Hello Nuclear. Goodbye the Cape Whale Route and the Fynbos Road – it was nice knowing you!
Eskom is pushing ahead with plans for a new 4000 megawatt nuclear power station (more than double the size of Koeberg, with two 900 MW reactors) at Bantamsklip on the Overberg coast.
The draft scoping report for the environmental impact assessment of the transmission lines for Bantamsklip was published in March and the final draft is expected shortly.
The proposed nuclear facility, a stone’s throw from Pearly Beach on the Agulhas section of the Cape Whale Route, is nothing short of cultural and economic suicide for all those planning a sustainable tourism future, or who might have chosen the area as their preferred holiday or retirement destination.
Firstly, the proposed nuclear power facility will occupy a registered SA Natural Heritage Site. The farm harbours 800 plant species including 21 Agulhas Plain endemics, six of which are entirely restricted to the farm. This ranks as the most extreme concentration of point endemism recorded anywhere in the world. Groot Hagelkraal represents the foremost conservation priority in the Cape Floristic Region and is regarded as the world’s “hottest” of botanical hot spots.
Secondly the proposed power plant will spew its power lines across the Agulhas National Park and the Nuwejaars Wetland Special Management Area.
The sea along the Hagelkraal/Bantamsklip coastline is also home to an extraordinary diversity of marine life, with many marine species being unique to the area. Add to that the fact that the physical location experiences the highest wave energy (waves/swell action) on the South African coast – mountainous seas are experienced during southwesterly gales that coincide with high spring tides. How could anyone sensitive to the wonders of nature want to deface and destroy the place by siting a large nuclear power station there?
Explanation: The nuclear power plant will produce a massive thermal discharge into the sea (in the order of 100 cubic metres per second of hot water used in condenser cooling). This permanent influx of unseasonal hot water, carried in a thermal plume, will alter the sea temperature over a large area, affecting phytoplankton and benthic plant growth and devastating the endemic kelp ecology, thereby radically altering the unique marine environment of these coastal waters.
It will also quite likely alter the ecology of the Dyer Island Marine Sanctuary and the local spawning grounds and nurseries of economically important pelagic fisheries. Whether the Southern Right, Humpback, Bryde’s and Minke Whales that all come close inshore on the Agulhas Bank adjacent to Bantamsklip will still find it a hospitable environment to visit is still to be established.
Further, given that this utility will be positioned at the southerly tip of Africa, and the nexus of the Cape Whale Route and the Cape Floral Kingdom it will, without doubt, adversely affect the tourism industry on which this region’s economy is based.
The power lines are set to traverse major scenic corridors on the R326/R43 and areas of great scenic value such as the historic Stanford Village and Stanford Valley, 35 kilometres from the heart of Hermanus. Both scenic categories are surveyed heritage, scenic and landscape resources, underwritten and legislated upon in the Overstrand Heritage Survey.
According to the draft scoping report, ESKOM’s preferred route for the Bantamsklip Transmission Line, known as Alternative Route 2, will fatally dissect the unique Flower Valley and Baardskeerdersbos rural hamlet surroundings, with a giant pylon army and magnetic pollution as foretold in doomsday science fiction movies.
Should you consider this mere hyperbole, visualise for a moment a swath of up to eight 80-meter tall power line towers covering a servitude width of 1.3km bestriding your neighbourhood – or these vulnerable heritage landscapes!
Viewing all this with indifference, or seeing it as a platform for political patronage (construction contracts and real estate windfalls) – the local euphemism is “a growth opportunity” – or as a strategic imperative over which we have no control, is tantamount to suicide.
Those interested in resisting this scheme should register as an Interested and Affected Party (I&AP for Transmission Lines) with Naledi Curran at NMA Effective Social Strategists, by email at naledic@nma.org.za or by fax to 086-6010381 or by telephone at 011-4476037.
- For a copy of the proposed nuclear power station EIA, contact Bongi at ACER (Africa) Environmental Management Consultants, at nuclear1@acerafrica.co.za or call him on 086 010 4958.
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