Cap Town - Amid the ramped-up efforts and budget to rehabilitate Cape Town’s waterways, the City on Tuesday night relaunched the Sand River Catchment Forum in the hope of driving collaborative water governance to address the issues in the catchment.
Numerous community representatives, environmental groups and other stakeholders attended the relaunch.
The Sand River Catchment is a watershed that finds its source in the Cape Peninsula Mountains between Constantia and Tokai, drains through the southern suburbs and terminates in the ocean at the Zandvlei Estuary.
Some of the key tributaries are the Kirstenhof, Keysers, Diep, Little Princess Vlei and Mocke Rivers.
Alex Lansdowne, chairperson of the mayoral committee for water quality in wetlands and waterways, said the rivers in this catchment provided important ecological services to Cape Town.
However, Lansdowne said this catchment was under immense pressure a year ago with pump stations and sewerage infrastructure under immense strain, and poor water quality due to many sewage pollution incidents, including the fish die-offs which resulted in Zandvlei being closed for public use.
He explained that the last catchment forum became obsolete during the Covid-19 pandemic and said the only way to maintain good water quality downstream was if the river was protected upstream through monitoring and collaborative management of the complex catchment.
“The relaunch of the Sand River Catchment Forum is an important milestone towards managing environmental water holistically, together with stakeholders and communities.
“The catchment forum will bring together the City, urban agriculture, community, conservation and businesses to discuss investments, developments and issues arising within the catchment,” Lansdowne said.
Zandvlei Trust chairperson David Bristow said: “Most of the problems in this, and all the river catchments in Cape Town, can be ascribed to (bad) human behaviour – mostly pollution and illegal dumping, but also the inadvertent damage to sewerage infrastructure by people putting stuff down toilets and into manholes that should not be, including building rubble, household garbage and worse.”
Parkscape founder Nicky Schmidt added that the challenges of this catchment lied in the diversity of needs of existing users and people associated with the rivers.
“The solution will lie in creating outcomes of common good in which all find value. This common good will likely be different for different rivers and greenbelts within the system,” Schmidt said.
The forum will elect a chairperson, vice-chairperson, secretary, sub-committees and other non-exco members over the coming weeks.
