Quarry at portion 26 of farm 22 Zouterivier: situation report 2010/03/31 14:26

[Mal Morrow]

Hello road users, and all others -

I was just called by William Kingwell at the Council.  Yesterday he visited the quarry and the road, armed with my list of demands that the Council should enforce their conditional permit (see previous emails), and he started asking questions.  It may be that the reason Julia and I found that the quarry people were so willing to cooperate yesterday, when we asked them to repair the road, was because Mr Kingwell had already engaged them about this.  I don't know the exact chain of events though.

Mr Kingwell determined that 29 trucks are using the road between the quarry and the N7, making an average of 7 trips daily, for a total of 204 loads dispatched, or 408 total traversals of the road.  This gives you a good idea of the scale of the damage to the road.

He was told that the quarry has apparently engaged a civil engineering firm to look at the road with a view to upgrading it.

He took photos of the entire road from the N7 to Alain Coue's (Anaheim) gate, on behalf of the Council's roads division.  And I determined that he saw each section of the road in its worst state.  He said he didn't attempt to cross the sand section just before Alain's gate, otherwise he might have continued to take photos further down the road.

He was told that a water truck uses the stretch of the road between the quarry and Anaheim gate, and that the quarry does not send clay trucks in that direction, at least not any longer.

He talked to me about some of my list of demands from previous email, and he agreed that several items on the conditional permit were not enforced.  His recommendation was that the Monitoring Committee for the quarry - required to be established by condition c) of the conditional permit - should be set up under the guidance of the local councillor, Barbara Rass.  The Committee would then assess the evidence and make decisions necessary for the future of the quarry and the maintenance of the road.

I stressed that, if this was the way forward, how important it would be that the Monitoring Committee should have members from the community as delegates.

He imagined that, once it was established, the Monitoring Committee would be the first port of call for problems, and could serve in the first instance as an information clearing house about the quarry and its use of the road.  As a final resort, it could make recommendations to alter the conditions of the quarry's operation - including possibly revoking the land use departure - which could be considered by the Blaauwberg Sub-Council, which is the executive body empowered to decide on changes to or revocation of the land use departure.  Only at that time could the Council consider a court order to enforce closure of the quarry.

He was also told that the quarry operators are considering terminating the quarry operation themselves; but he and I have no further details on this.

Thanks to Mr Kingwell and others at the Council who have taken a great interest in our community affairs.

Sincerely yours,

Mal Morrow

P: Caesura, PO Box 83, Philadelphia 7304

Land owner: Caesura, Portion 56 of Farm 22, Zouterivier, Klein Dassenberg

C: +27 (84) 9944364
W: +27 (21) 4171849
F: +27 (86) 5114459
E: malm...@gmail.com

[Julia JF. Frielinghaus]

OK that sounds constructive. I hope they are not waiting for the civil engineering firm to make its comments before they actually fix the road.

 

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