IF you die sooner rather than later due to anything from heart attack to Meniere’s disease (whatever that is), you might well be able to blame it on those unbending old salts at Environmental Affairs.
Don’t you dare tamper with Mother Nature, says the latter. Leave the Umzimkulu river mouth alone… or else.
In fact, a green keeper who used to work at the Port Shepstone Country Club some years ago was actually locked up – together with a few caddies – for digging the mouth open in the dead of night to prevent the course from being flooded for the umpteenth time. They were bailed out hastily and the club has had a running bureaucratic battle with the department ever since.
The fact that one often had to use a canoe rather than a golf cart to get from tee to green was not considered a good enough excuse to breach the mouth, they argued. But permission was begrudgingly given after much begging. Late night ‘breach parties’ were hastily convened by the current green keeper Jess Verster, Howard Crouch and other helpers armed with spades and beer.
It was only when people upstream started claiming that the river water tasted salty when the mouth was closed that Ugu and Hibiscus Coast Municipalities entered the fray.
But even they have had to battle red tape to get permission to open the mouth artificially and, as a result, the salt literally hit the fan this past week.
Just one glass of water from any tap on Sunday would have given you a dose of salt to last a lifetime.
Gargle (I mean Google) “risks linked to salt” and you will suddenly have the urge to stick a finger down your throat and try to regurgitate the glass of water you have just gulped down.
Salt increases your blood pressure which is a major cause of strokes, heart failure and heart attacks. Then there are links between salt intake and stomach cancer, osteoporosis, obesity, kidney stones, vascular dementia, asthma and diabetes to name a few.
The irony is that while Environmental Affairs might well be doing a great job safeguarding our environment for future generations, there might be none of us humans left to enjoy it. We might all have died of some salt-related ailment or thirst.
After all, man cannot live on beer or wine alone and Professor Tim Noakes says we must stay away from sugary drinks.
