IKEMORIZ.COM

"With this song we protest!" On 12th May 2015 well-known Hout Bay citizens from Hangberg and the valley joint forces in protest and recorded and filmed a song written by SA pop star Ike Moriz. 

Local musicians Barry van Zyl (Johnny Clegg's drummer), Roger Bashew (bass legend, RGB Music), guitar virtuoso Guy Collins (Hot Water), Hangberg rapper Spike Parker (Peter Parker Michaels), videographer & editor Wayne Johnstone (Myth Media), sound engineer Andrew Rawbone-Viljoen & his brother Jeremy (Digital Forest) and singer, producer, actor and writer Ike Moriz united in protest of the noxious, putrid and potentially harmful emissions by the local Oceana / Lucky Star fish processing factory (fish meal & fish oil for export to China & USA etc - used as fertiliser, pet food etc) at Digital Forest Studios in Constantia. The song was released on iTunes to raise funds for the Hout Bay Residents and Ratepayers Association.

After decades of reluctantly tolerating the odor pollution of the Oceana fishmeal factory in Hout Bay, it appears that the side-effects of the factory emissions ranging from headaches, nausea, dizziness,  red/itchy eyes to insomnia and sinus conditions are experienced by more and more locals. Many residents who have lived in Hout Bay (a world famous tourist location in the Western Cape, South Africa) for decades describe the stench as intolerable and as worse than ever before. 

All efforts to reason with Oceana CEO Francois Kuttel and the management of their Hout Bay factory have failed so far: in their eyes all is as it should be. 

Please share this song and video with your friends and encourage them to sign a CHANGE.org petition (see link below), join the Facebook group and Fb page like thousands of other concerned residents and supporters. Frustration rises with every time this antisocial public nuisance by the factory (Oceana Brands aka Lucky Star) is violating constitutional rights of well-being and enjoying living space. Something needs to change! We are very concerned for our health!! Please help!!!!! Fresh Air For Hout Bay!!! F.A.H.B.

http://www.smellsfishy.co.za ; http://www.facebook.com/houtbaysmellsfishy ; https://itunes.apple.com/za/album/lucky-star-aint-what-you-are/id1002416926

FAHB’S CHANGE.org Petition: https://www.change.org/p/city-of-cape-town-stop-oceana-s-odour-pollution-in-hout-bay-and-find-a-sustainable-solution-for-all

Originally Ike recorded a protest video after a sleepless night caused by the stench on 24.04.15: http://youtu.be/kd1H9K9_WLk "This morning at 1.30am our whole family was once again awoken by the noxious smell of our local fish-meal and fish-oil factory in Hout Bay. Our little ones were complaining about headaches, nausea and red, itchy eyes (as did we). It's not easy to describe the anger and frustration that we felt (this has happened countless times in the recent past) and all our efforts to reason with the owners of the factory have failed - in their eyes all is as it should be. After a sleepless night, I decided to write this song and simply recorded it now with my phone to give voice to not only our anger but to all those affected here in Hout Bay"

For further info, press shots, interviews, contact: Kiara Worth (kiara.worth@gmail.com), Helen Hays (hhays58@gmail.com) or Ike Moriz (ike@ikemoriz.com) from the F.A.H.B. Fresh Air for Hout Bay community forum. Thank you for your support!

Words to this song (by Ike Moriz http://www.ikemoriz.com / Facebook:http://www.facebook.com/moriz.ike :

LUCKY STAR AIN’T WHAT YOU ARE (words & music by ©Ike Moriz, 25.04.2015) 

At first living with you was so romantic, 

Sunsets, harbour lights and fishing boats. 

We would stroll the beach, it was gigantic, 

Magic views, whales, dolphins and Mount Rhodes.

LUCKY STAR AIN’T WHAT YOU ARE

YOUR BREATH SMELLS LIKE A FISH CIGAR

KNOCK ON WOOD AND FIND A FOUR LEAF CLOVER

LUCKY STAR AIN’T WHAT YOU ARE

YOUR BREATH SMELLS LIKE A FISH CIGAR

LEAVE OUR ‚HOOD’ CAUSE THIS ROMANCE IS OVER

You do your smelly business in the night 

When the rest of us is all sleeping tight

You wake our children in the early morning 

With headaches, nausea, red eyes: sleep deprived!

LUCKY STAR AIN’T WHAT YOU ARE

YOUR BREATH SMELLS LIKE A FISH CIGAR

OH, KNOCK ON WOOD AND THEN FIND A FOUR LEAF CLOVER

LUCKY STAR AIN’T WHAT YOU ARE

YOUR BREATH SMELLS LIKE A FISH CIGAR

OH, LEAVE OUR ‚HOOD’ CAUSE THIS ROMANCE IS OVER

Your had your chance this town’s given you notice. 

Yet you persist that there’s nothing wrong. 

Tried to pay us off, confuse us, divert the focus: 

Your work here is done!

Rap section (by Spike Parker):

You can smell the smell that makes us sick

The fumes out of the roof and the smoke so thick

They are making the fishmeal to feed the pigs

They brainwash our minds and they're playing their tricks (Yeah!)

The fumes, the gas, harm like drugs the flesh...

For generations of mess. With this song we protest!

We got the smoke on our chest, oh, yah,

With this song we protest! Come on!

We got the smoke on our chest, oh!

With this song we protest! 

With this song we protest! 

LUCKY STAR AIN’T WHAT YOU ARE

YOUR BREATH SMELLS LIKE A FISH CIGAR

OH, KNOCK ON WOOD AND THEN FIND A FOUR LEAF CLOVER

OH, LUCKY STAR AIN’T WHAT YOU ARE

YOUR BREATH SMELLS LIKE A FISH CIGAR

OH, LEAVE OUR ‚HOOD’ CAUSE THIS ROMANCE IS OVER

OH, LUCKY STAR AIN’T WHAT YOU ARE

YOUR BREATH SMELLS LIKE A FISH CIGAR

OH, LEAVE OUR ‚HOOD’ CAUSE THIS ROMANCE IS OVER

LUCKY STAR AIN’T WHAT YOU ARE

YOUR BREATH SMELLS LIKE A FISH CIGAR

LEAVE OUR ‚HOOD’ CAUSE THIS ROMANCE IS OVER

IT IS OVER

(c)(p)2015 Eike Moriz

Here is some recent SA press about this subject (The Sentinel, Cape Times, Cape Argus, Die Burger):

UPDATE: 29.04.2016

Surely this is more than possible to achieve: 
- Better jobs for Hangberg's residents, embracing a rich heritage living and working with what the ocean has to offer in a sustainable way.. 
- Better working conditions and jobs that offer more than just 2 days per week paid employment for 50 staff in a factory that's polluting a whole suburb.. 
- Somehow the power needs to return to the people: fishing rights for small Hangberg businesses, a proper fish market selling to visitors and locals (it could be Cape Town's prime fish market!)
- new opportunities to attract more tourists (and have them come back after a visit and not forever loose them due to the pollution)..
- but also bearing in mind the thousands of unemployed young people seeking job opportunities that don't necessarily have to be fishing related..

Most people like the smell of a working harbor, its boats, fresh catch being unloaded... It's what makes a harbor a harbor and many may have even decided to move here because they love harbors and the smells associated with them - however the chemical stench and odor pollution by Oceana destroys and overpowers all other smells when in production - leaving a horrid stench lingering inside houses, schools, restaurants, parking lots, even on the clothes we wear. 
It literally kills everything else. 

Many are more negatively affected: the air pollution leaves them with headaches, nausea, dizziness, stinging eyes and sinuses. Some believe their asthma or allergies are linked to it. Many businesses suffer too and loose customers or can't thrive and expand in the way they could without the pollution..

Hout Bay has become a thriving community that is by large neither dependent on the animal matter processing industry nor is it connected to it.
So we all find ourselves in a situation where we have inherited a stinking 60year old facility negatively affecting many ten-thousands - some more and some less - that provides income to 4 dozen local bread-winners (the same amount could be employed by 2 big restaurants) and some of their families who probably still have to find work elsewhere to make ends meet. 

The DA-run province and city can see the potential of Hout Bay harbor but they don't want to or they can't get involved because they either want to win over voters from Hangberg or they are afraid of social unrest and in part their hands are tied due to the harbor being run and owned by national ANC lead government who hasn't shown a lot of interest in the state of our harbors in the past decades and only now is starting to come up with ideas that seem to lack the input of the locals..

I believe the only way forward is if we all together look at the available options and put our energy into making one of them a reality - not one part of the community against another (as often instigated by radicals), but all parts as a whole together. 

And the first step of this is to communicate with each other and try and understand each other's points of view.. Let's debunk a couple of truck loads of misinformation and political or corporate propaganda. Lots to do - but we gotta start somewhere: for all the newbies in Hout Bay: Ask lots of questions! Find out about the history of The bay... Especially the plight of the older generations of Hangberg residents and how they ended up in this location and situation.. But let's also look at all the changes that happened here since the end of the dreaded Apartheid era after 1994; the story of how IY came to be; the incredible boost of opportunities through those who moved and invested here.

But most importantly: let's for just one moment assume that WE ALL ACTUALLY WANT A GOOD, HEALTHY & HAPPY LIFE FOR EACH OTHER IN HOUT BAY. 

🌈

Article in Sentinel about our information stand we organised at Mainstream Shopping Mall, Hout Bay on several occasions in May 2016: https://www.sentinelnews.co.za/news/masks-out-against-stench-5172359

(archived version here: 

The Sentinel, Hout Bay, "Masks out against stench”, 13.5.2016, by YOLANDE DU PREEZ

More than a 100 “survival kits” – to combat the stench from the Oceana fishmeal factory – were handed out by members of the Fresh Air for Hout Bay (FAHB) group during an information campaign on Saturday May 5, at the Mainstream centre.

Despite the strong south-easter, residents did not hesitate to wear their survival kit masks while FAHB founders, Ike Moriz and Kiara Worth, provided information about the campaign and handed out information sheets to the community. 

The information campaign is just one of several initiatives undertaken by FAHB to try and find a solution to the ongoing stench caused by the production of fishmeal.

“The campaign was a great success and we were very impressed by the response from the public, which indicates how many people are concerned about what’s happening,” Ms Worth said.

Visitors to the stand were encouraged to complete affidavits stating how the smell affected them and to have it stamped by a Commissioner of Oaths and then drop it off at the coffee shop, TADA in Victoria Road. Residents did not hesitate to pose for a photograph wearing their masks and holding up signs reading “Oceana stinks! Help!” and “Hout Bay deserves better”.

Ms Worth said she was really encouraged by both the high number of people who were interested in what FAHB was doing as well as the overwhelming support received by the community.

“We received some great ideas, suggestions and comments and FAHB will continue to work on these issues over the next coming months,” she said. FAHB plans to have another information campaign in June.

Mr Moriz said it was wonderful to interact face to face with the community instead of via their Facebook page and website. 

“It was great to see how many people support FAHB and to hear honest accounts of how the smell is actually affecting people’s day-to-day living. We interacted with more than 150 people and 90 percent of those people were willing to have their photo taken indicating that they want a voice and are willing to stand up for their rights,” he said.

What he found interesting was the comments from a group of high school pupils saying how difficult it was for them during the summer to concentrate in class with the smell lingering throughout the school and classrooms.

“We don’t often hear from the youth of Hout Bay and this is just testimony that it affects people of all ages and race,” he said.

Last month FAHB appealed to the City of Cape Town for help in a seven-page letter written by Ms Worth (“Call for legal action,” Sentinel April 22).

In the letter, Ms Worth asked the City to conduct a comprehensive health study to determine the long and short-term effects the emissions of hydrogen sulphide have on the community as well as to establish a mechanism whereby community complaints can be lodged directly to the City instead of Oceana, as currently is the case.

The City responded by saying it has been engaging with Lucky Star and the provincial Department of Environmental Affairs on the matter and once again stated that hydrogen sulphide emissions recorded in Hout Bay were way below the danger levels as stipulated by the World Health Organisation (WHO). No other issues mentioned by Ms Worth were addressed. 

However, responding to a media enquiry by the Sentinel, Mayco member for Health, Siyabulela Mamkeli, said the City has issued a notice to Oceana to have its Atmospheric Emission License (AEL) reviewed as stipulated in the Section 45 of the Air Quality Act.

He said Oceana’s current licence was the first atmospheric emission licence issued to them in terms of the new air quality management regime prescribed in terms of Chapter 5 of the National Environmental Management Air Quality Act.

“The Act prescribes that a licence must be reviewed at intervals prescribed in the licence or when circumstances demand that a review is necessary. The licence prescribed the review date for Oceana to be November 1 2017, however, given the current circumstances, it was decided to bring the review date forward,” he said.

Mr Mamkeli also confirmed that Oceana’s production records, odour management plans, stack emissions monitoring reports and annual reports will be reviewed to identify if there are any areas of the factory operations that can be improved upon and then to amend the licence conditions to reflect these areas of improvement as revised conditions of authorisation.

Mr Mamkeli further said that an inter-governmental task team comprising of officials from the City and the provincial Department of Environmental Affairs and Development Planning have been established to monitor the situation, however, the officials will not reside in Hout Bay as requested by FAHB.

“The task team will coordinate compliance and enforcement actions, monitoring activities and will assist with the review of the emissions licensing process,” he said.

Further, a second ambient air quality monitoring station will be stationed near the factory in the Northshore/Scotts Estate area.

But Mr Mamkeli could not say when the station would be operational as logistical arrangements regarding the station were still being finalised.

Mr Moriz said FAHB was more than willing to assist the City in any way in order to reach a solution.

However, he said it was disappointing that members of the task team would not reside in Hout Bay to effectively monitor the situation as a visit of two to three hours every now and then was not enough to get an accurate account of the situation.

Oceana referred the Sentinel to its website.