MISTY CLIFFS VILLAGE ASSOCIATION NEWSLETTER - August 2008
Editor: Tim Anderson

THIS is SSS reporting: No, not Scarborough Security Services; Super Slack Scribe. We're well over half-way through the year and this is the first Misty news for 2008. No wonder that people sell up in Misty - it's not the baboons, it's disappointment with the coms. The only excuse for this failure is rather lame: there've been lots of topics to write about but they were all in a state of flux with not much conclusive to say about them. Some of them are still rather fluid. Nevertheless, let's now try to update you, and do please note that the topics are not presented in an implied ranking of importance.

Wild fires
While we're drying out in the latest winter deluge the calamitous fires of earlier in the year can seem to lose priority. But there will be terrible fires again and we need to be better equipped to deal with them. Therefore, several discussions have taken place to examine how the fires were caused and dealt with and how we might do better next time. "We" means all the affected parties - the residents' associations, various emergency services, and certain land owners.

The fires were seriously aggravated by particular circumstances which hopefully may not recur; in particular, a large accumulation of dry pine trimmings in the path of the fire. This situation came about because much of the area concerned, although privately owned, is leased to Province for supposedly only temporary use as an informal settlement. For a long time there has been an accountability problem. A professional legal opinion was obtained earlier this year from which it appears that Province now has an incontestable obligation to participate actively in fire prevention and management.

Other factors against optimum fire management included inadequate water supply, lack of fire hydrants in Redhill, poor radio/cellphone communication because of mountainous terrain, and some operational confusion between affected emergency services and with residents.

There is no prospect of providing Redhill with hydrants any time soon because a major and costly upgrade of water reticulation in the area would be required. Gaining approval for this, for what is officially regarded as a non-permanent community, will not be easy, but the necessary process will definitely be launched by a collective of Redhill, Scarborough, and Misty Cliffs communities. In the meantime, we hope it will become possible to provide emergency fire fighting water from Kogelfontein and/or one of the S A Navy dams.

The cellphone problem has already been overcome with the erection of a new Vodacom relay tower on Teeberg in the Reserve. Associated with this may be an SMS system which we are hoping can be established so that owners and residents are swiftly informed about fires starting and the subsequent status of advancing fires.

An important development is the decision to set up and equip a residents' team of volunteers that can be scrambled into action in the event of a fire and used to damp down combustible material in the likely path of a fire. Critical to this team will be regular drills with the official emergency services so that effective liaison becomes routine. An aspect of this will be procedures by which in emergencies Water Services may maximise water availability through closing off supply to non-critical areas and making water available from supplementary reservoirs. We have been assured that by these means there is already sufficient water at sufficient pressure to provide service to the most uphill houses in Scarborough and Misty Cliffs.

We have recently succeeded in having the Misty Cliffs water supply volume doubled by connecting the 110 mm water main laid during the Old Camp Road upgrade to the main 225 mm pipeline along the M65. (You can see the new connection under the wooden steps at the north end of OCR.) Before this installation we were reliant on the 75 mm HDPE pipe, much of it on the surface and somewhat damaged by fire, alongside the concrete uphill section of OCR. The pressure available should not fall below about 4 bar.

Regarding firebreaks, there has long been dispute about who makes and who pays. It now seems legally clear that the City has this responsibility and, for the areas which directly concern us, will subcontract the clearing work to SANParks. Funding for this work is assured for the coming fire season, but is not yet guaranteed thereafter.

Clearing of combustible material on residential properties, be that alien or indigenous overgrowth, or accumulations of, say, firewood and building material, remains the owners' responsibility. However, do note folks, anyone can draw the Fire Services attention to what appears to be a risky situation on anyone else's property. City will promptly inspect, compel clearing if necessary, and is now evidently prepared to get really tough on this. That's good!

Following the copious and continuing rains there are forests of little alien seedlings popping up everywhere. The ground has been soaked soft and it is very easy and quick for unskilled labour to pull up the seedlings. Do please attend to your land now before the young roots go deeper and the ground hardens and locks them in.

Baboons!
Our genetic cousins have transformed from being occasionally mischievous but quite entertaining co-inhabitants into a resolute and fearless demolition gang. The delights of al fresco lunches on the deck are now unattainable. We have to lock ourselves indoors, lock (not just close) all windows, and watch while the likes of William The Vandal rips off shutters, rattles sliding doors out of their tracks, and trashes our interiors once they've broken in. Children are terrified and in numerous cases people who regularly used to rent under-used houses no longer come - and this can represent a serious financial loss for owners. We are no longer co-existing in a nature reserve; there is no balance of power; the baboons have the upper hand and are keeping most of us prisoners.

The baboon monitors are doing a better job of late, but although essential they are not a solution. The problem is complicated by unreliable and insufficient funding, bureaucratic delays, too much emotionalism, poor management of the several cooks in the kitchen, defiance by certain owners in not guarding their trash, and the understandable reluctance of many owners to fortify their houses appropriately.

Baboons are protected animals and it is illegal to hunt, kill, or relocate them. Nevertheless, if a reasonable solution is not found soon it is inevitable that, come summer, frightened or infuriated owners are likely to start shooting. A creative possible solution has been formulated but not yet disclosed by Graham Noble, former chairman of Scarborough Ratepayers, and when he returns from overseas, we will pursue this. It is likely to cost quite a bit, but a lot of owners seem willing to pay for that provided it is fully effective.

There is still a great deal of misinformation about baboons and we strongly recommend everyone should get hold of the Baboon Matter Newsletter, No 1 of 2008, which is wonderfully informative. Call 021-782-2015 and have one snailed or emailed to you.

Monitors
Several of the regular monitors lost their shacks and/or all their possessions during a recent fire at Masiphumelele. When your home is made of cardboard and plastic you don't have any defence against next door's fire. Some of us know these guys and their families, their stories and struggles - including their inadequate wages and chronic insecurity. They are good people. If you can donate bedding, clothing, kitchen gear, etc, please contact Jenni Trethowan at Baboon Matters (shop near hotel in Glencairn) 021-782-2015.

Security
Your committee has investigated several options for improving security. We have considered and costed several permutations of running our own dedicated force, paying for a strengthened service from Scarborough Security Services, and various ways of combining the functions of baboon chasing, crime patrolling, and fire watching. We have checked out SSS charges against those of competing services and found SSS competitive and with very much more rapid response. We have also examined a neighbourhood watch system, but there are not at present enough fully resident people to make this as effective as it certainly is in other areas.

Operating our own force would be extremely expensive, and no one is willing to take on hassling with people-management and all the onerous labour laws and other obligatory and enforced red tape which cripples so many small businesses.

The core point is that at present the level of serious crime in Misty is very low and hardly warrants relatively elaborate defences. Over several years there has been only one comprehensive clearing out of a house. Two sets of pool machinery have been removed, apparently by workmen disguised as pool servicemen. Some builders' equipment, including a 4-wheeled cement mixer, has disappeared. The other known incidents have been relatively minor break-ins for the usual targets of cell phones, laptops, cash, bicycles, etc.

However, we are now well-briefed about what could be put in place if there's an uptick in crime, but for the time being it seems amply effective to subscribe to the SSS radio alarm service which is reliable, seems able to sustain a five-minute response time, and has a prompt and effective liaison with the SAPS. If you're already a subscriber ensure that the system is adequately maintained and regularly tested. It is of course essential to have appropriate insurance in place. Also, as we have warned before, it is wise to take special precautions when contractors are working nearby. In the case of a building contract, neighbours should ask the employer to provide a list of his casual labour. If your house is often vacated during the week, or for longer periods, take away easily transportable electronic goods, or move them into a fortified internal room (heavy window bars, solid door, special locks, etc). Make sure your property has a clearly visible (day and night) erf number so that police or SSS can find you quickly in an emergency. Some of the plots are not consecutively numbered and this makes identification difficult.

Soetwater miseries
There can't be anyone who's not kept up with media reports about the tragic dilemmas of the xenophobia victims - and also, it must be said, of the authorities, NGOs and individuals who've been involved. There's been a lot of angry and emotional talk from all sides, but there's no lasting solution, nor even a good medium term solution.

Several dear people in Misty housed some of the refugees, others made financial donations, and many people (we can say that just from the number we actually know about) contributed food, clothing, bedding etc, mainly using Pick'nPay in Sun Valley as a clearing house. We know there were several Misty people who beavered away quietly in the actual camps, doing what they could, and giving us first hand accounts of mass-living in wet and draughty tents during Cape winter gales.

Happily, the foreigners who returned fearfully to Masiphumelele seem to have been accepted better than in other destinations. The media, as always, have since rather lost interest for the moment, there is always a more recent attention-gaining tragedy to displace the previous ones. But the problem is still smouldering strongly and we shouldn't be surprised when it breaks out again, perhaps increasingly as our country's economic difficulties bite the poor harder and harder.

The point that hasn't been given much attention is that we've experienced a sample of the global problem that is challenging governments everywhere and antagonizing vast numbers of settled populations which feel they're being invaded and overwhelmed by alien parasites. The desperate folk on the run are not necessarily escaping from war but also from despair, starvation, oppression, collapsed economies and massive over-population. Climate change is going to make the problem much, much worse.

What can be done? The scale of the problem is so large that no one knows. Authorities will try to manage the moment but politically they dare not set up lasting solutions without acutely antagonizing the settled people. The best they can aim for is to create a better structure for co-operation between the various organizations and bodies likely to be involved next time. What can we do as individuals? Well, none can pee in the ocean to make it deeper, but we can do what we can where we are, by helping individuals and families from day to day as we are able and as we best can, perhaps following suggestions from reliable folk closer to the problem. If enough of us pee it will make the ocean a bit deeper.

For Misty owners who are far away but feel moved to lend a hand, we invite you to contact us with any suggestions, including the possibility of donations. If we hear from you along these lines we will put the matter on to our next agenda and discuss how we might be more ready and geared if and when the situation recurs - as we think is likely.

Less water
At this extremely wet time of year with all our dams already just about full, it seems ludicrous to remind ourselves that we have a chronic water shortage and are facing a drying climate change. A preventable aspect of this, and one which has a considerable bearing on water prices and the provision of water for development, is that about 19% of our piped water is lost to leaks. A certain amount is unavoidable as corrosion is inevitable and ground movement can distort joints and cause cracks in pipes, but the loss can be minimised.

According to Cllr Clive Justus this loss costs the Unity about R4 m a year. Many leaks are domestic; can we do anything about this? Definitely. First, watch the pattern of consumption in your water bills; investigate sudden or rising consumption. Second, check for leaks by taking a water meter reading, then turn off all taps and cisterns for as long as possible, perhaps overnight, then take another reading. If it's changed, you're probably losing water underground somewhere.

Always keep a lookout for burst or leaking water mains, overflowing manholes, or sudden subsidences in familiar roads. Then call the all-hours number 0860-10-30-54 and give details.

mistycliffs.org.za
We're very pleased to say that traffic on our website seems to have increased by about 50% during the year to near end July. That's really good news. The less-good news is that no one has yet taken advantage of our offer to advertise their properties to rent (holiday or longer term) or to sell; this will remain a FREE service until October. Never miss a chance on a freebie - you have nothing to lose and you might just win. Contact committee member Robin Frew: Robin@thynk.co.za

A list of recommended service providers is being compiled and will shortly be added to the site. These are not guarantees, but represent the experiences of our owners.

Environment
The mountainside is greening nicely again after the fires although the skeletons of Most burnt bushes and trees will remain ugly for years. It can be worthwhile to make a plan to cut down one or two dead bushes every time you visit your pad; a few minutes work like that will accumulate until all the skeletons have gone.

You will have noticed that our indefatigable Greg Shaw and his team of Raymond, Patrick and students are steadily beautifying the mountainside and bits of the road reserve with appropriate flora which will thrive once Spring has arrived. The two builder's nightmares on the erven 8 and 11 quarries will eventually yield clear roadside space for further planting along this presently and unavoidably rather barren stretch.

Owl Project
To date 12 owls have been released and residents have reported sufficient sightings to encourage resumption of the project in September. Food is no longer being put out for the birds. Greg was toying with the notion of introducing parrots, but committee members turned a stony face to that one.

Dosh
New address: For postal payments please send your cheques for subscriptions (still only R300/y) and any other payments to P.O. Box 1372, Sun Valley, 7985. The MCVA account remains with Nedbank, Noordhoek branch, account number 2250 027 285. Payments in connection with DSTV have a separate account, numbered 2250 027 293.

As of writing there are still 11 annual subscription payments outstanding. If you have that feeling of having forgotten something it's probably your MCVA subs, so please check - the committee runs on a shoestring, and forking out personally for MCVA expenses is discouraging for toiling committee members.

Your committee
Doug Tunbridge: Chairman, Fire Management and Far South Community Forum 083-250-3452.
Tony Turner : Treasurer and Public Officer. 021-780-1511.
Jacqui Parsonson : Oversight of baboon matters and fynbos rehabilitation. 082-948-9488.
Tim Anderson : Secretarial, Newsletter and Fire Management. 021-674-2834.
Greg Shaw : Environmental Officer and Assistant Sub's Collector. 084-443-9722.
David Paterson : New Developments / Building Plan Approval. 021-715-4470.
Robin Frew : Web Site Development and Management. 082-650-2888.
Leon Morris : Jet Ski and Mussel Picking Monitoring. 021-780-1256.