Hymany Dam deteriorates at an alarming rate
RANDPARK Ridge – JRA has promised the dam will be reconstructed or replaced in the future.
Residents have warned of the deteriorating state of Hymany Dam…
Randpark Ridge Village Association (RRVA) has monitored the issue for years, and brought the matter to the municipality’s attention.
The association’s previous chairperson, Phil Culham, first reported concerns about the safety and structural integrity of this dam prior to 2017, and afterwards Rod Rankine, one of the directors of the association and a construction materials specialist himself, wrote a detailed report in July 2017.
It warned that the dam is structurally unsound, and if not repaired soon, it could be destroyed in a single flood event and the whole dam would have to be rebuilt.
Since then, the RRVA and its chairperson Quinton Robbertze have followed up on the issue.
After a front-page article in the Randburg Sun in March last year, a meeting was held to discuss urgent repairs to the Seder Road pipe culvert that June that included an environmental engineer.
But as the lockdown continued, the matter seemed to have been forgotten about by the City.
But the Johannesburg Roads Agency posted a notice at the main entrance to the dam in October, indicating that a detailed investigation had been conducted by Aurecon Engineering and that the dam (although not considered unsafe due to its small capacity) would be reconstructed/replaced almost in its entirety.
The condition of the dam has worsened appreciably in the last year. Currently (during the winter dry season of 2021), there are large ponds of water downstream that have bypassed the toe of the dam and benching as well as significantly increased leakage of water via the earth embankment and rubble masonry guide walls of the side channel spillway.
The dam wall is the responsibility of the Johannesburg Roads Agency (JRA) and not Johannesburg City Parks and Zoo.
Ward 98 councillor Beverley Jacobs said she had escalated the issue to JRA but was told there is no budget for the work.
“I met JRA on-site a year and a half ago,” she said.
“I have been on this issue since 2017 but we have had no satisfaction.”
JRA spokespeople, Mosa Makhalima and Lucia Mhlanga both confirmed with the Randburg Sun in mid-July that they had sent the query on to the relevant department and would then revert with comment, but they have not provided comment yet.
This publication will publish their comments as they are made.
