Page 72 - SAICE book proof 2 LATEST JULY 2014

s a i c e
KWAZULU-NATAL PROVINCE

is about 15 km long in total. Both were manufactured ◊ Below: Dual marine outfall pipeline
on land and the portions in the sea were floated out by ◊ Bottom: Durban Beach
tugs, weighted down by concrete collars and sank. On
land huge excavations were made to bury the pipes. An
interesting feature is that just before the pipes enter
the surf, seawater is added to dilute the effluent to
acceptable standards. Strict monitoring takes place and
environmental standards are adhered to, and as a result
little or no adverse effects can be detected in the sea
after a period of about 30 years after commissioning.

24. Beach facilities for tourists and bathers
can be challenging the ingenuity of civils due to the
dynamic forces of the marine environment. In some
cases, ports and swimming beaches even compete in
terms of priority issues such as sand dredging in the
harbour mouths which may muddy the waters for holi-
day makers and at Alkantstrand (roughly translated as
“all sides beach”) at Richards Bay is such an example.
The name comes from the fact that the east beach fac-
es the Indian Ocean and the west, a couple of hundred
metres away, is at bay side and part of the old river es-
tuary. The beaches were under major threat every time
a harbour extension had to be built and in this case the
very fine hippo mud of the Mhlathuze River estuary had
to be dredged to make way for berths of bulk carriers
from around the world.
However a growing town needs recreational space and
modern facilities and artificial dunes and lawns on the
beach area were designed by the local municipal engi-
neers, complete with palm trees to provide ambience
and some shade. Today a huge pipeline bypasses the
beaches to discharge.

25. richards Bay was and still is a civil engineer’s currently moves about 80 million tons per annum. This
nightmare as well as dream and delight. About every- publication cannot give credit to what has been achieved
thing that could be thrown at this profession is here in and the reader is encouraged to read more about it. But
abundance. From silty sands to sandy silts, marshes a serious technical tourist travelling around South Africa
and extremely poor ground conditions the geological should make a special effort to visit. It remains a place
sections are reading like storybooks from the past – of surprises where town planning and civil engineering
complete with fossils like Mamoet shark teeth, molluscs professionals work hand in hand to create sub-tropical
interspersed with other bits and pieces. Throw into this residential suburbs with names like Meerensee, Arbore-
mix, hippopotamus and current day sharks and fresh tum, Veld en Vlei. Even the street names are unique as
water crocodiles plying the stormwater canals at high the municipality worked together to find novel names
tide and civil engineering practitioners in this part of the for streets that befit the name of the suburb and that
world have a really interesting working environment – are alphabetically arranged from where one enters the
to put it mildly. suburb. Street names like Angler’s Rod, Kreeftekring
and Porpoise Passage delight the traveller and provide
A town for all seasons, a place where civil engineering an easy way to negotiate these townships.
had to pioneer and face the environmental challenges
to build a town to be sustainable and to serve some of
the biggest industries in Africa, alongside a harbour that 28°46’50.62” S, 32°02’17.83” E

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