The socio-economic effects of Spring Grove Dam in the Midlands area
[Source: www.springgrovedam.co.za]
Table of Contents
Page
Introduction: Aims and Objectives 3
Location
Aim
Hypothesis
Factors of Investigation
Review of Literature 5
Data/Information Gathering and Presentation of Findings 7
Analysis, Interpretation and Discussion of Findings
Conclusion and Evaluation
Referencing
INTRODUCTION
Location and information about Spring Grove Dam:
Spring Grove Dam is situated in the Mooi River/Nottingham Road area in the Midlands about 2km south west of the Rosetta Village and is built to be used as a transfer scheme to transfer water between the Mooi and the Mgeni areas, as shown in Photograph 1. The function of the dam is to supply the demand of water from the Pietermaritzburg and Durban areas. Spring Grove Dam has been built as an extension to the other dams (Midmar, Umgeni River, Nagle Dam and Albert Falls) that have been built to supply the average 5 million people in the Pietermaritzburg and Durban areas with clean water. The aim of this dam is to pump water from the dam into other catchment areas and from there the water will be used for final use. The Mooi River area is the cheapest area to build another dam, hence the reason for the dam being situated here. Spring Grove Dam is said to hold 139,5 million m³ as the gross storage volume. The embankment type is ‘earthfill’ and a height of 11,5m. The dam height is 37m with a spillway height of 32m, a spillway length of 70m and a catchment area of 344km.
Photograph 1: The location of Spring Grove Dam
[Source: www.springgrovedam.co.za]
Aim: To prove that Spring Grove Dam will have a negative effect on the people living around...
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...een completed. The dam has had an impact on the residents of the Rosetta area as well as those in Durban as they are receiving the water supply. Durban is therefore benefitting as a water shortage has been forecasted for South Africa as a whole and they now have a currently secured water supply.
The residents living downstream are also effected by the dam as they now have a change in the flow of the river water, this change being a slowing in the flow rate. The natural flow of the river is said to not be handled correctly as yet. Many animals have also been effected as their once home and grazing land has now been moved due to the construction of Spring Grove Dam. Despite all the negative impacts the dam has had, the residents of the area feel that the project has been an overall asset to the area and positive to the community and to our country as a whole.
The Elitsac Manufacturing Company Dam affects 14.08 miles of Wolf Creek (Fish, n.d.). The original purpose of this dam is not documented within the state’s dam inventory, and it is also no longer in service (Dam, n.d.). Another dam on Wolf Creek is Hopkins Mill Dam, which also is out of service. The Hopkins Mill Dam was originally built to generate hydroelectric power and affects 46.58 miles of river (Fish, n.d.).
The primary purpose of Friend dam is to help regulate the flow of San Joaquin into available uses of its environmental, wildlife, and farmer’s impacts. The dam controls the flow of water delivery where it needs authorization first before the schedule can release any delivery waters into canals, steam, and wild life habitats. There will be agreements and many protocols to do with it first to avoid unnecessary spilling. There are 5 release schedules which include quantity of water available, time water, flood control requirements, release schedules from storage reservoir above Millerton Lake, and water user requirements. These benefits of flood control, storage management, modification into Madera and Friant-Kern Canals, to stop salty water from abolishing thousands of lands in Sacramento and throughout San Joaquin Delta, as well as deliver masses of water into agricultural lands in 5other counties in the San Joaquin Valley.
Wuerthner, George. North Idaho's Lake Country. Helena, MT: American & World Geographic Pub., 1995. Print.
Federal Emergency Management Agency’s article, “Benefit of Dams” (2012) analyzes how dams prevent flooding by releasing the excess water in controlled amounts through floodgates (¶ 3).
The one feature common to the Hoover Dam, the Mississippi River and the Three Gorges Dam is that they all try to control nature’s swings, specifically in the form of flooding. Before the Hoover dam was built, the Colorado river “used to flood spectacularly.but after 1900 the Colorado provoked a vehement response” (Pg 177). The response was simple, but large. The U.S. built several large dams, including the Hoover dam, on the Colorado to decrease its flooding and increase power and irrigation. Unfortunately, just as human control of the Colorado’s flooding increased, its organisms and habitats were detrimentally influenced, and the water became more and more salinated.
Policies are often put in place without regards for the effect it will have on other areas, people, or wildlife. Several examples of these unintended consequences are shown in the documentary Salmon: Running the Gauntlet, which explains the effects that human activity, dams, and attempts to repopulate the salmon species have been implemented and failed. With proper evaluation at the onset of a major project, these severe consequences may be avoided.
The South Fork Dam collapsed and unleashed 20 million tons of water from its reservoir. A wall of water, reaching up to 70 feet high, swept 14 miles down the Little Conemaugh River Valley, carrying away steel mills, houses, livestock and people. At 4:07 p.m., the floodwaters rushed into the industrial city of Johnstown, crushing houses and downtown businesses in a whirlpool that lasted 10 minutes. (New York Times, 1889).
Beyond all of Abbey's personal feelings and emotional memories, let us not forget about what these dams and reservoirs are providing us with-power. Electricity is extremely important to everyone. It is the reason for seemingly everything people consider vital to their lives; cars, computers, TV, running water through the faucet, everything. It is not something we can just forget about because of an author's emotional attachment to a certain strip of land sacrificed to make thousands of other people happy sitting safe in their home with electricity.
This Paper will describe and analyze three articles pertaining to the ongoing debate for and against Glen Canyon Dam. Two of these articles were found in the 1999 edition of A Sense of Place, and the third was downloaded off a site on the Internet (http://www.glencanyon.net/club.htm). These articles wi...
Most of the rivers are the one being used by large communities like drinking water supply and for the farmers in their produce. The State of Department put together a commission of knowledgeable people and carried out an investigation about the risk and consequences of this project. Some of the conclusion about the spills were, for example, that: “A million of gallons of tar soil war poured into the Kalamazoo River in Michigan… 40 miles of this river still are contaminated to this day”. Another example of spills affecting communities, is the one in 2013, caused by a twenty foot crack in a pipeline, causing a huge spill of oil, damaging the residential neighborhoods and the Lake Conway in Arkansas. This spills and oil “accidents” are affecting not only the lives of people but also the wildlife, the ecosystems and the quality of air and water
Conflict between residents in northern Nevada and SNWA has risen (Brean, 2015). In 2012 the U.S. Bureau of Land Management announced its support of SNWA wanting to build a pipeline from rural Nevada to Las Vegas, rural Nevada being primarily in the northern portion of the state (Larsen et al., 2015). Residents including farmers who depend on water for their crops argue that redirecting water supplies would harm the environment and wildlife that inhabit northern Nevada (Brean, 2015). There is also an issue of oversubscription, this is due to the Colorado River not only supplying water to Nevada but neighboring states which include “Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah” (Wockner, 2014). Both Arizona and California are expecting water shortages in the future as they too depend on the Colorado River (Wockner, 2014).
The Inga 3 Project is a Dam building venture in the Congo. The idea was to build hydropower plants to extend energy across the globe. The original idea was to provide free or inexpensive energy and jobs to underdeveloped areas. This would be the third dam in the region. Inga 1 was completed in 1972 and Inga 2 was completed in 1982 and were a part of the Inga-Shaba project.
Pottinger, Lori. "Environmental Impacts of Large Dams: African Examples." International Rivers. N.p., 1 Oct. 1996. Web. 04 May 2014.
Observation Well: The readings of the 4-Observation wells are below the water level of the dam. OW8 and OW4 are located at the dam toe showing that the water levels are close to the tailwater level. For OW3 located at the middle level of the Saddle dam, show that the water level is close to the water level of the dam. Lastly, OW5 which is located far from the main dam, shows that the water level is below the water level of the dam. In addition, based on the alarm levels established through historical data (Damwatch database,2015), readings are within the allowable.
Many people have already dammed a small stream using sticks and mud by the time they become adults. Humans have used dams since early civilization, because four-thousand years ago they became aware that floods and droughts affected their well-being and so they began to build dams to protect themselves from these effects.1 The basic principles of dams still apply today as they did before; a dam must prevent water from being passed. Since then, people have been continuing to build and perfect these structures, not knowing the full intensity of their side effects. The hindering effects of dams on humans and their environment heavily outweigh the beneficial ones.