Photos illustrates how the Spit is eroding
Photographer Stan Blumberg recently sent us an aerial photograph of the spit which clearly illustrates how it has eroded and how critical it is becoming to do something to arrest the erosion.
A recent petition signed by those concerned with the condition of the spit was lodged with the Kouga municipal manager who will, if he has not already done so, lodge these with the Department of the Environmental Affairs (DEDEAT). Hopefully DEDEAT will jump start the approval of the submissions to save the spit rather than having the application gather dust for the next year or more.
DEDEAT stopped the St Francis Bay Riparians from depositing sand dredged from the river on the seaside of the spit, which was having a positive result, but allowed the sand to be deposited on the landward side. As can be seen from the photo this clearly isn’t working so maybe if DEDEAT can reverse their decision and possibly it will buy a little time until the proposed solution can be implemented.
For those who may have missed the first two public meetings on 20th December, 3rd January where the St Francis Property Owners association presented details on the proposed SRA a third public meeting will be held tomorrow (11th January) at 5:30pm at St Francis Links. If you need more information on the proposed SRA before casting your vote it will be worthwhile spending aan hour ro listen to what is being proposed.
SFPO has introduced an online voting form on their website should you prefer to cast your vate, YES or NO, on the proposed SRA. The form can be found on their website – http://stfrancispropertyowners.co.za/
Please can you publish the dates when the 2 photographs were taken so we can get a feel for how quickly the erosion has taken place.
Regards
The one on the right was taken 6pm. 6 Jan 2018,
Two comments –
Please can we have comparison photos when the tides are the same – e.g. low tide
The vegetation has died because sea water has been pumped onto it.
Interesting to note that there is a jetty on the spit that was never there before how was that approved? People cannot just change the coarse of nature to suite a life style they want as there are many factors that can influence sand been deposited on the spit which have already taken place in and around St Francis Bay. The vegetation on the spit also seems to be dead any reason for that? as this should also stop the sand from eroding. Anyway what has been done is not easily reversed.
The dead vegetation is invasive Port Jackson Willow that has had its roots exposed by erosion. The Port Jackson was planted on the spit to hold the sand which was dredged onto it from the Ski Canal when it was made. This method was also applied to all the new sand on the plots which came from the dredging of the canals.
The dunes where Santareme is now were stabilized in the same manner preventing the dunes from shifting and blowing into the sea an onto the beach.
The Curchill Dam tamed the Kromme, allowing homes to be built on the estuary and then the Imporfu Dam further guaranteed our safety, but these dams also marked the end to the river being naturally scoured.
Everything about St Francis today is man-made. We added ourselves to this utopic environment, not for one minute questioning the longevity of the changes we have made. Now – A sea-side resort town with no beach. An extensive Canal system that without the Spit will go stagnant. A river silting up which every year reduces the recreational offering.
Gentlemen – unless we wake up and manipulate nature as we do so well – we can kiss the vision that we bought into good bye.
Words of wisdom indeed. Hit the nail firmly on the head as to the root causes which are the elephant in the room of the whole issue. St Francis Bay’s problems are caused by the development allowed to take place. If the Santareme area had never been developed and the Port Jackson eradicated there would be a beach today…
If I look at the latest Google Earth photo of the spit dated 05/03/16 then there has been a huge amount of erosion. We did a walk on the beach at the spit in early December and a lot of the roots of the Port Jackson were exposed and dying. If the DEDEAT did give temporary approval to pump sand onto the beach side are the pumps, dredger, pipes and approvals in place and a budget available to start pumping? If the Port Jackson dies then there will be nothing to stop the sea breaking through.
It has long been recognized that the demise of the beach has been brought about by the stabilization and development of the dune fields which without the continual nourishment of wind blown sand has resulted in the accumulative erosion and effect on the beach and the spit that can be seen to day.After the recent fire that stretched all the way to Thuyspunt it was significant to note that swimming pools began exhibiting traces of sand deposits unlike what was experienced before. By deduction it would appear therefore that the source of the sand still exists but the rate of migration has been severly curtailed. Instead of a grain of sand taking 2000 years to travel the distance from Oyster Bay to grannies pool it would probably now be facing a few hundred thousand years.
The construction of dams on the Kromme has similarly played a role in the destruction of the beaches as when the river flooded in the past silt was carried clockwise and deposited on the SFB beach, contrary to what would be intuitively expected to happen.
According to reports, the loss of sand to our beach over the past 50 years or so has been calculated as being in the order of 900 000 cubic meters
Mans intervention is now obviously crucial to resurrect the situation by artificial means in an economical and sustaiable way.
I am of the view that one cannot hope to contain sand by way of a pier when there is no sand nourishing the system. This would be as futile as fixing gutters to a house in the desert and hoping to collect water for domestic use.
The in-effectiveness of piers on the Durban beachfront became starkly apparent when the dredger in the harbour packed up during the soccer world cup. In a matter of weeks the beaches began to disappear.
On the resumption of pumping the beaches restored themselves.
The dredging of the harbour, biomimics the effect of the Umgeni river which once upon a time discharged into the harbour and disgorged silt onto the beaches , much in the same way as the dune fields used to nourish our beach.
Sand grain size, material and composition I understand plays a huge role in whether sand will stick to the beach or be immediately washed away.Recent interventions of trucking in sand from Plett to the Wilderness apparently demonstrated the futility of the exercise.
Santareme sand has proven itself as being compatible to the task for the past couple of million years and as such I would think therefore would be the best choice for beach nourishment.
A strip one kilometer long, stretching from harbour road to the airpark by 300 metres wide and 3 meters high would yield enough spoil to theoretically restore the beach to it’s condition of 50 years ago.
This otherwise dormant land, belonging to the Muni. is zoned as medium density residential to which the undulating topography is not best suited.
Sand is most economically transported in the form of a slurry, especially if being pumped downhill.
The recently completed stormwater system would be well suited to serve this purpose in carrying sand down the Romazini valley servitude and into the sea, bio-mimicing the wind blown dune source of sand of days gone by.
Whether the littoral drift alone would carry the sand to its desired destination would require studies by those qualified in marine Engineering and which would further determine the volumes timing and optimum points of introducing the slurry
Theoretically a bakkie load of sand a day after the restoration of the beach , ( 90000cubes /50 years ) would maintain the equilibrium.
Were nature to be responsive and sympathetic to this intervention it would follow that the rock revetment eye sores would become redundant and best barged out to the back line as a reef to reduce the force and scouring effect of the wave motion.
I believe that the village has very little chance of generating or soliciting the estimated 500 million rand, already 5 years or so old, based on hard interventions to solve the beach erosion problem.
Trevor, your idea of using the Municipal ground available for pumping or even trucking sand to replenish the beach instead of extending Sea Vista township onto unsuitable land makes lots of sense. Well done!
All that needs to be done now is to get DEAT into the real world, get the Municipality to frog jump some political hurdles, and most of all the get the SFPO to come down to earth and concentrate only ONLY beach stabilisation
as an SRA forsaking all else. This SRA would be of benefit to the entire community, Santareme, Links, private estates, business, tourism, and would
likely be supported by all without the squabbling that is going on.
Neil,
Adding sand to the beach from inland will be the death knell for the Kromme river. All the sand needed for the beach is already in the river. Surely the only answer is to shift the sand from the river to the beach but remember the futile attempt by the French mayor years ago when the pump was switched off while the pipes were full of sand and the project ground to a halt.
Neil, Two years ago, or thereabouts I had a number of meetings with Environmental affairsin PE, at which time, one of the senior Official’s off the record response to the proposal was most encouraging, the rider being that he foresaw the stumbling block as being “politics”.
At that time I suggested that in order to make the proposal sustainable a commercial activity could potentially be attracted into a public private partnership to make the project viable.
The nature of the partnership/industry would need to require the importation and circulation of sea water as the primary component to the process.
The two options that were suggested were abalone farming and de-salination, both of which require large volumes of sea water, to be circulated through the system and thereafter returned to the sea, which with a payload of beach nourishing sand as the “useless bye-product”, at minimal cost to the rate payers,could “do the trick”
The 100 metre head ruled out the first option on the basis of cost of electricity, but favored the second option, since an overall head of circa 120 meters would be required anyway to gravity to feed SFB.and its environs.
It was encouraging that one of the leading Environmental practitioners in the Country with experience in marine projects when informally approached, commented that this project would be a dream appointment due to its simplicity, in the bio-mimicry of nature and resolution of two looming major environmental disasters.(beach erosion and the drying up of our water supply)
As you rightly suggest the destruction and coverseley the restoration of the beach effects all property owners and estates, one way or the other, and as such the resolution of this problem is therefore largely non-partisan.
Very interesting, Trevor – I missed this post previously – did anything/anyone progress on this line of lateral thinking?
no, I guess the immediate crisis of stemming the breach will be consuming the thinking of the technical committee.