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Nidaa Husain<\/p>\n
Bulldozers are back on Durban beachfront to reshape sections of the newly established dune cordon.<\/p>\n
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Two years after revamping the beachfront the eThekwini Municipality is spending another R400 000 to \u201creshape\u201d parts of the Golden Mile, mainly to lower the height of newly established sand dunes. <\/p>\n
Mike Andrews, deputy head of the strategic projects unit, said the reshaping project would affect a 400-metre section of dunes north of Bell Street, and the re-establishment of the dune vegetation should be complete before Christmas. <\/p>\n
Responding to e-mail questions from Durban resident John Lansley, who asked why bulldozers were now digging into dunes in the section between Addington Hospital and uShaka Pier, Andrews said the original project had been designed in 2008\/09. <\/p>\n
However, shortly before work started in 2009\/10, a sister municipal department was given authority|to replenish the beach sand and pumped nearly 500m\u00b3 of sand|on to uShaka and South|beaches. <\/p>\n
\u201cAs you can imagine, this resulted in significant changes to the beach profile in these areas, as well as in the beach access boardwalks and dunes\u2026 rising substantially higher than the promenade,\u201d Andrews said. <\/p>\n
This had affected the height design of the dune zone, views of the beach and the plan to allow stormwater run-off to disperse into the dunes. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou would also have noted that this resulted in shower water stagnating in the vicinity of the beach access points. This is not only unsightly, but unhygienic.\u201d <\/p>\n
The current project was intended to rectify these problems, Andrews said, as well as to improve visibility of the beach and the security of beachgoers. <\/p>\n
Andrews said the re-establishment of dunes on the beachfront would help to protect infrastructure from wave surges and reduce wind-blown sand. <\/p>\n
Responding to queries from The Mercury on whether the new and lower dune height would leave beaches more vulnerable to wave surges, the city conceded that larger volumes of sand provided more protection. <\/p>\n
However, the imperative to guard against wave surges had to be balanced against the city\u2019s other objectives, such as stormwater drainage and better views of the beach zone. <\/p>\n
Nevertheless, ecologists have suggested the dunes may have to be \u201creshaped\u201d on a regular basis if the city\u2019s objective is to ensure a clear view from the promenade. <\/p>\n
The latest exercise has also raised questions about continuing financial costs to ratepayers and the legal implications of deviating from environmental approval processes. <\/p>\n
Lansley, who sent questions to the city, said: \u201cAs a Durban ratepayer I contributed to the establishment of what I believed to be a fantastic|effort to try to re-establish the dunes and protect the beachfront from erosion. <\/p>\n
\u201cTo my amazement, I see that these dunes are being removed and there is no guarantee that the new design will work perfectly. <\/p>\n
\u201cI believe in the old saying, \u2018If it ain\u2019t broke, don\u2019t try to fix it\u2019.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Nidaa Husain Bulldozers are back on Durban beachfront to reshape sections of the newly established dune cordon. Two years after revamping the beachfront the eThekwini Municipality is spending another R400 000 to \u201creshape\u201d parts of the Golden Mile, mainly to lower the height of newly established sand dunes. Mike Andrews, deputy head of the strategic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[8275,953,2143],"class_list":{"0":"post-15003","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-durban","8":"tag-newspaper","9":"tag-the-mercury","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15003","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15003"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15003\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}