An ongoing, long-standing problem which has reached crisis level.

That sums up Nelson Mandela Bay’s Swartkops Estuary, where sewage pollution and harmful algal bloom, which strips oxygen out of the water as it decays, is on the rise again. 

And Nelson Mandela University marine biologist professor Nadine Strydom says the sewage pollution and plankton bloom dynamic is wrecking the estuary.

On Behind the Herald Headlines with Daron Mann this week, we speak to Strydom and Zwartkops Trust spokesperson Jenny Rump.