Back to Water Affairs

I was very happy at Hydroconsults and would no doubt have stayed with the firm if it had not been that I ran into Dale Hobbs, a senior WA engineer, who told me that new brooms were sweeping in the Department: Jan Jordaan had retired and had been succeeded by Jacques Kriel and there was an energetic new Minister: Fanie Botha, later nicknamed Fanie Water. He had seen to it that a number of bursaries were given to prospective engineers, many of whom later joined and became known as the Botha boys. Dale asked me to re-join the Department in the senior position of Deputy Chief Engineer – Design. I went to see the Pretoria partners of Hydroconsult and wanted to know what my future would be with them. They explained to me that the firm wanted to stay small, and that they basically had only one client: the SWA water affairs. They had already two partners in Pretoria and only one in Windhoek. During my divorce, I had to give an undertaking that I would not leave the Pretoria area with the children, so that I could not accept a transfer to Windhoek. Under the circumstances, I saw no future in staying with Hydroconsults and accepted Water Affair’s offer. I re-joined them in June 1969, shortly after my re-marriage with my present wife.

Back at Water Affairs, I was put in charge of the Earth and Rock fill dam division of the design office. I had a number of capable engineers reporting to me such as Piet Pretorius, Tony Sykes, Heinrich Elges, Joe Hansmann, Frans Stoffberg, Billy van Zyl, Gerhard Eckardt and one Petzer whose first name escapes me, a Check engineer called Bohuslav Barta and a Fin called Paavo Ollikainen, inevitably nicknamed “Oliekan”. The materials laboratory in Pretoria West was also my responsibility. Ahlers was in charge with Barney Barnard his deputy. The following dams were being designed under my supervision: Kafferskraal dam (later renamed Vygeboom Dam) on the Komati River and associated Gladdespruit and Poponyane weirs, Gemsbokhoek weir also on the Komati, Vaalkop Dam on the Crocodile River, Kwaggaskloof Dam adjacent to the Breede River, Spitskop Dam on the Harts River, Albert Falls Dam on the Umgeni River, Tzaneen Dam on the Letaba River, and  Westoe and Morgenstond on tributaries of the Usutu River, from where Escom power stations were to be supplied, Magoebaskloof Dam, Elandsdrift Barrage, Sterkfontein Dam, Driel Barrage, Tugela-Vaal canals and diversion weirs.

I cannot remember clearly how I became involved in the design of the spillway of the Donkerpoort Dam near Nylstroom for the consultants Strydom and Roux. It was probably still a remnant of my time in the private sector. The engineer leading the project was Doger de Spéville.
At one stage, I was asked to prepare a provisional design for a dam on the Slanghoek River, to supplement the supply to the Breede River. The latter was regulated by the existing Brandvlei Dam and later to be supplemented by the Kwaggaskloof Dam, then under design. I visited the site, but asked myself the question why the Brandvlei Dam was not being raised instead? I was told that the foundations, consisting of sand and river gravel, where considered to be too permeable, which would make raising unsafe. During my stay in France, I had seen similar foundations in the Rhine River being cut-off with a technique developed by Solétanche – the slurry trench, where bentonite allowed concrete to be placed from below the slurry. The canal from the Molenaars and Smalblaar Rivers could be enlarged and extra water could be pumped from the Breede River into Brandvlei. On 13 January 1970, I wrote a letter to the then Chief Engineer (Design), suggesting that my idea be investigated. A foundation investigation under Heinrich Elges was started. It showed in the end that the dam could be safely raised, even without a slurry trench cut-off! This saved part of the scenic Slanghoek valley being submerged! The project has since been implemented as suggested.

At the time I started wondering about the number of expensive offtakes needed in dams to abstract the required quality of water. Because the variation in water level throughout the year, these offtakes were needed at different levels. I thought of a floating intake that could follow the rising and falling levels in the reservoir. Mr Ruzicka, a Polish engineer in the Mechanical Design Division of the Department made drawings of my idea, which was subsequently successfully tested in the Hydraulics Laboratory of the Department. A private firm (Cementation) wanted to patent the idea, but I am not sure whether they did and whether it was ever implemented somewhere.