Hydroconsult

I resumed my duties as engineer in charge of the Water Affairs laboratories in Pretoria West, but personal circumstances made this the least satisfying part of my career. There was also much unhappiness among the staff about the way the Department was being run and many colleagues resigned to join the private sector. Among them were Eric Chunnett, Vis Fourie and Ronnie Immelman, who formed a consulting firm called Hydroconsults. Roby Myburgh had in the meantime become Director of Water Affairs in the then South West Africa (now Namibia). He provided the new consultants with important work.

I also resigned and joined the firm’s Pretoria office in October 1966. Two of the partners Chunnett and Fourie were there, while only Immelman was stationed in Windhoek. Hans Eschberger, a WA technician, was also employed by Hydroconsults in Pretoria, while Charles Sellick joined the firm in Windhoek. The first task I was entrusted with was the design of the spillway of the proposed von Bach dam on the Swakop River near Okahandja.

It was first proposed to use a neck as the site of an uncontrolled spillway. After studying the proposition, I proposed that the spillway, diversion works and outlet works be incorporated in a single structure on the left bank. The spillway was to be controlled by two high radial gates, with the outlet works housed in the central pier between them. My proposal proved to provide a substantial saving and was accepted. Another task in connection with the project was the structural design of the water purification works building – a concrete frame carrying substantial loads of chemicals. Hydroconsults also became involved in the Ruacana hydro-electric project on the Kunene River near the border of SWA and Angola.

I did some work on a small hydro-project using the falls to provide power during construction of the main one. For the latter, a tunnel was envisaged connecting the proposed weir to the underground power station. I investigated an alternative open canal solution during the time I acted for a while as RE for the construction of the temporary power station, in the absence of Peter Rasch, the RE, who was on honeymoon. I was also entrusted with the task of designing the Ovamboland canal – a major water supply canal taking Kunene water from the Calueque dam in Angola deep into Ovamboland. Calueque was the regulating dam for the Ruacana project.

I was also involved in the design of the pumping station at the dam, lifting the water in the canal. The latter necessarily had a very flat gradient, seeing that it had to cross a substantial number of “oshanas”, mostly dry water courses draining the flat countryside. During my time at Hydroconsults, I became involved as an expert witness in the so called “putsloot” court action, where the State prosecuted a contractor for perjury in a previous civil case between him and his client, a farmer in Namaqualand. The prosecutor was Ian Farlam, later a well-known judge and Chairman of the Commission investigating the death of a number of miners during the Marikana strike. Other witnesses involved were Heinrich Elges, DWA engineer and Barney Barnard, of the Earth Materials lab.