Competitor tries to derail St Francis Bay Beach Rehabilitation

As strange as it may seem an attempt has been made by members of the now defunct Beach Trust to discredit the PEM (Pressure Equalization Modules) systems success over the last 14 months. The question arises as to why they would want to do this and what system would they propose in its place?

Ongoing surveys indicate clearly that implementation of the PEM system has resulted in a net gain of around 9.2 thousand cubic meters over the thirteen month period that it has been in operation on the St Francis Bay beach. This is dramatic given the fact that the Danes only guaranteed to stabilize the beach and that prior to its installation the St Francis Bay beach was recording annual losses of between 40 and 60 thousand cubic meters of sand. Despite this gain incorrect figures were sent to the Kouga Municipality suggesting that the PEM system was not working. They wrote “It is important that no further funds be expended on the PEM system until all the Danes results are verified”. It is interesting that this letter was written on behalf of the St Francis Bay community!

• It was stated that since the inception of the Danish PEM System there has been a large loss of sand from the beach. The amazing thing is that in order to arrive at this loss this party took a starting date for their calculations as March 2008. This is a full eight months before the Danes installed their system! In other words their entire claim is invalid.

• To make his claim even more farcical their survey method never uses the same survey points. Their surveys depend on where the high and low water marks are on that particular day. At the foot of Revetments for example the width of the beach being surveyed on a particular day could for example be only 12 meters wide.

• The method used by the “detractor” measures approximately half the width of the sixty meter wide survey that is done by the Danes and can therefore again in no way be compared with the survey being done by the Danes. The areas being measured are simply not the same. It is obvious from his comments that this party does not understand the survey method used by the Danes who just happen to be experts in this field.

Let’s look at the following facts in order to understand clearly how absurd the competitors proposed offshore reef system compares with what we currently have in place.

• Firstly the Danish system costs a mere R6 million over the five year period of the Agreement versus the estimated R60 million that the Reef system would cost our already cash strapped Municipality.

• Secondly the Danish system guarantees to stop further sand loss off our beach whereas the Reef system requires that 40 thousand cubic meters of sand has to be pumped onto the beach annually! Over and above this the Reef system cannot even guarantee that 50 percent of this sand will be retained. In other words over 20 thousand cubic meters of sand would simply be washed away each year! The cost of pumping this sand onto the beach annually would be in the order of R3 million which is half of the entire cost of the PEM system! Aggravating the above is the fact that the sand source proposed for the reef system, namely the estuary, is very fine. This fine sand erodes very easily so sand retention would be difficult.

• The Danish PEM system is environmentally friendly and easily maintained by a small crew using a quad bike. In contrast the Reef system would need a fleet of trucks offloading sand onto our beach. This sand would then have to be spread out on the beach using heavy machinery. Imagine the environmental damage, the damage to the roads, the dust and the noise pollution!

• The Reef System is not recognized as a beach rehabilitation method and is not advertised as such and has no recorded successes across the world. In contrast the PEM system is used extensively across the world with success stories in Denmark, Sweden, Malaysia, Ghana, Italy, the Netherlands, Mexico and South Africa.

Given these facts it is obvious that the reef system, when used for beach rehabilitation, cannot and should not be offered as a solution to beach erosion problems.