Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 08 May 2011

The Water Affairs department has given the developer of the Beach Club in Hout Bay 48 hours to explain why it should not issue a directive to stop all further in-filling of a wetland area, remove all the fill already dumped and levelled, and rehabilitate the site to its natural state.

The developer was given notice to stop all further in-filling in the wetland area in the Disa River estuary.

A notice to this effect was served yesterday on the development company, Really Useful Investments (Pty) Ltd, by “Blue Scorpion” Thando Stimela, a compliance, monitoring and enforcement official at the department’s regional head office in Bellville.

The notice, issued under the Water Act, is similar in intent to a notice the City of Cape Town served on the developer last month.

That notice, which alleged contraventions of the city’s stormwater management by-law, also ordered the developer to stop all further in-filling in the disputed wetland area in the Disa River estuary, and required it to remove all fill already placed within the 1:100-year flood plain.

Conservationists have reported that the city’s order is being ignored, and that substantial amounts of new fill have been trucked into the site since last week, with a front-end loader being used to level it. Continue reading Water Affairs serves notice on wetland developer