eThekwini Beaches: Three Summers of E. coli Closures, Every Blue Flag Lost — High Court Finds the Metro Breached Its Constitutional Duty on Sewage

Since the April 2022 floods eThekwini's sewer pump stations and treatment works have repeatedly failed, closing Durban's beaches through successive festive seasons and costing the city every Blue Flag; in December 2024 eight of ten beachfront tests exceeded guidelines. In judgments of 18 December 2025 and February 2026 the KwaZulu-Natal High Court found the metro had failed its constitutional duty to maintain and repair sewerage infrastructure and had unlawfully reopened beaches with dangerous E. coli levels, ordering weekly public reporting and a court-supervised repair plan.

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The Record

Durban's beaches are the city's economy in summer. After the April 2022 floods wrecked sewer pump stations and treatment works across eThekwini, the metro began each festive season with beach closures for E. coli, and each year the closures returned. The city lost every Blue Flag it held. In December 2024 eight of ten beachfront samples exceeded guideline limits and readings in the Umgeni River ran about fifty times the seawater standard. The city argued it monitored E. coli rather than enterococci because E. coli is "measurable" and data on the health risk of enterococci is "limited".

The DA (application June–July 2023) and ActionSA (November 2022) sued. On 18 December 2025 a full bench of the KwaZulu-Natal High Court in Pietermaritzburg — Judge President Poyo-Dlwati, with Olsen and Mathenjwa JJ — found in the DA's case that the metro had failed its constitutional obligation to maintain and repair its sewerage infrastructure and had unlawfully reopened beaches with dangerous E. coli levels without provincial approval. The court ordered weekly public publication of E. coli results, a formal hazard-communication protocol and a court-supervised repair plan with deadlines. The Judge President observed that the city "is not a political delinquent" and had "made sufficient efforts", but that compliance had been delayed. In February 2026 the court granted ActionSA a declaratory order against the metro and dismissed its case against the national and provincial ministers with costs.