by davidrobertlewis -

Hank’s olde tyme apartheid pub, stuck in the racist past

THE OWNERS of Hank’s Olde Irish Pub, appears stuck in South Africa’s past. The drinking establishment have literally come out with their fists swinging, procuring a well-known criminal attorney William Booth to aggressively pursue all and sundry. “Hank’s Old Irish Pub issued instructions to proceed with a case against Christopher Logan and others for “false” racism complaints and is currently consulting lawyers pertaining to other charges” claims JC MacFarlane LLB who appears to be tweeting on behalf of Booth.

In separate tweets a patron of Hanks warned the public: ‘trannies, race baiters, politicians, pedofiles, eff supporters, anyone who try to push their believes (sic) on others and assholes’ are not welcome, by which we take it they should stay away?

Consider this, a little over 15 years ago, Christopher Logan would have been jailed for swearing. The Irish-owned daily press would be entertaining its readers with an exclusive on how he had ‘assaulted an Irish Pub in Cape Town‘. His accusers would be given ample opportunity and column space to put their case before the public, whist Logan would be denied the most basic of rights such as the right to reply.

The SAHRC would not conduct a probe but simply refer the case to another forum, without providing any clear reasons. There would be a case pending before the Equality Court or Labour Court which would drag its heels for the next fours years, only providing a court date after the threat of protest action. Instead of issuing statements, our partisan government would simply look the other way.

Nobody within the legal fraternity, not least a black attorney nor an advocate of colour would have stepped up or been in a position to provide any assistance, perhaps citing the fact that Logan is ‘white’ or “Jewish” and therefore his case might distract attention away from their own client’s political agendas. It is remarkable that Logan has received any offers of legal assistance.

Before issuing its case-limited apology in 2015 for apartheid, News24 would not have run a story with the following headline: ‘Embarrassed and dehumanised’: Cape Town pub patron refused entry because he is black recounts humiliation (see dirty tricks)

In my case, where I complained about race profiling, de facto race segregation, the censorship of a story involving jazz music, and offensive inquiries into my religious affiliation by the corporation in 2006, I faced no less than an attempted gagging order (see here). I was then wrongfully jailed for complaining to Zulpha Khan at Heart 104.9 and later punished by the justice system for speaking out some four years after the incident occurred. My use of the F-bomb was seen by authorities as simply a license for them to attack my credibility.

Restrained from calling any witnesses in the case in which my secular identity rather than the company’s own racist past, was put on trial, I faced a corrupt and blatantly unfair proceeding in which I was forced to lead evidence from the witness box and the presiding judicial officer later acknowledged the respondent was his client. AJ Cheadle failed to provide any explanation to Cape Law Society regarding information surrounding his business associates and their involvement with the company.

What exactly was Halton Cheadle doing in bed with Max Sisulu whilst his company Kagiso was providing content to Media24 and Multichoice?

The government and the Minister of Justice have fought tooth and nail to suppress the proceedings, which included a test of the status of the TRC Report before the courts. The baldfaced corruption resulted in my opening a docket in terms of the Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act. The NPA under Zuma failed to act. I therefore can only express my dismay and solidarity with those affected by the latest racist incident and caution readers that our legal system is anything but a support group for the victims of racism.

UPDATE

Hank’s racist clientele have been spewing forth on twitter with a meme, that Christopher Logan is allegedly a “youth leader” who set up the entire incident to get elected, and that 25-year-old Thabiso Danca was merely asked for his ID to ‘verify his age’. Perhaps they have enough funds to pay off a corrupt ANC official like Halton Cheadle, to award them a partisan, 1994-denialist and overtly racist decision? It’s not as if this kind of thing hasn’t happened before?

Far from being politicos, the two are lifeguards. One can’t help notice that Danca looks very mature for his age, hardly a teen trying to get into a bar, and why are black persons being requested to supply ID but its okay for people like Logan to just enter?

He is understandably pissed off at the discrimination. Whether the result amounts to a disruption of the peace is another matter. Hanks seem to be arguing Logan was ‘out of order’ and therefore they were entitled to bounce him, at the same time they claim he was ‘the one who threw the first punch’. This is contradicted by CCTV footage and Logan’s nose-bleed. Don’t you just hate people accusing you of being aggressive when you’re the one with the blood dripping from your nose?

The fact that Logan stood for the SRC as a DASO candidate in 2017 is of no real consequence. One racist tweeter even goes so far as to view his raised fist in the DASO election poster as ‘suspicious’. This notion is reminiscent of apartheid SA, where case history records a well-known incident involving a black man sentenced to assault GBH in the ‘Transkei homeland’ for merely ‘raising his fist’ in what was considered then, a ‘black power salute’.

2017 DASO SRC Poster

by davidrobertlewis -

South Africa’s compliance with GHG reduction targets is currently rated as “highly insufficient”

​SOUTH AFRICA’S compliance with GHG reduction targets is currently rated as “highly insufficient” by http://climateactiontracker.org/. Our national targets are ‘equivalent to a 20–82% increase on 1990 levels’, in other words, while the rest of the world is decreasing emissions, we have seen fit to increase GHG due to ​an​ emphasis on ideological rather than scientific concerns. Our GHG ranking as 18th largest emitter, is not surprising, coming one position behind the UK, but an embarrassment considering the relative size of our population.

Although our global contribution of 510.2377 tonnes CO2e or 1.13% of total emissions is far behind the world’s top emitter China, at 11735.0071 CO2e and 25.93% respectively of the total, this figure must be compared with the 24 least polluting nations, whose meek contributions are all less than 2.0022 CO2e per country and thus less than 0.00% each of the total. (see Climate Data Explorer and http://climateanalytics.org/)

Our nation’s excessive GHG contributions commit the World’s major cities to inundation by the ocean. South Africa needs to accept both liability and responsibility for the collapse of the Polar Vortex, the unstable configuration of the Antarctic Ice​shelf​, the melting of glaciers and permafrost, and thus the hockey stick curve showing ​an ​alarming rise in global temperatures. We are currently on track for a 1.7 meter rise in sea level by 2030, and saying this in no way describes the problems associated with complications arising from climate change.

The blame for climate change will ultimately be placed upon our nation’s leaders who have collectively committed the country to a hot global 3.4 degree C by 2100 if all countries stick to the Paris Agreement and the promise of no more than 1.5 degree temperature change beyond pre-industrial levels by 2030.  In 2016, planet Earth’s temperature averaged 1.26 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial averages, which is dangerously close to the 1.5-degree-Celsius limit set by international policymakers. There is no guarantee when it comes to temperatures.

A​ll​ this without any firm science to back up the proposition, that we can ​survive in such an altered climate. A global two degree rise could translate into a local six degree change. Climate change represents an existential threat. In this respect it is the ruling ANC with its ​Anti-Poor ​carbon policy reality of ‘peak, peak and peak’, (peak forever) which is most responsible for the current drought and thus Day Zero.

In the future, low-lying micronations will hold us all responsible for their ​country’s loss of territory. As will the citizens of coastal cities inundated by rising sea-levels. Both Cape Town and Durban will experience massive loss​es​ in land mass over the ensuing decade. ​We are already on a path towards a worst case scenario mapped out by academics during 2008. ​Environmental Affairs Minister Edna Molewa and ESKOM CEOs should ​shoulder​ most of​ the blame.

Under Molewa, national climate outreach programmes were cancelled, while government to civil society programmes aimed at Post-COP17 climate change sessions​, and more recent UN climate sessions​ were not included in their budgets.​ We have withdrawn for all intents and purposes from our role as deal-makers during the Durban round, preferring Davos over the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement.

The DEAT ​thus ​appears to have decreased its spending on climate change outreach and education​, a legacy of ​the previous administration of Jacob Zuma, while favouring coal over renewables​. The latest interdict by NUMSA against IPP renewables​ does not bode well, any wonder since the National Environmental Management Act (NEMA) drafted to protect our environment​ and atmosphere, alongside the right to water,​ has been gutted by successive ANC ministers.

The proposed introduction of a “carbon tax” under Cyril Ramaphosa merely shifts GHG responsibility from the public to the private sector. Introducing a new form of tax revenue which fails to incorporate the carbon offsets which could generate jobs and create economic opportunity via a just transition to renewables. There are thus no incentives to offset and promote the introduction of electric vehicles, energy efficient public transport and renewables in South Africa in the foreseeable future, as the country slips to the bottom of the global rankings for energy efficiency

South Africa is responsible for 53.3170% of total GHG emissions in SADC, an economic block including Angola, Botswana, DRC, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. We dominate our neighbours and as the dirtiest emitter, must take responsibility and liability for regional climate problems.

BRICS countries are in turn responsible for 40.59% of global carbon emissions alone, we have some of the worst GHG profiles on the planet and may as well be called the Dirty Five. In this respect South Africa is not alone.

 

 

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by davidrobertlewis -

Day Zero Plans had to happen years ago, Cape Times, 2nd Feb 2018

​Dear Ed,

Day Zero Plans had to happen years ago, Cape Times, 2nd Feb 2018

I refer to the above article published by your newspaper last Friday in which your correspondent Lisa Isaacs refers to a 1990 report by the apartheid-era Water Commission. It appears the report warned, as did a similar Commission again in 2012 that water supplies would ‘dry up in 17 years’.

The article goes on to mention the late Barry Streek and what appears to be the first record of the issue in your paper during the early 90s. Unfortunately, the writer appears to be uninformed and disingenuous in suggesting that Streek and thus the racialised Water Commission, were the first to write anything at all about the coming water crisis.

I therefore wish to assure your readers that the anti-apartheid movement took a keen interest in water rights, with Earthlife Africa, itself then a newly formed environmental justice organisation, issuing a similar warning. Earthlife Africa “called on the city council to implement a holistic, integrated water management plan for the South West Cape.” The article was published under my own byline in January 1991, during the dying days of apartheid and thus in the runup towards the very first National Conference on Environment and Development and subsequent democratic election, where our constituent assembly proceeded to include the right to sufficient water as a fundamental human right.

The crisis in which we find ourselves today has its root in successive failures by the government and City management to come to grips with climate change. The events which are now occurring were indeed, predicted to occur over the second decade of the new millennium, as was reported not simply by Streek, but also by myself writing in the struggle press and thus subsequent issues of South EcoAction.

Mitigation solutions placed on the table by environmentalists and activists back then, were inter alia, recycling water, desalination and towing icebergs. Instead of playing down such interventions, people should have listened and paid more attention to what the science and evidence provided by ecologists were saying.

Far from being a liberal affair, the history of water usage and the development of water rights in South Africa pre-dates both colonialism and the apartheid state. It it thus pure revisionism on Isaacs’ part to quote the apartheid Water Commission’s own. One should rather turn to DD Tewari of the School of Economics and Finance, of the University of KwaZulu-Natal who in his analysis of water rights thus states: “Prior to colonisation of South Africa, African customary law governed water rights in the pre-colonial society.” Water allocation here was based, not upon ideals of the sovereign individual, rather once contested, ‘it was for the community to decide upon the fair allocation of water.’

The arrival of the Dutch and thus Roman-Dutch law at the Cape in 1652, saw the application of Roman water law, “a primitive system … used to regulate the legal relationships within the farming community along the Tiber River in the Roman Empire about 2 000 years ago.” Roman law as any law student can tell you, recognises 3 classes of water rights: private, common, and public. Significantly the establishment of Dutch control of water resources in the Table Bay Valley came in two phases, Tewari says, first ‘the granting of entitlements from streams in which colonists took control of the streams’, and the next phase in which they declared absolute ownership or ‘eminent domain’ over the water and the land’, as their ‘expansion of sphere of influence’ broadened.

The British period saw the “engineering of change” in all areas including water rights regulation. Whereas during the earlier Dutch rule, water was a very scarce resource relative to land mass and hence Dutch colonists made laws to regulate water use in the interests of the Company. Tewari says “by the time the British came into power, land had become relatively scarcer than water as a result of increasing immigration from Europe and the increasing populations of Trek-Boers and native Africans. All developments in water rights during the British regime thus reflected the predominance of land or agriculture (land-intensive industry) in the economy. Consequently, irrigation development played a major role in the moulding of early water policy, infrastructure, economic and social development in South Africa.”

The tragic situation in which ‘institutions created by the then governments intervened in the development of water resources in favour of the White agricultural community’ played itself out, even through successive periods of drought. While Tewari sees the movement of what became known as ‘riparian rights’ away from the company and state control, towards individual white farmers who could sue those possessed of entitlements upstream, he noted the return to earlier state hegemony and control during the apartheid period.

In 1950, for instance the landmark Commission of Inquiry into Water Matters known as the Hall Commission, was formed to look into drought conditions affecting parts of the country and thus also the general lack of water amongst the population. As a result, the Water Act of 1956 replaced the Irrigation Act of 1912. In brief, the new Act moved away from the riparian rights principle, “which worked well as long as water was used primarily for agricultural purposes” and back again towards the earlier enunciation of eminent domain status ‘of the state through government control areas’. Tewari says: “The distinction between the public and private water from the previous Act was retained and refined further. The idea of public water and its classification into normal flow (which would be divided between the riparian owners) and surplus flow (where, in flood times, riparian owners could take as much surplus as they were able to use beneficially), which was introduced in 1912, was further improved.”

Your correspondent fails to make the point so elegantly put by Tewari: “The colonial water rights policy excluded the Africans who could not compete in the land markets freely and also did not have the resources to do so where such access was possible.” While it is unnecessary to repeat the swathe of legislation and many rules depriving black South Africans of water rights, one feels duty bound to add that it was the environmental justice and anti-apartheid movement and its allies, which sought to correct the imbalance of history. The result is article 24 which celebrates the rights of our Earth viz. vi. the needs of future generations, and article 27 which presents a challenge to both the City and the state in the right to sufficient water for every citizen.

That we are living in a period of water crisis today is due in part, to our nation’s forgetting its genesis in a rights-based culture. Only by remembering our collective history can we hope to survive and surmount the future challenges presented by climate change.

Sincerely yours

David Robert Lewis

[Letter unpublished due to the religious nutjobs bigots & apartheid denialists at the Cape Times]

by davidrobertlewis -

RSA Water Management Timeline

1990 Water Research Commission warns of a 2007 shortage, when all current water resources fully committed (article published by Barry Streek, Cape Times, April 1990)

1991 Earthlife Africa warns of new millennium water crisis, (article published by David Robert Lewis, South Press, January 1991)

1993 Terry Bell of Argus Group writes on impending water shortages.

1994 Post-Democracy Water Dept. under Kader Asmal adopts a comprehensive water conservation and demand strategy.2002 National Water Resource Commission predicts three crisis areas, including Berg and Vaal River, and water deficit of 508 million cubic metres per year in the Cape.

2012 Water Research Commission repeats its concerns in a report to Parliament. CSIR begins Water Sustainability Flagship.

2017 CSIR publishes report in March “Protecting South Africa’s Strategic Water Resources“, confirms potential for water crisis if climate change continues on its current trajectory. Earlier reports project “Environmental Refugees”.

City of Cape Town announces that it is facing a humanitarian crisis surrounding an ongoing drought and that Day Zero will occur in April of 2018

2018 Cape Town becomes poster-child for Climate Change and a cautionary tale told at Davos. Al Gore speaks out.

Water and Sanitation spokesperson denies there is a “Day Zero”, claims current water supply strategy is sufficient, “our planning is that we do not even have a Day Zero. Our planning is that we do not have a system failure.”

by davidrobertlewis -

Earthlife Africa warned City of new millennium water crisis

EARTHLIFE Africa warned Cape Town of a water crisis over the new millennium as far back as 1991. While writing on environmental issues for the anti-apartheid press, I was lucky enough to interview both ELA members and the Dept of Water Affairs. Plans mooted back then, included tapping the Atlantis and Cape Flats aquifer, desalination, and “towing icebergs”. South Africa has a base in Antarctica, could towing an iceberg to Cape Town be the solution?.

Here is the story under my own byline.

Cape Town’s Water Crisis
Southside Environment, South Press January 16 – 22 1991
by David Robert Lewis

Cape Town could run out of fresh water by the year 2000 if the city’s scarce water resources are not managed more efficiently, say environmentalists.

According to a document released by Earthlife Africa, water consumption in the Western Cape is about 245 000 megalitres a year. It is estimated this figure will double by the year 2020.

City May be running on Empty, DR Lewis South 1991
South January 1991

The quest for alternative sources of water is a pressing issue, says the group, yet a lot of fresh water is going down the drain and into the sea. There are plans to bring water from the Berg River to supplement Cape Town’s dwindling supplies.

There is also the contentious prospect of the Lower Palmiet River Scheme which envisages putting the unique fynbos and potential tourist area in the Kogelberg mountains under water.

The area is one of the last intact fynbos strongholds.

A report drawn up by the Cape Nature Conservation Department cites the Kogelberg as a potential World Heritage Biosphere Park.

The damming of the Palmiet would not only destroy the Kogelberg and open the are to invasion by alien species, but would also infringe on some of the most productive farming land in the Cape.

At a public meeting held by the Department of Water Affairs last year, Mr Kobus Esrasmus, the department’s deputy director, conceded the Kogelberg area and the Palmiet estuary could be damaged by the department’s proposal to dam the Palmiet River.

But he gave an assurance the plan would not be implemented without “exhaustive public debate on all alternatives”.

Other options are the introduction of water-saving devices, tapping groundwater sources such as the Cape Flats and Atlantis acquifiers, reusing treated effluent, desalination and towing icebergs.

The Palmiet scheme would be the most economically viable, according to Mr Hennie Smit, planning engineer for the Department of Water Affairs.

Earthlife Africa has called on the city council to implement a “holistic, integrated water management plan for the South West Cape” and believes “the Kogelberg State forest should not be sacrificed in such a plan”.

They also indicated that sea pollution caused by the disposal of effluent as well as run-off from stormwater drains could not be examined in isolation.

All waste water ending up in the sea must be regarded as “throwing away a potential useful resource”, the group said.

A successful pilot water reclamation project using “treated waste waters” had been completed in Cape Town in 1986.

Although the cost of reclaiming water was high, a project report indicated improved technology “would significantly reduce the production cost of a full scale plant.”
It was further contended that the cost of fresh and reclaimed water would be similar in future.

Tapping groundwater aquifers could yield an additional volume of water. Paradoxically, pollution associated with the lack of sanitation in the Cape Flats and the lax water control standards for industrial areas, present the biggest hurdles to such a proposal.

This disregard for the integrity of natural water reserves in the region made a comprehensive water quality plan even more urgent.

According to Erasmus, a series of “public participation exercises” was being arranged by the department culminating in a major workshop where recommendations could be made to the government on the issue of water supply.

Desalination of seawater could in theory provided unlimited quantities of fresh water. The high cost would put such a scheme out of bounds until a cheap supply of energy was found.

It has been calculated that desalination plant capable of supplying Cape Town’s water needs over the next 10 years would require the output of a power station the size of Koeberg 1.

Desalination could be a viable option if introduced on a smaller scale in conjunction with other projects.

Implementing water-saving legislation would ultimately be the easiest and most economic way to alleviate the problems caused by the increase in population in Cape Town.

Providing incentives to industry to reduce their water use while making water-saving devices more economical would reduce the overall consumption of water.

Simple changes in lifestyle for those used to cheap and readily available water could result in extraordinary savings.

In one example given, a family of four showering instead of bathing could save three to four hundred litres of water a day.

Unfortunately, recent decisions such as the one to construct a new marine outfall pipe at Green Point leave little hope that wisdom will outweigh economic shortsightedness in determining the outcome of Cape Town’s water situation in the future.

 

by davidrobertlewis -

Here’s where Cape Town’s water is going

A YOUTUBE video posted by Adam Spires, substantiates claims that millions of gallons of drinking water are being allowed to escape, flowing downstream from a major dam, apparently to save farmers. Posted earlier this month, the video shows the sluice gates are open at a dam site outside of Cape Town, posing the question why is this happening? With Zero Day approaching, and the water crisis beginning to impact upon households, why are wealthy farmers in the country’s wine estates benefitting? Is this another case of the Stellenbosch Mafia coming first while ordinary citizens’ needs are sacrificed? Why are local media houses publishing incorrect information on water shortages?

READ: The City that ran out of water

by davidrobertlewis -

Cape Peninsula transport plan: Here are some alternatives

CAPE TOWN has a transport framework plan, but does it work for the Cape Flats and Southern Peninsula, where daily traffic jams, and peak hour gridlock are compounded by a Metrorail service that is falling apart as we speak? Is getting across the City more difficult and expensive than getting to the CBD?

The City’s “comprehensive integrated transport plan” is anything but, offering little more than a gradual roll-out of the popular MyCiti BRT system, a system unsuitable for linking the City’s North and South corridors.

It will take years for the BRT to link the Southern Peninsula to the CBD and when it does, it is unlikely to offer “rapid transport” to downtown, but rather will act as a means of linking various transport hubs.

Current plans by the City to simply takeover Metrorail are unlikely to come to fruition, since the system is a national government competency under the aegis of PRASSA. In a sense, the system comprises several major arteries and can never be shut down, instead it limps along, as government dilly daddles on providing new rolling stock and much needed upgrades to the four major lines. Meanwhile Cape Town is booming, and is fast becoming a Mega-City with a growing population (4.3 million) and geographical footprint reaching from Atlantis to Sir Lowry’s Pass, an area the size of Los Angeles.

Radical interventions by public and private enterprise are therefore needed.

I list some of the visionary possibilities below, to bring Capetonians and transport closer. Together we can make these ideas more than just a dream.

North-South M5 Monorail

Lagos and Singapore has one, why not Cape Town? A monorail (pictured below) would transport passengers from Mitchell’s Plain and Muizenberg along Prince George Drive reaching Maitland, Milnerton and Montague Gardens, and acting as a conduit to Century City. Gliding along a centre rail, and able to go from one end of the City to the other in less than 8 minutes, the high-tech solution would use existing infrastructure, requiring modest upgrades along the route of the highway. As a premium service it would take pressure off the Metrorail, eventually allowing the railway to be shutdown for major repairs.

Waterfront Light Rail System

Like the UK’s Dockside Light Rail, the system could link Green and Sea Point to the Waterfront and beyond and carry routes to Signal Hill, Table Mountain and Robben Island. Obviously a Robben Island route would require an undersea tunnel, but with the latest boring technology underground tunnels are becoming increasingly more feasible and economical. Cape Town used to have a similar light rail system known as the Tramway, reaching as far as Camps Bay, and any project which reduces the traffic going over Kloof Neck would be more than welcome.

Newlands – Devils Peak – Vredehoek Commuter Tunnel

Simply cutting out a major obstacle for commuters entering the CBD, and as experienced by residents of the suburbs of Constantia, Wynberg and Newlands, each and every day, and vice versa, all those living in the City Bowl wanting to travel South, would bring the City and its citizens a lot closer, while removing pressure on Philip Kgosana Drive (formerly De Waal Drive), a sad place to be in rush hour traffic.

Noordhoek – Silvermine – Tokai Commuter Tunnel

Anyone who experiences the tragedy of morning traffic and gridlock from Kommetjie, and places further afield, will appreciate a shorter commute brought about by new technology. Boring a tunnel under Ou Kaapse Weg and, chopping some 50km off the route would be a godsend. Again, the decrease in the cost of boring technology would make such a tunnel more feasible, but is likely to upset conservationists.

Other Commuter Tunnels to consider

A Bo Kaap -Signal Hill – Sea Point Tunnel, and an Oranjezicht- Table Mountain – Bakoven Tunnel both cutting through their respective mountains, would all act to remove morning and afternoon gridlock in the City, while reducing the gated community effect which makes such places seem out of reach of ordinary people.

Table Bay Hydrofoil and Hovercraft

Novel ocean-going interventions across Table Bay such as a hydrofoil boat or a hovercraft could all act to bring the true Northern Suburbs (not those to the East of the City) closer to the CBD, whilst boosting tourism. Think of spending just 20 minutes on a boat instead of 45 minutes in traffic from Tableview and Blouberg and you have the picture. Besides faster oversea links, the undersea links (as already suggested, the initial tunnel from the Waterfront to Robben Island), might also create a branch off to Table View in the distant future, making it possible to simply ride a bicycle into town from Atlantis.

False Bay Inter-Links

Similar oversea tech and underwater tunnel solutions linking the City’s False Bay coastal suburbs, for example, Simon’s Town with Strand, Gordon’s Bay and Rooi Els and beyond all offer benefits. A further route to Hermanus would carry major economic value, as would short hop air solutions linking smaller towns such as Caledon and Paarl. Imagine flying ships like some of the new air dirigibles being built in the USA, cutting down travel time in the Cape and allowing for a better quality of life to those wanting to escape the slums.

Cape Flats Canalisation

Building canals is an ancient means of creating transport across land. With a low water table, there are plenty of opportunities to connect the Cape Flats without building more roads. One plan already mooted would simply join the two oceans, but saltwater is problematic for aquifers. With a little thought one can imagine a system of locks and canals providing “waterfront” to residents of Manenberg and Mitchell’s Plain. In fact there are already several Vleis where transport opportunities have not been given much attention and could be better utilised.