St. Lucia estuary mouth is closing!

 This pic was taken on Saturday 11  June 2022.  The St. Lucia estuary mouth is where three water sources meet. First is the Umfolozi River mouth. Next is the lake tidal link and the third is the Indian ocean. In the past. The Umfolozi and Mzundusi overflow were managed separately from the lake tidal link. The main reasoning behind this separation was the vast quantities of silt within the Umfolozi River flood waters. 

The 2017 GEF PROJECT ignored this silt factor,  and the scientists appointed by the iSimangaliso Wetland Park Authority ran a very effective public perception management strategy to endure that the public accepted their rather nasty proposal to link the Umfolozi River directly to the rest of the St. Lucia lake systems, in their efforts to get water into the St. Lucia lake systems.

The results are now evident as can be seen here. Silt has settled in nasty places and clogged up the inter-tidal flow paths  Mud, mud and more mud  now needed to be removed.  This is going to be difficult.

What ideas do you have that may help us solve this problem ?

Got an idea ?  One that may help solve the problem ! Send it to 4u2fish@info4u.co.za

 

The silt levels within the St. Lucia lake and estuary systems is  much worse than the IWPA is telling.  The tidal link between the lake and estuary systems is now a thing of the past, but we need this tidal channel to work so that the fish breeding and nursery grounds may become functional.  the St. Lucia lake  system used to sustain more than 60 percent of all fish breeding grounds in South Africa.  This is now not available to our fish stocks. thus is a rather nasty problem, and our marine fish stocks are suffering a very disturbing loss of juvenile recruitment , meaning that this is leading to a collapse of our coastal fish stocks.

what to do ?  everybody appears to be ignoring these losses of nursery grounds for our coastal marine fishes.

how will we bring this problem into the foreground of nature conservation and the management of our local  natural renewable resources ?

any help will be appreciated.   see our Facebook pages at facebook.com/4u2fish and leave a comment discussing your views on this nasty problem.