Hartbeespoort Dam - spectacular view with all ten sluices open.
All ten sluices open at Hartbeespoort Dam. Aerial photography as never seen before.
In 1906, the government ordered a public inquiry into the feasibility of building an irrigation dam in the Hartbeespoort of the Magaliesberg. The engineer of the Department of Irrigation that led the inquiry, submitted a favourable report to the government and the Hartebeestpoort Act. 32 of 1914 was accepted by Parliament. As early as 1909 there were test holes drilled at the bottom of the river to determine whether the rock formation was suitable for building such a huge dam. The size of the catchment area was calculated, the water flow was measured and estimates made of the potentially irrigable land. Downstream claims to the existing water stream were established. The topography of the riverbank and rock formations were examined to evaluate the viability of the port for the construction project.
The construction of the dam officially started in August 1916. Initially, work was delayed pending a court judgment with General Hendrik Schoeman and a certain Mr. Marshevin about the expropriation of their properties. The dispute was later resolved but discontent remained after a hastily passed law to facilitate the expropriation. In his book "Agter die Magalies", Bertus de Beer argues that the government acted in a heavy-handed manner to resolve a number of issues surrounding the construction of the dam. Mother Nature caused further delays due to flooding. In 1914 and again in 1918, huge amounts of construction wood washed down the river and were never recovered. During 1915, the wall of the Geldenhuysdam further up the river broke and the flooding of the site also caused a delay.
The disruption caused by the First World War, and the complications brought on by the Rebellion of a group of Afrikaners, brought further delays to the building. Then the first company was liquidated due to financial losses resulting from the floods and delays. In 1921 a second company took on the project and appointed an engineer, F. W. Scott, who tackled the project with renewed energy. In April 1923, after all the setbacks and political upheaval, the project was completed. In September of that same year the road over the wall of the Dam and through the tunnel was opened to traffic. The dam first overflowed in March 1925.
The dam was built on the farm Hartebeestpoort, once owned by the Boer General Hendrik Schoeman (1840-1901). The farm and adjacent land were acquired by the State, mainly through the facilitation of his son, Johan Schoeman (1887-1967), around 1912. The completion of the dam made the agricultural land north of the Magaliesberg much more valuable, especially land close to canals and the Krokodil River.
The dam wall is 149.5 metres long and 59.4 metres high, built across a gorge cutting through the Magaliesberg. The reservoir is fed by the waters of the Crocodile River and Magalies River and covers approximately 18.83 square kilometres, with a mean depth of 9.6 metres and maximum depth of 45.1 metres. It has a surface area of 20 square kilometres, and its normal range of annual water level fluctuation is 0.8 metres. The mixing type of the reservoir is monomictic.
A single-laned, tarmac road skirts the water's edge on the north side; along its route it passes through a 56.6 m long tunnel and also crosses the dam wall.
Hartbeespoort Dam supplies irrigation water through a 544 kilometres long network of canals to 159.76 square kilometres of farmland on which tobacco, wheat, lucerne, fruit and flowers are produced. Deteriorating water quality, most notably Microcystin toxin, is now causing much of the irrigated agriculture to fall into disuse.
Hartbeespoort has become a very popular holiday and weekend resort for the inhabitants of Johannesburg and Pretoria; it is the principal water recreation area of northern Gauteng and many types of water sports are enjoyed on the dam. The Transvaal Yacht Club has been operating at the dam since its construction in 1923.
Пікірлер: 23
Man, that is some awesome footage! So clear... I've driven there many times. Nostalgic and how special to see it from the air! Thanks!
Very nice video. You surely have balls to go so close to the water with your drone.
What a vision! Awesome work Heiner Meyer!
Thanks Heiner! not sure which I appreciated more - the footage or the music score - cool stuff!
Beauty by nature;-)) Thank God for the overflow
Baie dankie dis wonderlik mooi om te sien.
Lovely share - Thanks !
well done....amazing footage
Looks good, wish I was there
Thing of beauty
Cool video
Actually this is really great to see. Well done in your effort and balls to record this. Obviously we would like to see more as we are all pushing the envelope against this real shitty CAA Part 101. Make more!!!!
Nice
Very cool, what drone did you use?
@Heiner-Meyer
7 жыл бұрын
Used a Phantom 4 Pro, outstanding performance and reliability.
@SharriVanZyl
7 жыл бұрын
HΞINΞR MΞYΞR Very nice, I have the P4, not pro. Absolutely love them! Very sick footage
Is that a trash heap or are my eyes deceiving me, at 0:53 in the lower right? Really close to the water
There is a highly classified and confidential info. about this video, a blue car plunged into a dam next to the wall.
a shame there isn't a hydro electric turbine or 2!
@Heiner-Meyer
7 жыл бұрын
Hi John, Hartbeespoort Dam actually has a little hydro plant installed with the necessary construction already in place for a second one. The dams impoundment has been seriously affected by eutrophication for many years and it's storage capacity has dramatically been reduced by sedimentation. The hydro installation however only has a capacity of 37.0 kW which could probably be upgraded with more energy efficient equipment. Herewith an article which is very interesting published by The Kormorant. Regards Heiner At the height of the construction, towards the end of 1924, 2 500 workmen and 19 engineers were directly employed to have the Hartbeespoort Dam completed by the end of that year, as reported in the Irrigation Magazine of 15 June, 1924. One of the modern innovations incorporated into the wall of the Dam was a small hydro-electric power plant which was commissioned shortly after the completion of the wall in 1924. It was in operation for about 40 years, supplying electricity for the operation of all the pumps and other equipment and the residential areas and offices of the Department of Water Affairs. The power plant was an almost forgotten feature of the dam after it was decommissioned about 40 years ago. It once again came to the public’s attention when it was included in a site visit after a conference by the SA Water Institute in Pilansberg in May last year. The visit to the site was reported in Kormorant of 12 June 2008. According to the report all the valves and cast iron pipes of the plant were manufactured in England and shipped to Cape Town for delivery to the site by rail. The drop from the East bank canal to the river was to be used to drive the turbines for the hydro-electric generator to supply electricity to the immediate surroundings. The machinery arrived by March 1924 and on 13 June of that year it was reported that the plant had been in operation for a couple of months. It replaced the 45 KW paraffin oil generator which was removed for use elsewhere. Apparently, the plant was damaged by lightning in December 1924 but reports that it had then been decommissioned were refuted by a resident whose father was the electrician responsible for the installation and maintenance of the plant. Ms Joanita Norman was born in the Water Affairs township and her father, Mr J M P Redelinghuys, was the electrician responsible for the plant from 1922 until he retired in 1949. According to Ms Norman her father kept a diary of events concerning the plant and he never mentioned the lightning strike of 1924. However, he did mention the floods of 1944 and how he and his assistant tried to save the equipment when it became clear that the plant would be flooded. Eventually they had to flee for their lives. She remembers how he later tried to dry the meters in her mother’s oven. The plant was still operating when he retired in 1949 and supplied all the electricity for the immediate area. When ESCOM (as Eskom was known then) was contracted to supply power to the Department of Water Affairs in the early sixties, two local businessmen, Messrs Jack Seale from the Snake Park and Sydney Swarts from the Lake Hotel, offered to rent the plant from the Department of Water Affairs because private businesses and residential areas around the Dam had to supply their own power. The department, however, for various reasons was not prepared to rent out the plant. Eskom shortly afterwards extended its services to the whole of Hartbeespoort and the plant was forgotten. But there are plans afoot to resurrect the hydro-electric power station. The Department of Water Affairs plans to recommission the plant and use the electricity to power the equipment needed to remove silt from the bottom of the lake. Huge suction pumps will be needed for this operation and their power consumption will be such that it will be economical to have the power generated locally. Mr Petrus Venter, regional director of the department, says that the whole plant will have to be refurbished, which would amount to virtually a new plant. But with the cost of power generation and the possibility of selling excess capacity to the Eskom grid (the so-called REFIT - Renewable Energy Feed In - option) it could just be a viable proposition. Written by Willie Meyer - First published in Kormorant on 30 July 2009 A copy of Willie Meyer’s book - Magaliesberg Kaleidoskoop - is available at the Kormorant office.
song please
@Heiner-Meyer
7 жыл бұрын
"Baska Brother" by Parov Stelar (Google Play • iTunes)
@Heiner-Meyer
7 жыл бұрын
"Baska Brother" by Parov Stelar (Google Play • iTunes)