A plan for better management of Kat River system
George Municipality has been working on a strategy for better management of the Kat River system, which has received a lot of local media attention due to ongoing urban pollution.
The state of this river has a direct impact on the Garden Route Dam.
At a recent feedback meeting for Ward 18 residents, Deputy Director of Planning and Environment Delia Power said the plan is to expand the current conservation area for the Kat River system to include the whole area north of the Garden Route Dam, including the areas around the landing strip and waterworks. It will be managed in accordance with the municipality's protected areas management plan that is currently a draft document. Power said this conservation area must become more sustainable as it is in the city's catchment. "We have drawn a hard urban edge on the northern boundary of the city, so we do not want to expand towards the mountain."
A biodiversity site with fynbos and the whole riparian area at the dam have also been included in the conservation area.
Two other conservation areas fall under the municipality - the Garden Route Botanical Garden and the Fort Koppie area in Uniondale. These will also be handled under the management plan.
These areas were identified in conjunction with officials from the Western Cape Department of Environmental Affairs and Development Planning (DEADP) during the amendment process of the municipal spatial development framework (SDF) in 2017. The urban edge (as contained in George's 2013 SDF) was adjusted. "We started by aligning the urban edge with the outer boundaries of CBAs (critical biodiversity areas) and then we looked in detail into contour lines and riverine areas, and where the riparian buffers for the riverine areas were."
Urban edge was in the dam water
In the 2013 SDF, the urban edge ran into the water of the dam and had to be retracted. The engineers projected a 200year flood line based on the estimated rising of the dam wall and a 200-year setback from that flood line was applied for the dam area. The urban edge was also retracted to exclude areas that fall within this flood line. Everything in a CBA was also excluded from the urban edge.
Kat River system
A service provider determined the status of the three municipal conservation areas and what needed to be done to make them sustainable and feasible to manage. Their investigation revealed that the Kat River had previously been proclaimed as a "little sliver" that "just kind of runs on the side of the dam".
"The only rationale we can apply to that is a 30m buffer, that was created by means of conservation area between the water course and the developed area," Power said.
However, this 30m setback applied to Loerie Park and other settlements along the Kat River is not "remotely" enough to protect the water course.
"The Kat River as it exists at the moment is not a sustainable conservation area. It succumbs to pollution and most of the pollution we see on that system comes from the households surrounding it, according to the survey of our service provider. There are sections of the Kat River that have households on the north and south side. A lot of people have encroached onto that conservation area. We have done a complete survey of all the encroachments and that will be dealt with in due course."
Budget
She stressed that the municipality has to have a budget for everything that falls in the conservation area and any expansion of the area must be conservation worthy. It will be a budget of millions and key performance indicators would have to be set.
Before the municipality can go ahead with the promulgation of the larger conservation area, all encroachments onto the area must be dealt with and the decision regarding future development of the dam has to be finalised. The environmental minister and Cabinet have to approve the expansion of the conservation boundaries.