Magalies Water said this week it acknowledged the high hyacinth coverage on Hartbeespoort Dam and that the manual removal of the invasive plant had continued during the festive season.

Hyacinth cover is between 35-40%.

According to Magalies Water, coverage is currently 33.59%. “It is a well-known fact that the regrowth rate of the hyacinth increases during the summer months as a result of persistent heat. Magalies Water, through Hyamatla Organics has continued to manually remove as much of the invasive plant as possible without negatively affecting tourists and local businesses during the festive season,” said Magalies Water spokesperson Bulelwa Mbali-Khoele.
“Currently, removal activities are taking place at the De Rust area where all machinery and manual labour have been deployed. The nano bubbler is still in operation. During the festive season, we had to reduce operations to evenings as the system was affected by power trips due to high voltage use resulting from large numbers of visitors to the Ifafi Aquatic Club. It is now back to full operation.”
The litter traps that were installed at the Crocodile and Magalies River inlets, as part of the remediation project, have, however, been vandalised. “The service provider has been advised of this unfortunate incident and is attending to it,” Mbali-Khoele said.
“We do care about the ecological state of the dam, hence additional measures have been taken to curb the coverage. It must be stated that we cannot stop the growth of the invasive plant, as it thrives based on a number of factors, many of which are out of Magalies Water’s immediate control. The biggest challenge is upstream pollution. We can only manage growth by curbing the rate at which the plant is growing.”
In the meantime, the Centre for Biological Control (CBC) at Rhodes University said community Megamelus rearing stations have been consistently releasing Megamelus insects since the end of August. “Cover is currently between 35-40% and we have had reports from our satellite rearing station managers that plants are beginning to yellow on the dam. The insect numbers are comparable to previous years, and with the yellowing, we should start to see very damaged plants soon,” said Dr Kelby English.
She said the community rearing station teams deserve all the credit for Megamelus releases this season.