Klein River artificial breaching a complete failure

Local knowledge ignored by KREF the local body mandated to manage the Klein River estuary. Below is a letter from the  Kenilworth Hermanus Scout Camp who have been camping on the site for an unbroken 100 years 

 If this should consern you call Sue Mathews 0833815432 or Rob Fryer 0721855726

River flowing to recent breached mouth in distance

Campsite cess pit high and dry due to incorrect breach east of berm

Dear Noon,

As recommended by you, I am enlisting the support of the aesthetics committee in regard to the scout camp site at Die Mond. As you know, we, the Kenilworth Hermanus Scout Camp have been camping on that site for an unbroken 100 years during the months of December and January for approximately 2 weeks each year. For the first 90 of those years, the site was more or less pristine and the water in front of the site was clean and clear and about 20ft deep and connected to the main body of the Hermanus lagoon. For the last 10 years situation has been deteriorating due to continuous artificial annual breaching of the berm in an easterly position thereby causing silting which has separated the water in front of the campsite from the main lagoon by a kilometre of seasand. This has been aggravated by the sewage department spilling copious quantities of raw sewage into the water in front of the campsite. This has resulted in the resultant pond becoming a cesspit unfit for any recreational purposes. The above is despite numerous appeals to the powers that be (KREF, OCF, Cape Nature) to manage the mouth differently. I therefore urge you to put pressure on the mayor and her council to do something, preferably before December, to restore the site to its former pristine glory.

Maybe you could point out just how inefficient the recent artificial opening was for the following reasons:

1. the breaching took place when the water level was 20cm below the level of the berm which resulted in 2.5 billion litres of water    not being available for scouring.

2  the extreme eastern opening caused the main channel to do a complete U-turn before entering the sea and thereby disippating huge amounts of energy and therefore silt-carrying capacity.

3 the opening took place at a time when the tidal system was nearer the neap tides than the spring tides also causing a huge loss of potential silt carrying capacity and scouring effect.

4 At the time of the opening there was an extremely strong westerly wind blowing the water inland thereby also reducing the scouring and silt-carrying capacity.

Intelligent consideration of these 4 points would have gone a long way to correcting the untennable situation described above.

I trust that you and your committee will view this site with the status that it deserves and apply the necessary pressures.

Kind regards,

Antony van Hoogstraten (Hoogie)

Chairman of the Camp Committee

Letter sent to;

john@whale.co.za, lloydn@hermanus.co.za, Nigel.Gwynne-Evans@pgwc.gov.za, morgan_griffiths@yahoo.co.uk, krichardson@wbhs.org.za, gregsimpson@telkomsa.net, Geoff.DuToit@shands.co.za, reivey@iafrica.com