Erosion puts Durban beaches on red alert

INCREASED sand erosion along Durban’s beachfront has left wide stretches of beach under water and destroyed beachfront infrastructure, including a pump station and the North Beach lifesaving tower.

The serious predicament now facing eThekwini Municipality comes despite warnings as far back as 2009 which called for essential sand augmentation to maintain the Durban beachfront, one of the city’s biggest tourist attractions.

The magnitude of the soil erosion was brought to light by concerned resident, James Lea, who penned a letter to the city advising that the city’s coastal region required more sand.

“This is a relatively simple statement which has a relatively simplistic solution, yet day by day our world class beach and promenade gets further degraded. Sand pumping lay dormant for a sustained period and while currently a sand pumping scheme is in place, clearly it’s not functioning effectively, or perhaps commenced too late. What is clearly evident is the lack of on-going preventative maintenance at the beachfront. Sooner or later someone is going to get seriously injured or killed, when this could have been entirely preventable,” said Lea.

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Lisa Guastella, an environmental consultant, oceanographic and air quality specialist, confirmed that a specialist report produced in 2009 for the beachfront upgrade, which she co-authored, urged the municipality to maintain the beach and warned that insufficient maintenance would result in severe soil erosion and beach loss would dominate.

“We warned the municipality that the defined coastline would experience marine damage more often due to the effects of global warming and that the expense of routine storm damage repairs would increase. Any development should take cognisance of setback lines and should be above a 10m contour. We said sand pumping alone was only a short-term solution. The long-term solution is a policy of Coastal Retreat managed with sand pumping. Sadly, the sand pumping looks like it’s never going to get north of Addington again owing to failed infrastructure that has never been repaired,” she said.

Guastella said the booster station at Dairy Beach was itself now under threat. She expressed shock that no protection had been afforded to the North Beach lifeguard tower, which has, since the most recent spring high tides, been undermined.

“Surely some geobags could be installed as an emergency measure? The whole building is now at risk. The only item put in place is a bit of danger tape. Soon the surf spot known as New Pier will be a reef break. The Durban beachfront is highly modified and is artificial, hence it needs maintenance,” she said.

Local surfer, Mike Frew, said the pump house, which was meant to pump sand onto the beach, went out of commission a while ago.

“The level of the sand should be up to the base of the pump house, but this has been washed away. We have lost about 30 to 40 metres of sand on the beach,” he said.

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Frew said what was now left was a highly eroded beachfront that exposed large boulders which were a hazard. Walkways and showers have been washed away, palm trees have been toppled and electric cables lie exposed below the lifesaving tower. Despite the obvious damage, no city officials have come forward with any solution to the problem.

“The municipality has an agreement with Transnet to dredge so many thousands of cubic metres of sand from the harbour every year to replenish the beachfront, but what has come of this? We need millions of tons of sand to be replaced. The beachfront is now a dangerous place,” he said.

In response to queries by Berea Mail, eThekwini Head of Communications, Tozi Mthethwa said the municipality was aware of the problem. She said the erosion was a result of the effects of climate change, coupled with over-mining of sand.

“There is no shortage of sand. Sand capacity on our beaches has been affected by the recent inclement weather changes. To mitigate the situation, the municipality has employed several strategies. These include ensuring that beach sand washed out by the currents is swept back by municipal employees onto the beachfront on a daily basis. The municipality has also written to the national Department of Mineral Resources to request a meeting aimed at tightening regulations on the issuing of sand mining permits,” she said.

Mthethwa said the sand pumping operation, which is a joint exercise between the City and Transnet, and which is done via the Transnet dredger, is critical for the establishment and maintenance of a beach zone.

“The annual volume of sand that is required to maintain Durban’s beaches is approximately 250 000 cubic metres. Annually we have been able to pump approximately 500 000 cubic metres from Transnet. We replenished 100 000 cubic metres to 250 000 cubic metres up to Addington Beach using the main diameter pipe. Transnet’s drencher has been pumping directly onto our beachfront, however we can only pump up to Addington Beach. We are awaiting the construction of the Transnet Hopper Station which will help us with the sand. The dredger will fill the station and we will have a much more consistent sand supply,” said Mthethwa.

She said the municipality was aware of the coming high tides and said measure had been put in place to protect the infrastructure and to warn the public ahead of beach closures. “All our officials are on high alert,” she said.

Johnny Vassilaros, a local paddle-skier, said the city spent millions building a new sand pumping station on the Point, which is completely dysfunctional.

He said the station was unable to replenish the city’s beaches with sand as it could only pump sand as far as Addington, and was incapable of reaching the main beaches where the sand is needed.

“In two weeks we shall be experiencing the autumn equinox tides, and if they coincide with a huge swell, there will be huge damage, perhaps even more than we had in March 2007. The reason is simply that there is no sand to absorb the pounding surf.”

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