22 JULY 2020
YOUR FREE COPY
www.thevillagenews.co.za
www.sacoronavirus.co.za • National hotline: 0800 029 999 • Provincial hotline: 021 928 4102 • Whatsapp "Hi" to 0600 123 456 Keep your distance
THE VILLAGE
NEWS 2m
2m
2m
Jenny Parsons from Pringle Bay captured this sweet moment during a beautiful sunset along Clarence Drive last week. A baboon mother and her youngsters from a local troop were preening each other and relaxing along the roadside. (Read more about baboon management on P4) PHOTO: Jenny Parsons
Storms bring relief Writer De Waal Steyn
T
he series of cold fronts and accompanying rainstorms during the past few weeks have seen the level of the De Bos Dam rise by close on 13 percentage points, as well as the breaching of both the Klein River and Kleinmond estuaries. Although it was a bitterly cold day on Wednesday 15 July, the news of the breaching of the Klein River for the first time in five years spread faster than wildfire and soon residents were flocking to Grotto East to see the water rushing into the ocean. The Kleinmond lagoon breached three days later, having also done so in July last year, for the first time in four years. (See photos on P4) According to scientists, the lagoons in the area have been slow to breach because of lower rainfall over the past couple of years as a result of the drought. The good news, however, is that
the last two months have seen above average rainfall in the region. In Hermanus a total of 115 mm was measured in June, compared to the 70-year average of 80 mm. In June 2019 only 55 mm of rain fell in Hermanus. To date, close to 90 mm has been measured for July, against an average of 84 mm, with 64 mm measured in July 2019. The highest winter rainfall measured in June was a whopping 217 mm in 1958, with the lowest recorded figure, a measly 2.5 mm in July 1953. According to long-term weather reports, no rain is expected to fall in the next two weeks and temperatures will hover in the high teens to low twenties until next weekend. And while the breaching of the two estuaries has been widely reported on and photographed by townsfolk, the other, larger mouth of the Bot River estuary, at Meer-en-See, does not open naturally. It needs to be opened by grader from time to time, in accordance with the region’s
mouth and estuary management plan. According to Pierre de Villiers, CapeNature’s Co-ordinator of the Western Cape Estuaries’ Programme, opening a mouth results in large volumes of water rushing out of the estuary. This scours out sand and mud which is washed out to sea, providing an important source of sand and nutrients for the ocean and its species. The interaction between the sea and the freshwater systems which originate in river catchment areas in the mountains has been present since the beginning of time, he points out. “Estuaries form the interphase between freshwater and saltwater. Special species have evolved to survive within these changing ecosystems. Most of them require some connection with the ocean to complete their life cycle. In fact, some estuarine fish species, like Steenbras and Kob, breed at sea and then the young pass back into the estuaries to develop and grow.” The other large estuary in the region at Uilkraals
near Gansbaai was breached artificially last year after the depth of the lagoon exceeded 2 metres. The storms also provided a nasty surprise for residents of Kidbrooke Retirement Village and surrounding areas after storm damage to an underground Eskom cable left them without electricity for a week. According to Eskom, a 650-metre-long cable had to be replaced, leaving residents frustrated and cold. The other dams that form part of the Western Cape Water Supply System also received a boost during the past week, climbing 4.5 percentage points from 72.7 % to 77.2 %. In the corresponding period last year, the average level of dams in the system stood at 63.5 %. The largest of these, the Theewaterskloof Dam now stands at 72.9 % of capacity, compared to 53.4 % in 2019. The Lower Steenbras stands at 78.4 % while the Upper Steenbras is 100% full.
