David Le Maitre, Jonkershoek Valley
I have been living in the Jonkershoek Valley since 1979, and the municipal weir at Swartboskoof has always diverted all the summer flow.
Nothing changed when the licensing process was initiated after the Water Act became law.
The river has a pebble and boulder bed and it will simply not be possible to clean all the drilling sludge from the river bed without removing all the stones and making an even greater mess.
I hope that Water Affairs will actually act against the municipality as they are either completely ignorant of the law or have simply chosen to ignore it, but have been getting away with violating the law for decades.
No mention is made of the drilling company and why it is that they did not apply even basic environmental management standards to contain drilling sludge.
They would not have been allowed to get away with that if they were drilling in the mayor’s garden, so why should they in a pasture reserve?
Or the geo-hydrologist who identified the sites for the boreholes and should be fined and sanctioned by the Borehole Water Association.
I suspect though that I hope in vain for some action.
Once the Depart-ment of Water and Sanitation releases its report following the visit to the Jonkershoek drill site, Bolander will address these and other questions to the Stellenbosch mayor’s office – Ed
