South Africa: No Dredging At Lake St Lucia Mouth - DFFE Clarifies Deputy Minister's Comments

By Tony Carnie

There are currently no plans to artificially breach or dredge the mouth of Lake St Lucia - despite recent suggestions to this effect by a deputy minister.

That's the assurance from the national Department of Forestry, Fisheries and Environment, which recently authorised a strategy to reduce back-flooding of sugarcane farms in the Mfolozi River Floodplain.

Dredging machines are set to be deployed in the Msunduzi River within the next few months to clear blockages of vegetation and muddy sediments that have led to the back-flooding of sugarcane farms in the vicinity of Lake Lucia and the iSimangaliso World Heritage Park in KwaZulu-Natal.

The Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE) issued this clarification after Narend Singh, the deputy minister of forestry, fisheries and the environment, sparked confusion during a recent visit to the iSimangaliso Wetland Park when he announced plans to begin dredging the St Lucia estuary mouth, "hopefully by the end of September".

In a video clip posted by his department, Singh said the government had engaged with the park authority to fund a project that would ensure that "the mouth of the estuary is dredged and that water from the sea gets into the estuary to preserve the ecology".

His reference to dredging and allowing saltwater into the estuary suggested there were plans to artificially breach the mouth of Lake St Lucia estuary, which shares a common mouth with the Mfolozi and Msunduzi rivers.

The DFFE has now clarified that Singh was referring to the Msunduzi Hydrological Restoration Project, which...

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