Page 79 - KBHA Bulletin 11

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dam behind Stellenbosch as a weir of earth and stones “following the design used for
the Kalk Bay Municipal reservoir.” Yet why would a new dam have been built after

1918 at great cost only to be taken out of use almost immediately when colourless
Steenbras water became available?

Origins of the Electricity and Drainage Scheme.

In February 1902 the Municipality employed an engineer, Thomas Bennett. He had
come to the Cape from England ten years earlier to be superintendent of the Cape

Peninsula Water Works Company, and was brimming with innovative ideas and self-
assurance. He would be entrusted with the design and construction of a sewerage

system to deal with the by-products of the now-copious supply of water. The capacity of

the sewerage scheme took into account the 1903 proposals of the Muizenberg Foreshore
Syndicate which envisaged a very large resident population. The basic design was

produced by Thomas Olive, the Cape Town municipal engineer.

Raw sewage could not simply be flushed randomly into the sea. It had to be properly

treated, and the effluent discharged where it would be inoffensive. Since the sewage
works had to be located on the Cape Flats, and since gravity would not move the

sewage unaided from Kalk Bay and St. James, on the one side, and Muizenberg itself on
the other, it was clear that pumping would be necessary, and that, in turn, required

electricity.

At that time low-lying parts of Cape Town below District Six were already being

pumped by a fascinating system designed by Thomas Olive using compressed air, the
compressor station alongside the Castle (next to the Early Morning Market) being run

on steam raised by burning town refuse. So Bennett’s plan to use refuse as fuel was thus
not entirely original in his proposal for Kalk Bay - Muizenberg, but instead of

compressed air he planned to use electric pumps (and Cape Town would follow suit in

the 1920s). The main pumping station was on the dunes east of Muizenberg, and
auxiliary pumps were provided at Kalk Bay. The double benefit of electricity was that it