Greetings All,
Yep … it has been a long and hard road that we have travelled with most stake holders in the Zeekoeivlei and surrounding areas …..
- Long emails…
- Detailed reports on Rubbish flowing in..
- Videos about sludge and muck flowing in..
- Meetings behind the scenes – not so nice ones as well…
But the amount of work that we have seen taking place around our beloved vlei has been astounding….. to mention some …
- The City Of Cape Town has ensured that they have really cleaned out the rivers –
- not just at the mouth but upstream as well. Tons of dirt has been removed and is still in the process of been taken to the relevant dumpsites.
- The City has also deployed the correct machinery to completely clear and widen the inlets of both the Lotus rivers… Huge heaps of overgrown reeds and dirt taken out!
- Brand new Litter traps have been installed in Little Lotus and they are busy completing the Big Lotus one early next week …. Looking amazing! If only human beings would stop dumping things like old tv’s, Broken dirt bins, Mattress’s, huge vinyl Swimming pools, etc … etc … that, assisted by the tremendous force of the water in storms, starts putting pressure on the litter traps… Eish!
- Falsebay Nature Reserve staff have also been amazing in ensuring that their staff are on the scenes to remove litter at the mouths of these two rivers as soon as possible, even though we know that have huge challenges with decreased numbers of people.
- Local education against Littering –
- This has really been implemented in some of the communities along the river and all we can do is hope that it gets internalised and human beings take responsibility for their actions that are detrimental to our environment!
- That said … we took a drive to an informal settlement close to the river and was disgusted at the amount of litter just waiting to go into the river systems again! Another approach needed to change the mindsets….
- The initiative of the FOZR COMMITTEE to pro-actively remove tons of reeds in public places, and then partner with residents to clear specific areas has been well supported and successful.
- The huge heaps of reeds all over is in the process of being removed by our Falsebay Nature Colleagues – Huge thanks to them as well!
Litter trap fully installed at Little Lotus ….
Action time after last nights rains – Wow… Working perfectly as this dirt would have been in our vlei now!
Well done to the City!
So, the message that FOZR wants to leave us all with is … NOTHING can stop a united community in achieving a common goal and this was one of those cases where our strategy worked 100%.
Our sincere Thank you to each and every role player who contributed in making our environment better and now the goal must be to keep the system maintained correctly.
Regards
The FOZR committee
Be a Friend 🙂
Well done and thanks for leading this, Sidney.
Thanks Jimmy… The FULL FOZR COMMITTEE must be commended for their pro activeness!
Dear Mr Sidney Jacobs & the FOZR Committee – Thank you for this positive notice. I do hope this will be an ongoing project and that the authorities will be continually pressured and encouraged to work on the clearing of waterways into the Zeekoevlei, Rondevlei and Sandvlei Estuary. They are important recreational and environmental treasures. Educating relevant communities about the importance of proper waste disposal is also important. I do hope the day will come when all these treasures are well kept and preserved for the benefit of all. Thank you again to all concerned for the hard work that ahs been put in.
Great to see the fruits of our agitation have resulted in the City proving their capabilities!
We must however not become complacent and rest on our laurels!
The City has proved time & again that they do a clean-up prior to the replacement of the stop logs and then forget about cleaning the catch-fences until the next draw down! During the intervening 12 months, the catch fences, filled with litter, are unable to take the strain of the oncoming water and rupture or collapse sending the accumulated litter into the Vlei.
This has often been seen over the years, so let’s keep a sharp eye on the matter.
Thanks Sydney and committee for you efforts and the efficiency with which you have drawn in resources and action from all over the place. the results speak for themselves.
I must say that I agree with Len, we will all need to keep watching the traps and catchments to alert FOZR and council when things get out of hand during the upcoming season, as they tend to do 🙂
The FOZR committee supports the comments completely and hence we stated in the article….. maintenaince of the system must be ensured….. and we have already engaged the stakeholders. ..
Stay safe and fantastic support from everyone…..
Next goal is that huge island in the middle… it is screaming for HELP!
The kind of litter trap they have on the Lotus River is what we need at the end of Victoria Road where the storm water drain comes out.We need strong piece of wire and two posts across the outflow of the drain. Is there anyone out there who can make this happen? I think Sydney and his team will install if someone can buy the wire net and posts we probably have or can find…