Erosion draws closer to Sundowner properties
SUNDOWNER – River turns from beauty to beast.
The Sundowner community is still on tenterhooks awaiting the fate of the Sundowner River and dam.
This comes after the threat of erosion moving closer to properties near the river banks has increased over the last few months because of heavy rain.
In November last year, the community sent queries to the Johannesburg Roads Agency (JRA) asking for help in cleaning the dam as well as resolving the erosion issue.
The dam is filled with soil and other debris while the river has trees blocking its flow.
Sundowner resident Robin Linton is concerned that it will take one massive storm to cause properties near the river banks to collapse and threaten people’s lives.
“The JRA sent an operator with a TLB [tractor loader backhoe] to do some rectification work inside the river,” he said. He did some excavation and piled removed sand against the crumbling river wall next to one of the residential complexes.
Then JRA started trucking in sand to supplement what was insufficient to finish building up the river bank. However, in early December, work stopped abruptly and was not completed.”
According to the Roads Agency spokesperson Bertha Peters-Scheepers, they have no active projects on the Sundowner River and dam and are not involved in its clearing.
“It is important to note that a river, stream or water body in the City of Johannesburg has three owners,” said Peters-Scheepers.
“The water belongs to National Department of Water Affairs, and according to the City, the edge of the watercourse belongs to Johannesburg Roads Agency. And all the green area around the watercourses belong to Johannesburg Parks and Zoo.
“Furthermore, there is also the involvement of Pikitup for the periodic clean-up of solid waste. It must be noted that any activity carried out along the watercourse must be in line with the Environmental Management Plan.
JRA therefore, suggests that the matter must be escalated to the City of Johannesburg Environmental Infrastructure Services Department (EISD) for further comment or investigation,” added Peters-Scheepers.
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