EL BUSINESSMAN’S DAM WALL OF DISCONTENT
Environmental agency investigates claim by 40 downstream farmers who say Tony Cotterell’s structure has dried up their water source
The Green Scorpions are investigating claims that an expanded dam on an East London farm has blocked off critical water supplies to more than 40 farmers downstream.
The farmers, who raised their concerns with the environmental management inspectorate via a petition, have taken issue with the dam on Teddy Farms, which they say is wreaking havoc with ecological systems as well.
Teddy Farms falls under the ownership and management of the Kempston Group’s farming division, Edcot Trust, which is owned by East London businessman Tony Cotterell.
The farmers are convinced the dam, which they allege to have been illegally expanded, is to blame for the lack of water supply to their farms.
Cotterell, however, attributes their water woes to the drought.
Teddy Farms is in Eureka, about 4km from the Johnson & Johnson factory in Wilsonia.
The dam, which covers about 4ha according to calculations made using Google Earth Pro, sits in a natural water course.
Jacques Jordaan, who has a 2.5km section of water frontage on his Santa Paloma Guest Farm, said: “In the 15 years that I have been on this farm the stream has never run dry, whether we were in a drought or not.”
At first, they attributed the lack of water to low rainfall, but during the course of the past six months the water course had dried up completely. “Since
March, the water has gradually stopped flowing and now it is bone dry. I would accept it and work with it if it came from nature, but this is a man-made issue. There was no environmental impact assessment [EIA] done before the dam [on Teddy Farm] was expanded,” Jordaan said.
Chris du Preez, who owns a farm neighbouring Santa Paloma and has a 300m section of water frontage on his land, said almost all the plants along his section of the water course had died. “All the trees are dead. Everything along the river is dying and it will take a lot for the ecosystems to recover.”
The Dispatch visited Jordaan’s farm and found the small stream along his property had mostly dried up. Most plants and trees along the water course were brown and dry.
Department of environmental affairs (Dedeat) spokesperson Ncedo Lisani confirmed no EIA had been done before the initial expansion of the dam, the infilling or dredging from a watercourse, or the clearance of vegetation.
The initial investigation reflected no department of water & sanitation licence for the expansion of the dam.
Lisani said the Green Scorpions conducted a site inspection on Jordaan’s farm earlier this month and found the 2.5km portion of stream that was inspected to be completely dry. Lisani said it was evident from the site inspection that the main water supply had been cut off and the little water the inspected property received was only from periodic rainfall, not from the catchment area.
However, expert reports would be required to corroborate this, he said.
Construction on the dam wall began in December 2018.
In February 2019, the Green
Scorpions issued an instruction to cease all construction on the dam. This instruction was complied with, according to Cotterell.
Cotterell said the dam had been on the farm for more than 30 years. Construction on the dam was undertaken to repair the dam wall, which was damaged during flash floods. He was unaware an EIA was needed.
He said the dam wall had been raised during the repair process, but when asked by the Dispatch by how much, he could not say.
Cotterell said there was only one main tributary leading into the dam that still had water the rest were completely dry.
As such, he attributed the farmers’ water woes to low rainfall and drought. “It’s like a dust bowl and we are now letting out more water from the dam than we are getting in.”
When repairs to the dam were made, the dam’s spillway was constructed so that, should the dam overflow, excess water would run into the quarry.
The Dispatch visited Teddy Farms and confirmed the tributaries surrounding the farm were running dry.
Only one of the water course’s main tributaries showed a steady trickle of water running into the dam.
There was also a steady flow of water being let out of the dam, back into the natural water course downstream.
Lisani said Edcot Trust submitted a S24G application for the listed activities in November 2019.
S24G is an environmental authorisation application to regularise an unlawful start to or continuation of a listed activity in terms of section 24G of the National Environmental Management Act.
“The final application was submitted after the public participation process was finalised and the Environmental Assessment Practitioner’s concerns were addressed.”
But according to Jordaan, the public participation process was not thorough.
“None of us were contacted. We were informed that the public participation process that was followed was to erect a notice at the entrance of Teddy Farms, advertise in the newspaper and stick a notice on the gate of an immediate neighbour,” said Jordaan.
Lisani said the trust would be issued a fine following the S24G process, but that the dam may or may not be authorised after payment of this fine. The maximum fine for environmental transgressions is R10m.