Heritage Cases

The KwaZulu-Natal Department of Transport (DOT) propose to construct a new box culvert within Ward 6 of the Umvoti Local Municipality, Umzinyathi District Municipality. The L2068 Box culvert will be located in the Tongwe area at the following point location, 28°51'20.58"S, 30°51'30.18"E. The box culvert will be constructed across a riparian area and drainage line in the upper reaches of the Tugela Valley (Jamerson’s Drift). The L2068 Road is a small access road that services two households and a small primary school. The road intercepts a small drainage line and riparian area that currently has no drainage infrastructure in place. The current surface water flows directly over the gravel road. Both pedestrians and vehicles cross the bed of this watercourse in times of high flow which becomes dangerous for vehicles and pedestrians. The culvert will be a single cell 1.8m x 1.8m in-situ concrete box culvert with an inlet and outlet on either side of the structure. Reno-mattresses will be placed at the inlet and outlet within the watercourse bed. The road will be re-aligned 20m downstream of the existing road. This will therefore entail the infill and removal of more than 10m3 of material from a watercourse which requires environmental authorisation. The in-situ box culvert will be comprised of the following: o A single cell box culvert with 1.8m x 1.8m openings. An inlet and outlet with reno-mattresses will be put in place for erosion management within the watercourse (See Figures 3 and Appendix A). Larger culvert diameters are less likely to become blocked in the long term and will help facilitate water flow from one side of the road to the other. o The road will be 6m wide. The width of the current road will be widened by 2m on either side of the road. This will result in the clearing of up to 190m2 of riparian vegetation. The specialist who assessed the site concluded that there was no definable wetland area present around the watercourse1. There will therefore be no loss of wetland for the construction of this box culvert. There will be no temporary structure required for crossing the watercourse during construction. The existing road on the L2068 Road will be used to cross the watercourse during construction of the new box culvert. The total construction corridor (construction footprint) for the box culvert within the watercourse is as follows:  Total area – 368m2 (Figure 3) The volumes of soil/sand that will be removed for the construction of the culvert within the watercourse itself are estimated as follows:  Total volume – 18m3 (Culvert 6m length x 3m width 1m height) The figures below illustrate the proposed design of the L2068 Culvert (provided in Appendix A). The construction of the L2068 Box culvert will have a positive impact on local access for the community living in this area. The current lack of a crossing structure exposes the community who use this access road to hazardous conditions when water levels rise. Access across the watercourse is not possible when water levels are high. The proposed box culvert will ultimately allow vehicles and pedestrians to cross the watercourse safely and efficiently, improving local access and road safety in this area.