Rising popularity, rising sea put beachfront in jeopardy
● It used to be a beach paradise — until the beach started disappearing. Then the beach parking lot. Then a large piece of the main beachfront road.
Now the waves eating away at St Francis Bay have prompted an emergency plan to protect the remaining beachfront and houses in the firing line of climate change and the effects of human overdevelopment.
The department of environmental affairs this week confirmed it had authorised the use of rock buffers, or revetments, most critically along a thin sand spit that separates the open sea from R20m homes.
However, residents say the problem is so severe they need more than piles of rock. They have applied to build solid rock groynes out to sea to build up more sand. To do so, they are raising funds through a special rates area for a plan that could cost about R100m.
Experts say the town and its pristine beaches are victims of their own success: the influx of people prompted housing development that now covers “active sand” areas that once replenished the beach. They say there is not enough sand blowing into the bay to replace that which is scoured out by periodic storms.
Scientific studies of the area suggest the St Francis Bay beach has retreated on average half a metre a year between 2006 and 2015, and significantly faster since then due to a series of violent storms.
Two weeks ago, a storm surge scoured out a massive quantity of sand and even splashed over the spit at its narrowest point.
“We are one big storm away [from the water breaking through the sand spit],” said Greg Miller, project manager for St Francis Property Owners. “It [erosion] has been going on for a long time but we
[humankind] have definitely accelerated it.”
Of particular concern to the project leaders is the 700m sand spit separating the sea from 500 homes known as the St Francis Bay Canals, built along 10km of artificial waterways.
The development, pioneered in 1959 by Leighton Hulett, a member of the prominent KZN family that founded the Hulett sugar empire, grew into a fully fledged town which is part of Kouga municipality.
Hulett’s son, Neville, said the canals are routinely dredged and the sediment dumped back onto the spit.
“I don’t think there is a disaster here or that the whole of St Francis will fall into the sea — people saying that are being sensationalist,” said Hulett, adding that any breach would be quickly plugged.
He said the sand cycle — the way sediment moves along the coast and flows between land and sea if it is not impeded by human development — is only now starting to be understood.
“It wasn’t obvious when my father started the town in the late ’50s,” said Hulett.
Coastal erosion has severely affected other coastal towns and cities, including Cape Town and Durban, with one recent study predicting a sea-level rise of between 28cm and 98cm by 2100 due to climate change.
Inappropriate coastal infrastructure has compounded the problem and also disrupted the sand cycle, notably in Hout Bay.
St Francis Bay also faces a storm of a different kind: efforts to raise funds through a special rates area in the canals have prompted a group of disaffected residents to threaten legal action.
They have lodged an official complaint with Kouga municipality, claiming the vote in favour does not reflect the views of the entire town.
Kouga mayor Horatio Hendricks said it had finalised a contract with a firm of marine engineering consultants to begin work on the dune spit.
“We are working very closely with the [Eastern Cape environmental affairs department] and the community in the area,” said Hendricks.
Department official Dayalan Govender confirmed it had issued environmental authorisation for the rock revetment plan but had yet to receive an application for the rocky groynes.
One resident involved in the project said no human intervention would be a permanent solution. “You can’t fight nature — we see it all over the world. Nature must take its course. It will do what it wants.”
However, estate agent Richard Arderne sees it differently: “Some people say that in 20 years’ time sea levels will rise by a metre. We can’t just sit and wait for that. We have to go ahead and get sand onto the beach.”