodes this morning… fire department answered politely about dump fire, they are putting soil on the fire."
The letter was sent on Tuesday.
The last time Makana Municipality commented about the fires at the dump site, they said they had been caused by vagrants searching for scrap metal and materials to build shacks.
In February when Grocott's Mail visited the site with municipal spokesperson Mncedisi Boma, he expressed shock at its state of the dump and said most of the fires were started by vagrants living there illegally.
"They make fires to cook there, or burn metal stuff to sell. Sometimes the fire is caused by [explosive materials], especially when it is extremely hot," he said.
Boma also said there was no one managing the site at Makana.
Attempts to get comments from Boma and the Community and Social services department had been unsuccessful at the time of publishing.
