13 May 2010, 09:11
Strong opposition to a new toll plaza at Isipingo began to coalesce last night when the eThekwini council and business in Durban announced plans to fight the proposed N2 Wild Coast Toll Road through a legal appeals process.

The Durban Chamber of Commerce and Industry, representing more than 3 500 companies, signalled its intention to “pull out all the stops” to block the Isipingo portion of the controversial toll road.

Municipal manager Mike Sutcliffe also confirmed that the city would lodge an appeal following an executive committee meeting this week where councillors reaffirmed a resolution taken in 2002 to oppose any more toll roads within the city’s boundaries.

Quoting from a report submitted to the committee, Sutcliffe said there had been 8 000 objections to the toll road during the environmental impact assessment process and it was clear that proposed mitigation measures from the government would not address the negative impact of tolls on the Durban economy.

A recent report from the municipality notes that 350 000 people live in the southern part of the city and many would be adversely affected by the Isipingo plaza.

The report estimates there are about 57 000 work trips through the Isipingo area during the morning peak. About 70 percent of these trips were via public transport and about 30 percent by private cars.

The Durban chamber also called an urgent meeting yesterday afternoon to decide whether to submit a legal appeal against the recent decision to grant environmental approval for the project.

Members were warned that the deadline to file appeals expires next week.

Chamber president Clive Manci said he would continue to lobby senior government officials, though some members complained that the government appeared to be deaf to numerous protests raised so far.

Manci said it was clear that the trend to establish new toll roads in Durban and other parts of the province would raise the cost of doing business.

It is understood that several chamber members, under the umbrella of the South Durban Basin Business Coalition, have already prepared a separate legal appeal against the toll plaza.

Act fast

Attorney Glendyr Nel, who chairs the chamber’s environmental committee, warned that it was essential for members to take a decision soon.

“The May 19 deadline is just around the corner, so we need to act fast to prepare a properly considered legal appeal.”

Amar Sooklal, of the chamber’s economic development committee, said an economic assessment by transport consultant Gavin Maasdorp had highlighted several adverse impacts from the proposed toll plaza.

Manci said there seemed to be a presumption that Durban businesses would absorb further cost hikes like toll fees.

“The reality is that we can’t afford further increases in production costs.”

Members would decide swiftly on whether to align the chamber with other groups lodging appeals, or to lodge a separate appeal to lend strength to the appeals process.

It is understood that environmental and social groups under the umbrella of Sustaining the Wild Coast are also finalising an appeal, along with South Durban residents and commuters under the banner of the Upper South Coast Anti-Toll Focus Group.

The KwaZulu-Natal legislature is also opposed to the Isipingo plaza, but it was not clear last night whether the premier, Zweli Mkhize, would lodge an appeal.

This article was originally published on page 1 of The Mercury on May 13, 2010

Posted on May 14th, 2010 by Louis
Filed under: Current Issues, Newspaper and Media | No Comments »

On 13 February a one-month comment period was opened for
the new draft Environmental Impact Assessment
regulations.

You can go to www.environment.gov.za to find out more.

There are important changes proposed that may be bad
news for the environment:
All your comments will be forwarded to FEAT.

Posted on March 12th, 2009 by Louis
Filed under: Current Issues | No Comments »

Dear Editor
The Wild Coast Mallet Award for Fiction

George Monbiot , the widely respected British environmental journalist and social commentator, recently announced that he was putting up a prize for the writer of ‘best climate change fiction’ of the year. This would be awarded to that person who “manages, in the course of 2009, to cram as many misrepresentations, distortions and falsehoods into a single article, statement, lecture, film or interview about climate change.”
Following on Monbiot’s footsteps, we suggest that SANRAL’s Mr. Fanie Van Aardt deserves a ‘Wild Coast Mallet Award for Fiction’ for his statements about the impacts of the N2 Wild Coast Toll road which recently appeared in The Herald article ‘Wild Coast does not need Toll road’.
Mr. van Aardt’s dismisses SWC’s concerns that negative environmental and social impacts of the road will lead to increased poverty, unless the road is accompanied by a regional development plan, as being unfounded and ‘speculative’. As these are the same concerns that are raised in detail in the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) specialist reports about social development and environmental impacts, does this mean Mr. Van Aardt also considers the EIA findings to be purely ‘speculative’?
click here to read more

Posted on February 16th, 2009 by Louis
Filed under: Letters | No Comments »

Guy Rogers  ENVIRONMENT & TOURISM EDITOR
RATHER than a profit- driven toll road mega- development, the Wild Coast needs its existing road system and local government capacity improved.
That‘so the view of Sustaining the Wild Coast (SWC), the public participation and conservation NGO spearheading opposition against the Wild Coast N2 toll road project, which has been proposed by the SA National Roads Agency Ltd (Sanral).
The controversial project is aimed at building a high- speed link between Durban and East London, with an 80km section between Port St Johns and Port Edward to be routed through a world-acclaimed botanical mecca.
The project was initially approved in 2004 by Environmental Affairs Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk, but after considering appeals the minister judged that there were “inappropriate links” between environmental consultants Bohlweki and the consortium of construction companies who were bidding.
He did not quash the project completely, however, and a new EIA was launched in 2006.
It was finished in November last year and the public were given three months, much of it over the Christmas holidays, to comment.
These comments are now sitting with NMA, the public participation consultant, in Johannesburg.
The company could not be reached for comment this week, but correspondence from it reveals that “thousands” of comments have been received.
They are now being collated and will be passed on, with the EIA, to the department of environmental affairs and tourism.
SWC spokesman Val Payn said one of her group‘s concerns was that the issue of tolling had not been considered in the EIA.
This should have included how much the envisaged tariffs would be and how this would affect use of the road, the movement of local communities and the cost of goods, she said.
“It raises the question we have asked from the start, which is: ‘Who is this road for?‘
“The construction and tolling companies and the company that wants to mine the Xolobeni dunes are the only obvious beneficiaries at present.”
The fundamental flaw in the project was that it did not stem from a regional development plan which identified a need and then looked for the best way to meet that need, she said.
“The Wild Coast spatial development initiative published in the late 1990s refers to the need for improved road infrastructure, which no one disputes. But it also says the Pondoland centre of endemism (PCE) should not be damaged.
“Sanral‘s proposed route through the PCE is an unsolicited bid primarily motivated by profit.”
Payn said the context of a regional development plan was a prerequisite for any proper consideration of the project.
Such a plan would include the need to improve government capacity to cope with the increased management and planning pressures that the road would bring.
It was also necessary to explain how the multiplier effects of the road would be controlled and stimulated for maximum benefits, she said.
“Without it, the N2 is liable to result in increasing environmental pressures on sensitive environments, leading to increasing environmental degradation and a spiral of increasing poverty and inequality.
“What the Wild Coast needs is not a toll road, but improved local road infrastructure and much increased capacity-building at local government level.
“Lastly, we need an investment in the development of local human skills and local economies at grassroots level.”
Sanral spokesman Fanie van Aardt dismissed SWC‘s warning that the project would result in environmental degradation and worse poverty if it was not linked to a regional development plan as being “purely speculative”.
“The implementation of the N2 Wild Coast toll highway would indeed assist in the development of local road infrastructure during the construction period and into the operational period,” he said.
“For the Pondoland area, where poverty and unemployment affect countless people, it is the possible catalyst to the improvement of the community lifestyle.”
Van Aardt said tolling had not been considered in the EIA because this was “a separate process which will get under way once the EIA has been approved”.
He said he did not agree that this approach could result in a skewed presentation in the EIA of the costs and benefits of the project.
“The benefits on some parts of the road will be more than on others, but overall the benefits will outweigh the costs.”
The issue of increasing local government capacity and accountability “is beyond the scope of the EIA”, he said.
Environmental affairs and tourism deputy director-general Joanne Yawitch said the department did not comment on EIAs before they had been considered by the government, and a decision was issued.
Once this decision had been issued, there was an opportunity for appeals to be made and these were then considered by the minister, she noted.

Posted on February 10th, 2009 by Louis
Filed under: Articles, Current Issues, Newspaper and Media | No Comments »

January 29 wild- for immediate release

Flood of Objections to Wild Coast Toll Road

An unprecedented flood of thousands of objections has poured in to the consultants tasked with writing the final Report on the Wild Coast Toll Road EIA, despite holiday season timing for public comment.
The submissions have come from individuals, communities, businesses,
environmental organisations and civil society groups, while in Durban, where road users are protesting extra toll booths, local government have joined the chorus.
Many of the comments have described the EIAR as ‘fatally flawed” in many ways, but particularly in its lack of compliance with required legal standards and adherence to public participation norms.
It also
* misleadingly characterises the project as a regional social development initiative
* misleadingly assesses the benefits of secondary development
* fails to assess socio-economic impacts
* fails to assess the cumulative effects of mining and the toll road\
* demonstrates inadequate consultation with IAPs.
Specialist studies into relocation, land claims and sacred sites also fall short.
salaamu
Lylie Musgrave
Kibao Communications
On behalf of Sustaining the Wild Coast
tel: 27 31 2613406
fax 27 31 2616232
mobile: 072 2970974
email: kibao@iafrica.com
Full transcripts of comments are available on www.swc.org.za

Posted on January 29th, 2009 by Louis
Filed under: Current Issues, Press Releases, SWC Comments | No Comments »

Cullinan and Associates, environmental and heritage law specialists.

Click here to read more.

Posted on January 26th, 2009 by Louis
Filed under: Annual Reports, SWC Comments | No Comments »

Whilst there are obvious flaws and contradictions throughout the EIR the comments herein will be directed towards the Public Participation Process as that is where my expertise lies and having worked directly with some of the communities along the longer Greenfields section who have a desire to participate. These comments are also in regard only to the proposed Greenfields section between Port Edward and Lusikisiki and do not apply to any other part of the proposed road.
Two flaws within the FSR creating two fatal flaws in the EIR
Click here to read more
Sandy Heather
Grass Roots Education
P O Box 931
Magaliessig
2067
Tel: 011 4623176; brash@netactive.co.za

Posted on January 26th, 2009 by Louis
Filed under: SWC Comments | 6 Comments »