Despite recent rain, Lake St Lucia — South Africa’s first World Heritage Site — is still below its normal levels, Ezemvelo KwaZulu-Natal Wildlife said on Friday.
At present, the level of the lake is about 80cm below mean sea level, and the lake’s surface area is about 30% of normal.
”Although reasonably good rains have fallen in northern Zululand, more rain is needed in the catchment [areas] of the rivers feeding Lake St Lucia,” said Jeff Gaisford, the body’s spokesperson.
He said Lake St Lucia has again become compartmented into three distinct water bodies — as happened in late 2003 — owing to the drought.
Boating at the estuary is still possible, but is extremely difficult on the southern basin in the vicinity of Charter’s Creek, and in the northern basin from Fani’s Island northwards.
Fani’s Island Camp has already been closed due to severe water shortage, Gaisford said in a statement.
”Salinity levels are lower than 10 parts salt per thousand parts water [ppt] in the estuary, about 30 ppt in the Charter’s Creek basin and more than 70 ppt from Fani’s Island northwards. Sea water has a salinity of 35 ppt.”
About 13 000 birds, including 2 000 pelicans, are present in and around the lake. The pelicans are normally absent from the lake at this time of year. About 3 000 flamingos are also present.
”There is still good groundwater seepage from the dunes on the eastern shores providing drinking water for game and birds, and these seepage areas are now the refuge for the lake’s many crocodiles and hippos.
”The situation on the western shore of the lake is more severe where there is little drinking water for game, and Ezemvelo KwaZulu-Natal Wildlife is taking water to key game watering points by tanker,” he said.
It has been asked why Ezemvelo KwaZulu-Natal Wildlife and the Wetland Park Authority do not breach the St Lucia Estuary mouth artificially.
Gaisford said there are valid ecological reasons for not doing this. One is that with the lake level so low, the inflow of water would be extremely powerful and would carry with it into the estuary millions of tons of sea sand.
Had the mouth of St Lucia been artificially opened at the onset of the drought, about 45-million tons of salt would also have been carried into the St Lucia system during the 30 months since the closure of the mouth.
Water loss due to evaporation would have drawn a further million cubic metres of sea water into the system daily, thus adding to the salt load, Gaisford said. — Sapa