Claims of contraventions in Bushman's dredging
Natural estuarine substrate being removed
PROVINCIAL environmental authorities have been taken to task by the Public Service Accountability Monitor (PSAM) for allowing massive excavation of sediment in the Bushman’s River.
This is in apparent contravention of an existing environmental authorisation (EA).
At issue is the use of a back actor to remove flood debris including rubble, but which Nicholas Scarr of the Rhodes University-based PSAM said has resulted in the removal of “copious amounts of natural estuarine substrate”.
A little-known EA was granted to Ndlambe Municipality in August 2013 which makes provision for the removal of sediment from the estuary by way of induced ebb flow scouring action and dredging, to open a channel in the heavily silted river.
According to the basic assessment report, “home owners have difficulty accessing their riverfront properties with boats, particularly at low tide”.
Although the municipality was the applicant and authorisation holder, according to the EA letter the Bushman’s River Preservation Trust is the project proponent and implementer, and responsible for ensuring compliance with the conditions of the EA.
The Department of Economic Development, Environmental Affairs and Tourism’s (Dedeat) Port Elizabeth office originally declined the application. There was an appeal and litigation, after which the appeal was upheld and the approval issued.
Scarr said his attention was first drawn to the matter only after the appeal was finalised “and then last week we were alerted about the current state of affairs”.
In an e-mail to Scarr in August 2013, Dedeat senior manager for environmental impact management Gerry Pienaar wrote that the Bushman’s River dredging/tidal scouring “may well become a hot issue in the Ndlambe/ Grahamstown area”.
“This matter has already been subject to an appeal process and also litigation. We had to find the best way to deal with serious legal implications for the department and have tried to cover all the bases as best as possible. The matter remains problematic and very debatable,” Pienaar said.
He said at the time the EA would not entitle the proponents to commence until they complied with Sea Shore Act requirements, which would include the publi- cation of a notice requesting public comment on the act application.
In November last year Mike Cohen of CEN environmental consultants in Port Elizabeth sent a letter to Dedeat explaining that “during the agitation process to remove sediment from the Bushman’s Estuary, contractors have encountered a problem with stones and foreign debris which apparently washed into the channel during floods about two years ago.”
The municipality had attempted to clear the debris but was unsuccessful, Cohen said, so the applicants asked if they could use a back actor “in terms of their existing environmental authorisation” and planned to dispose of the material either at a quarry site or municipal landfill site.
Kenton-on-Sea resident Carol Whitnall alerted TotT to the activity on Tuesday.
“There are huge piles of mud pushed against the river bank, from the boat launch, to close to the bridge. It’s an awful mess and local people can’t walk on that bank anymore,” Whitnall said.
She said she was unaware of any environmental impact assessment or authorisation.
“There didn’t seem to have been any public participation – it just happened. It seems people with money can have this done so they can park their boats right next to their houses,” Whitnall said.
Scarr was already aware of the goings-on and had e-mailed his concerns to national and provincial environmental authorities last week.
He expressed surprise that in its reply to CEN in January, Dedeat indicated that the Sea-Shore Act was not relevant to the excavation given that “it is clear that this material is in fact rubble and not natural estuarine substrate”.
He submitted photographs which showed “copious amounts of natural estuarine substrate have, in fact, been removed during the course of the excavation, while at the same time evidence of ‘rubble’ is no- tably absent”.
He said the excavation appears to have contravened the Sea-Shore Act and the EA, which made no provision for use of a back actor. Furthermore, Scarr said the excavation site does not fall within the locations indicated in the diagrams attached to the EA.
“In the circumstances, and with CEN having advised interested and affected parties that some 3 000m³ of material was removed, the excavation appears to have occurred in violation of NEMA (National Environmental Management Act), as well as of the Sea-Shore Act as already alluded to.”
He called on Dedeat to “respond to the apparent transgressions in accordance with its responsibility to enforce these statutes”.
Scarr received responses from the national Department of Environment Affairs requesting further information, and in a response cc’d to TotT on Tuesday, Sandiso Zide of Dedeat said: “We will look at the matter.”