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dam-l Dam changes to restore river in SA/LS
Sounds like Africa's first dam-decommissioning campaign may be getting a start.
'Morning glory' to be imploded April 07, 2000
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Fiona Macleod
Ronnie Kasrils, former Umkhonto weSizwe head of military intelligence and
democratic South Africa's first deputy defence minister, gets to be the
demolition man again when he blows a giant concrete overflow tower to
smithereens.
In his present role as Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry, Kasrils is
planning to push the button that will detonate the overflow tower -
nicknamed "morning glory" - of the Zoeknog Dam in Mpumalanga. He will be
blowing up not only a useless and potentially dangerous concrete monolith,
but a testament to apartheid engineering that fell flat on its face.
The Zoeknog Dam was built in the late 1980s on the Mutlumuvi River, one of
the main tributaries feeding the Sand River, which flows out of the
foothills of Mpumalanga's Drakensberg mountain range.
The main goal of the dam was to provide irrigation for citrus, rice and
coffee farmers who were employing labourers from the Gazankulu and Lebowa
homelands. Unemployment in these apartheid dumping grounds was close to 70%
and, with about 100 people per square kilometre, the population density was
closer to that of a country like Belgium than rural South Africa.
The "morning glory"overflow tower was f^ted by engineers for its structural
design, and the "1992" imprinted close to the top of the tower marked the
date when it was expected to be launched.
But in late 1991, before the politicians could cut the ribbons and when the
dam was only 30% full, water broke through the dam walls. Only the intuition
of an elderly herdsman, who had stayed awake all night and alerted his
neighbours when he heard the water rumbling at 5.30am, saved the lives of
the people living downstream.
Now the "morning glory" needs to be imploded because it has structural
faults and is potentially dangerous, says Working for Water's regional
programme co-ordinator Tony Poulter.
"We're not sure exactly when the minister will blow it up, but he wants to
use the opportunity as a training exercise for the military. We have to make
sure it doesn't fall into the river," says Poulter.
Teams of workers employed by Working for Water, the Department of Water
Affairs and Forestry's alien plant-clearing programme, have been removing
invading alien vegetation from the banks of the Sand River's tributaries
since 1997.
The teams are part of a pioneering river catchment management plan called
Save the Sand. Under the umbrella of the Department of Agriculture's Land
Care programme, Save the Sand has drawn together six national government
departments, the Mpumalanga and Northern Province provincial governments,
communities, NGOs, foresters, conservationists and private landowners.
The aim is to get the river flowing again - agriculture and bad forestry
practices have reduced it from an annual to a seasonal river -and to reduce
the sedimentation caused by erosion in the catchment areas and along the
river banks.
The Sand River feeds into the Sabie River in the Kruger National Park, and
eventually makes its way to the ocean in Mozambique. Experts say
sedimentation exacerbated the recent floods by making the water flow faster.
Sedimentation is the biggest killer of fish and other life forms in the
river and it reduces the quality of the water for human consumption.
On all sides of the "morning glory", the erosion caused by the disaster that
was the Zoeknog Dam is monumental. Save the Sand's ambition is to get rid of
the erosion, on a scale never seen before in this country.
In the past year 5ha have been treated, and the treatment held during the
February flooding. The area has been levelled off into terraces, which have
been planted with grass and other vegetation.
Land Care has dedicated between R4- million and R5-million to treating the
remaining 25ha of erosion around the dam in the coming years. The Department
of Agriculture announced last week that its 1999/2000 budget includes
R20-million for various natural resources management projects around the
country.
"We've planted various crops, grasses and trees, so the communities who live
here can decide what land use they prefer," says Sharon Pollard of the
Association for Water and Rural Development, an NGO that has been working
with Land Care on the erosion treatment at Zoeknog Dam.
"Some residents want to use the treated area for grazing, some for medicinal
plants, others for food crops. It's clear that the old citrus, rice and
coffee plantations don't work here."
Pollard and her team have been working closely with three communities of
about 15 000 people living near the dam. She emphasises that unless the
communities understand and co-operate in the erosion control, the best
technical treatments in the world will fail.
This is the difference between the Zoeknog Dam of the past and the future.
When Kasrils pushes the button on the "morning glory", these communities
will be the first on his guest list for the party.
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Lori Pottinger, Director, Southern Africa Program,
and Editor, World Rivers Review
International Rivers Network
1847 Berkeley Way, Berkeley, California 94703, USA
Tel. (510) 848 1155 Fax (510) 848 1008
http://www.irn.org
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