New Holsloot weir restores ecological infrastructure

by Robyn Carstens, robync@elsenburg.com

OOn 27 May 2021, the minister of the Western Cape Department of Agriculture (WCDoA), Dr Ivan Meyer, officially opened the Holsloot weir near Rawsonville, which was completed at a cost of R76,95 million.

This river restoration project was in response to severe floods experienced in 2011, 2012, and 2013. The floods caused large-scale damage to the rubble weirs, agricultural infrastructure, and productive agricultural land. Following a disaster declaration, permission for emergency repairs was granted by the Department of Environmental Affairs and Development Planning (DEA&DP). Urgent repair work was immediately started to restore water supply to 150 farming households and 4 000 hectares of developed irrigation agriculture.

This project was initiated as a permanent solution to the constant damage caused by the floods. The planning, modelling, design, approval, and construction of a replacement weir as a permanent mass concrete structure followed. The project was finally completed in April 2021 after a two-year construction period.

The WCDoA’s sub-programme Disaster Risk Reduction in the programme Sustainable Resource Use and Management (SRUM) was instrumental in this project to manage the funding process. SRUM’s Cape Winelands district manager, Rudolph Röscher, says that they supported the Holsloot Water User’s Association (HWUA) by using the principles of area-wide planning and the development of a river maintenance management plan (MMP). “Using the principles of payment for ecosystem services, the HWUA has included the cost for the alien clearing in the water tariff that the individual farmers pay along the Holsloot River”, says Röscher. As such, the HWUA charges water users an additional fee for the purpose of maintenance and alien clearing in the riparian zone.

Minister Meyer handed over the Holsloot weir’s keys to Etienne Weidemann of the HWUA. Weidemann says that he is thrilled by the splendid example of what a functioning government can do for its people, like the building of the weir. “We will take care of the operation and will hold the individual landowners accountable to certain responsibilities of catchment maintenance”, says Weidemann.

An additional benefit of the weir is that it now measures water abstraction, which ensures that farmers stay within the lawful allocations. This river protection intervention has stabilised the riverbanks, which prevents further soil erosion of the riverbanks and improved functioning of the ecosystem. It also means seeing less movement of sediment into the river, which improves the waterflow.

Speaking at the opening, Minister Meyer said: “We can celebrate this outcome of the Western Cape Government’s (WCG) infrastructure-led growth strategy to mitigate the impacts of climate change. Completing this project was possible because competent and committed officials and partners affected the project’s design, scope, implementation, and construction”. The Holsloot project team includes the WCDoA, HWUA, Stellenbosch University, Ingerop Consulting Engineers, JVC Construction, and the project management entity Casidra.

The Holsloot intervention links directly to two of the priority projects in the WCG’s SmartAgri implementation plan:

1. The restoration of ecological infrastructure for increased agricultural productivity and socio-ecological resilience.

2. Collaborative, integrated catchment management aimed at improving water security and job creation.

This project is yet another example of excellent stakeholder collaboration and integrated management aimed at improving climate change resilience, water security, and job creation. The WCDoA will continue to consider more productive and resilient solutions from an agricultural and environmental perspective. AP