Page 12 — 4th July 2007 The Midlands Herald

Lack of maintenance for Beacon Hill

water reservoir
A resident in the vicinity of Lakeview
Road and Archbell Crescent below Beacon
Hill is concerned that the nearby municipal
water reservoir appears to be suffering from
of the municipal technical department in
Campbell Road, where a member of staff
whose name he never asked told him that
something would be done about it.
poor maintenance. Regarding the ladder, he said that he
In January he contacted The Herald and would ensure that the lower part of the lad-
led an inspection of the reservoir. der is cut away and would look into all
The Herald found that from Lakeview t h e other complaints.
Road an old fence was pushed down, allow- When the resident ex-
ing easy access at any time to the prop- pressed his concern
erty. about the quality of
The metal ladder from the the water, the man
base also allows anyone replied: “We’ve got
access onto the good filters at the
flat con- bottom.”
crete In this re-
top, spect, a water
and engineer
the consulted
resi- by The
d e n t Herald
has in said
the past t h a t
seen boys the com-
scaling the ment “sounds
ladder. odd”.
Its cover on “You would
top had been then need to drain the
Top left: The property on which the reservoir stands is entirely unsecured.
opened sometime reservoir to unblock the fil- Top: Despite complaints by a vigilant resident, for several months the munici-
in the past and was ters. It needs to be properly pality failed to respond and close the covers to protect the town’s drinking wa-
open to the elements, d e - maintained and be closed so ter. The Howick Private Hospital complex and Catholic Church are visible in
spite the presence of a chain and that it can’t be interfered the background. Left: There are no covers on all eleven ventilators on the top
of the reservoir and no gauze on ten of them. Below left: The one vent with a
padlocks across it. with.” protection of gauze. Below right: A ventilator whose pipe has broken
There are eleven air vents around the pe- In ensuing months the resi- off and which lies
rimeter whose metal gauze covers, in all but dent found that the technical open to the skies.
one case, have either been removed or have department did not respond to his complaint, and
rusted completely. so in the same month he called around “once or
At one vent the pipe has gone and it is twice” more.
open permanently to the sky. Finally, in February he noticed that the covers
As a result, leaves and small branches from had been secured in place — but to date this re-
the tall gum trees that fringe the property — mains the only thing that has been attended to.
and dust and ash particles — are able to en- The Herald understands that levels of the reser-
ter. voir are sometimes low, and con-sequently the water
The resident told The Herald that in Oc- pressure in nearby homes insufficient to supply
tober last year he went around to the offices adequeate water flow, especially to showers.

Beacon Hill spring’s riverbed secure at Eagle Ridge

A former Howick councillor contacted
The Herald to complain that a river bed for
run-off from a spring on Beacon Hill was
being filled in by the contractors to the Ea-
gle Ridge project on the corner of the Cur-
ry’s Post road.
The spring is situated on the slopes of
Beacon Hill, near Lakeview Road.
The slopes are a sponge to water which,
as it builds up, runs off down a river-bed
that it has created in the earth, and the pos-
sibility existed that the water run-off would
be blocked, to the detriment of the housing
units built over it.
The Herald arranged for an environmen-
tal consultant to the project to join the in-
spection, and the party found an excavator
levelling the riverbed, as can be seen in the
adjacent photograph.
Ian Rout, project manager, DPA Projects
Managers, commented to The Herald that
the stream bed had been blocked temporar-
ily during construction in accordance with
plans approved by the municipality.
The streams will be piped to carry the
full amount of water-flow, he said, and a
recent inspection reveals that a large con-
crete pipe has been put in place — as was
promised.
Ryan Crossman, a director of Group Five
Property Developments, the developers of
the project — and himself an old boy of
Howick — said that the watercourse has been
incorporated in an improved environmental
plan and will form part of a water feature
adjacent to the clubhouse.
Stormwater runoff will flow into perma-
nent ponds that will discharge water into the
pipe and from there on it’s the same flow
that one would have had anyway.
“Our environmental plan always had to
be approved by the Department of Water
Affairs and Forestry, so was independently
carried out by environmental consultants.
“They carry out inspections once a month
and submit a report to us; if we don’t com-
ply then they forward it on to DWAF.”
“If one doesn’t comply then the site gets
closed down.”

Left: An excavator levels

off the site on the Eagle
Ridge development.
When this photograph
was taken on 18th
January 2007, heavy
rains had fallen the
preceding evening over
the town. In the
foreground, marks in the
soil show where the
runoff has flowed
towards the excavator.

Right: Looking down into

the project site where
future stormwater
drainage will
be developed.