MISSION 18 of 2010

Name of Mission: Jukskei River for WET-Africa   
Date of Mission: 1st June 2010 
Aircraft used: Cessna Grand Caravan     
Beneficiary: Kim Kieser of WET-Africa
Pilot: Eddie Keizan

Report from the beneficiary: KIM  KIESER

JUKSKEI  AERIAL  MISSION &  PHOTOS  with  THE BATELEURS 01 JUNE 2010

MISSION:
To enable SOUL/WET international visiting partner delegates, during the WET 2010 Global Member Exchange Conference in late May, to see the state of pollution and other impacts on the watercourse of the Jukskei River, prior to our WET Flagship programme (to restore the river to its natural health, from its source in the suburb of Bertrams to the Crocodile River confluence).

To view the Jukskei River, it’s Catchment and Johannesburg from the air, to assist our visitors from UC Berkeley with the feasibility study, quantification and recommendations which the IBD Team has undertaken to deliver to SOUL Foundation.

The flight will form an intrinsic part of the monitoring/recording system describing and quantifying the eco-status of, and improvements to, the Jukskei Catchment. 

MISSION OBJECTIVES:
To map the status of the Jukskei River from source (in Bertrams, corner of Queen and Sports) to the Crocodile River Confluence and the main aspects impacting on the Catchment including pollution and river health status, development and irresponsible building practices.
The study includes the hotspots (Alexandra, Diepsloot and Zewenfontein).

The delegate partners and UCB student’s responses will also be used as a major promotional tool for the program and for raising awareness. The four students coming from UC Berkeley and the Global Footprint Network to do a research study with SOUL to establish a baseline value and the transformation of the watercourse.

OUTCOMES:
The flight immediately provided a useful Macro level perspective of the area for Wet-Africa. Additionally, the flight has provided high resolution digital photographs which have already helped to identify areas of attention along the waterway and given an   important overall indication of the health of the Jukskei. These photographs will be further studied and correlated with satellite maps to create an understanding of the river's situation before Wet-Africa.Org’s clean-up interventions. The waterway is currently in a poor condition with extensive examples of pollution and contamination through human activity resulting in the characteristic green colour of Hartebeespoort Dam.

It was an incredible experience for the UCB Team to have this opportunity to view the Jukskei River from source in Bertrams to the confluence of the Jukskei with the Crocodile River.  These are the first 67kms of the river which WET aims to restore.

The Catchment and its current degredated state will be a thing of the past once the WET-Jukskei Flagship River Restoration program commences. We are aiming to start in Alexandra in Sept/Oct 2010 as Phase 1. With the footage from 2009 and 2010 we can show the ongoing degraded state of the watercourse and in future the visible change and the “big picture” of the impact that our work will have.

Our pilot Eddie Keizan was brilliant, bringing our team safely home to solid ground! A big thank you to Eddie for the fantastic plane and fight, and to Richard Strever for taking great photographs of the Jukskei, including the hotspot Alex, thereby capturing the essence of what we wish to show, and for having the CD of the footage delivered to our office in Buccleuch.

Wet-Africa.org thanks The Bateleurs for their wonderful support and helping us to understand our waterways better.

Marlboro Bridge Before and After 2007