Sources inform me that work has commenced on the South African Side of the river to build a low level dam across the lower Orange river at a spot next to the pont at Sendelingsdrift.
The idea is to capture flood waters at this "end" stage of the Orange and to create a dam.
Now for my 2 cents,
Which bright spark came up with this idea? Already the water levels on the lower Orange are way below what they used to be. The flooding of the Orange is a natural process that "flushes" the waste from the interior and at the same time provides rich nutrients into the Atlantic which in turn provide food at a certain level of the Oceanic food chain......
Will we be looking at a dry riverbed a few years from now?
What will become of the RAMSAR proclaimed Orange River Estuary? Once the fresh water diminishes in flow, the salt content on the river at the mouth will increase, in fact the water will become salty for a good few KM's upstream. The fish species we currently enjoy down at the mouth will change,
Was a Environmental assessment ever carried out. I must have missed the public meetings.....
A retired Nature Conservation official once pointed out to me, that is would be impractical to construct a dam in this area, as the rock is highly porous.....
Sigh! Roll on Dust River, you make me feel like a child again!
As I said, Just my 2 cents....
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Michael below is a scheme which probable should have been introduced years ago not unlike the great Snowy River project that was constructed. We are going to the polls on the 21st of this month. Yep! its election time here in OZ and they are throwing money around as if it was theirs but no money for this project. Unlike the project they are proposing there, this I believe will come to fruition but maybe not in my lifetime.
The Bradfield Scheme is an inland irrigation project designed to irrigate and drought-proof much of the Queensland interior, as well as large areas of South Australia. It was devised by Dr John Job Crew Bradfield (1867-1943), a Queensland born civil engineer, who also designed the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Brisbane's Story Bridge. It is generally thought to be lacking in scientific justification, excessively expensive, and overly optimistic, and hence is yet to be implemented.
The scheme that Dr Bradfield proposed requires large pipes, tunnels, pumps and dams. It involves diverting water from the upper reaches of the Johnson, Tully, Herbert, Burdekin and Flinders rivers. These Queensland rivers are fed by the monsoon, and currently flow out into the ocean. The water would enter the Thomson River on the other side of the Great Dividing Range and eventually flow south west to Lake Eyre.
In his early seventies [c 1940] he [Bradfield] put considerable time and energy into publicizing a plan to irrigate the western districts of Queensland and part of Central Australia by damming certain coastal rivers and running water-pipes through the Great Dividing Range. Aspects of this scheme, and especially his lack of scientific evidence, were publicly attacked by G. W. Leeper of the school of agricultural science at the University of Melbourne.
This scheme was seen during World War II and much of the twentieth century, as an essential step in building a secure and prosperous nation. It was regarded as the next great water engineering project to build after the Snowy Mountains Scheme.
A modified scheme was strongly supported by an independent Queensland candidate at the last Australian senate election.
Revised Bradfield schemes are being assessed, and include damming the Nicholson and Leichhardt Rivers and diverting them from the Gulf of Carpentaria into the Flinders River, as well as the rivers proposed by Bradfield.
:emot112_2:
@ Mike A, had a look on the trusty old search engine and found this oldish study doc... haven't read much of it but can see from a distance that Nam side of the border have not been consulted much wrt their study.
http://www.bohlweki.co.za/img/File/Library/DWAF%20Gauging%20Weirs/Appendix%20D%20-%20Geomorphology.pdf
Perhaps we'll have to erect a fence along the "river" to serve as a border.
That's because when that said doc was put together, there was still a dispute raging about where the actual border was on the river, at the time the colonial oppressive regime (hehehe, I always wanted to say that) were claiming the high water mark on the northern bank as the actual border......