A very important birding area on the Peninsula is under siege from water hyacinth, the Strandfontein sewerage works. This very invasive weed is originally from South America and is known to have caused billions of dollars worth of damage throughout Africa.

The City of Cape Town has confirmed that they just don’t have the resources to solve or even control the problem themselves. They are however trying various techniques to keep the waste water side of the sewerage works weed free, this isn’t being made any easier by having Zorro as a resident in one of the pans. Zorro is a hippo that escaped in February from Rondevlei nature reserve next door and has made Strandfontein sewerage works his home.

A birder John Graham said he was "sad to see that the nature reserve portion of the works seems to be in a state of deterioration".

"Four of the ponds I drove past are totally choked with hyacinth and it seems to be ringing most of the shoreline of (pan) S2 and so presumably will shortly also be choking this pan. There also appears to be a significant volume of hyacinth on Pan 5, north of the main works."

He also expressed concerns about the fishermen using 2 of the pans saying they were "very important" for wading birds and waterfowl.

Wastewater treatments city manager, Kevin Samson, said the excessive growth of water hyacinth was not a new problem.

"It is a problem throughout the city and requires specialist intervention and assistance. The wastewater section currently spends R2 million per annum to remove the hyacinth and has not succeeded in controlling its spread."

"The hippo in S1 pond is still a problem. The pond is fenced in but until the animal is removed hyacinth cannot be removed from the pond."

The southern area manager for the city's environmental resource management department, Dalton Gibbs, said the hyacinth at Strandfontein was well established in two large ponds.

"The extent of the infestation is presently beyond the resources that are available to eradicate the invasive plant in these pans.

"Hyacinth was detected on a further five ponds and has been removed. Weekly monitoring is done on these ponds to ensure no re-infestation takes place."