EDITOR: These pictures were taken on October 12, 2014. They show the big plastic water pipeline feeding Scottburgh as it passes through TC Robertson Nature Reserve below the hospital, to the west of the R102.
I was outraged to discover this total disregard for a pretty little rocky kloof tumbling down the steep slopes of the upper (southern) section of the reserve. Particularly as our officer-in-charge, Mike Gower, had been assured by Ugu’s representatives and those of its consultants that the pipe would be entirely buried, invisible, as it passed through the reserve. And that any indigenous vegetation unavoidably damaged would be scrupulously rehabilitated.
Not being engineers, the TCR committee can’t say this ‘patch-up job’ won’t perhaps last happily for 50 years. I wouldn’t bet on it though.
As for Ugu, like Umdoni – whose ‘conservation’ land it is – they have far more important fish to fry than to bother with the concerns of the ratepayers who drink the water. Or the greenies mad enough to like the bush.
Peter Vos
TC Robertson Nature Reserve committee
