Proposed SANSA Space Operations at Portion 8 of Farm Matjiesfontein Western Cape
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HERITAGE IMPACT ASSESSMENT In terms of Section 38(8) of the NHRA for the Proposed SANSA Space Operations at portion 8 of Farm Matjiesfontein Western Cape HWC Ref: 19092518WD0926E Prepared by In Association with CES April 2020 Updated October 2020 THE INDEPENDENT PERSON WHO COMPILED A SPECIALIST REPORT OR UNDERTOOK A SPECIALIST PROCESS I Jenna Lavin, as the appointed independent specialist hereby declare that I: • act/ed as the independent specialist in this application; • regard the information contained in this report as it relates to my specialist input/study to be true and correct, and • do not have and will not have any financial interest in the undertaking of the activity, other than remuneration for work performed in terms of the NEMA, the Environmental Impact Assessment Regulations, 2010 and any specific environmental management Act; • have and will not have no vested interest in the proposed activity proceeding; • have disclosed, to the applicant, EAP and competent authority, any material information that have or may have the potential to influence the decision of the competent authority or the objectivity of any report, plan or document required in terms of the NEMA, the Environmental Impact Assessment Regulations, 2010 and any specific environmental management Act; • am fully aware of and meet the responsibilities in terms of NEMA, the Environmental Impact Assessment Regulations, 2010 (specifically in terms of regulation 17 of GN No. R. 543) and any specific environmental management Act, and that failure to comply with these requirements may constitute and result in disqualification; • have ensured that information containing all relevant facts in respect of the specialist input/study was distributed or made available to interested and affected parties and the public and that participation by interested and affected parties was facilitated in such a manner that all interested and affected parties were provided with a reasonable opportunity to participate and to provide comments on the specialist input/study; • have ensured that the comments of all interested and affected parties on the specialist input/study were considered, recorded and submitted to the competent authority in respect of the application; • have ensured that the names of all interested and affected parties that participated in terms of the specialist input/study were recorded in the register of interested and affected parties who participated in the public participation process; • have provided the competent authority with access to all information at my disposal regarding the application, whether such information is favourable to the applicant or not; and • am aware that a false declaration is an offence in terms of regulation 71 of GN No. R. 543. Signature of the specialist CTS Heritage Name of company 8 October 2020 Date 1 CTS Heritage 34 Harries Street, Plumstead, Cape Town, 7800 Tel: (021) 0130131 Email: [email protected] Web: www.ctsheritage.com EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 1. Site Name: Portion 8 of Fram 148 near Matjiesfontein, Laingsburg 2. Location: Located south of the N1, and south west of Matjiesfontein PHS 3. Locality Plan: Figure 1: Location of the proposed development site 4. Description of Proposed Development: The South African National Space Agency (SANSA) proposes to construct new radio antennae and associated infrastructure on Portion 8 of Farm 148 near Matjiesfontein in the Western Cape Province. Two separate sites have been identified for this area. One site will house 20 small scientific antenna, each with a footprint of 4m2 and a height of 3m. Two alternative sites have been proposed for this infrastructure - Area A and Area A2. The other site (Area B) will house 7 antenna and a storehouse. It is anticipated that the antenna footprints at this site will be 225m2 with their heights ranging from 4m up to 40m. Other associated infrastructure will include internal, gravel access roads that are 4m wide as well as laydown areas. 2 CTS Heritage 34 Harries Street, Plumstead, Cape Town, 7800 Tel: (021) 0130131 Email: [email protected] Web: www.ctsheritage.com 5. Heritage Resources Identified: Cultural Landscape and Visual Impacts Matjiesfontein lies on the N1, isolated from surrounding towns by long distances, set in a narrow valley at the foot of the Witteberg. This area is largely natural but for the railway and highway running through it. A variety of infrastructure runs through the zone along the road-railway including the electric cables of the railway itself, a major radio mast on the peak of the Witteberge, various cell phone towers towards Touws River, farm fences and a line of pylons nearer the Witteberge. The Provincial Heritage SIte of Matjiesfontein incorporates a stand-alone rail-side hotel and ancillary facilities. Relegated to a side road off the N1, it is located next to the railway and still serves its tourist trade. The lower Matjiesfontein valley is covered with dull Karoo bossies well under 1m in height and subtle landforms including hidden depressions and hillocks. The Witteberg mountains rise steeply to the south where a track leads up before disappearing. The N1 as a scenic route, the village of Matjiesfontein as well as the surrounding Moordenaars Karoo are identified as significant heritage resources that form key aspects of this cultural landscape. Archaeology The foot survey conducted provided a good description of the heritage resources located within the proposed development area. Only one low density and diffuse Later Stone Age scatter was found around a low sandstone outcrop within Area A and was graded as having low, local significance (IIIC). Middle Stone Age stone tools were found relatively evenly distributed across Area A but in low numbers. Similar artefacts in lower densities were identified in Area A2. No archaeological finds were made in Area B. Palaeontology The two small project areas for the SANSA antenna developments near Matjiesfontein are located within the margins of the Cape Fold Belt on the northern side of the Witteberg Range. Site A to the north is underlain by poorly-exposed Early Permian glacial bedrocks of the Elandsvlei Formation (Dwyka Group). These massive, dark grey, tombstone-weathered tillites as well as several irregular quartzite bodies enclosed within them – variously interpreted as esker or glacial outwash sandstones - are apparently unfossiliferous. Sparse vascular plant remains have been previously recorded from Dwyka Group sandstone bodies near Matjiesfontein by the famous South African geologist Du Toit in 1921. Stratified post-glacial mudrocks, diamictites and wackes exposed in stream beds and banks just south of Site A represent potentially-fossiliferous Dwyka Group / Ecca Group contact beds but lie outside the development footprint. Most of the site is mantled with sandy to gravelly alluvial sediments as well as downwasted polymict surface gravels that are of low palaeontological sensitivity. No fossils were recorded at this site. No fossil remains were recorded from the Area A2 project area during the recent field survey. As discussed above, the palaeosensitivity of the Dwyka Group sediments is generally low. No fossils were seen within the dropstone laminates and thin-bedded diamictites locally exposed in the main axial stream bed. The “elephant ball” diagenetic carbonate concretions and esker / glacial outwash fan sandstones seen near here are apparently unfossiliferous. No fossil-rich 3 CTS Heritage 34 Harries Street, Plumstead, Cape Town, 7800 Tel: (021) 0130131 Email: [email protected] Web: www.ctsheritage.com carbonate erratics, as recorded previously from the southern Karoo margins and also in the Ceres Karoo have - as yet - been seen near Matjiesfontein. The basal post-glacial mudrocks of the Prince Albert succession – not well exposed in Area A2 - are a key fossil horizon in the Northern Cape and Tanqua Karoo where diagenetic concretions within these beds have yielded a variety of marine invertebrates, fish and petrified wood. In Area A2 the lower Prince Albert beds, where exposed, are highly weathered and tectonically deformed locally. It is noted that thin-sectioning of phosphatic diagenetic concretions from the Prince Albert Formation near Matjiesfontein revealed the spinose, spherical silica tests of radiolarian microfossils. The unconsolidated gravelly to sandy superficial deposits overlying the Palaeozoic bedrocks in Area A2 are, at most, very sparsely fossiliferous and no fossils were recorded from these younger sediments during the field survey. Site B to the south of Matjiesfontein Village lies within a tectonically-complex, intensely-folded and probably faulted zone embedded in the rugged foothills of the Witteberg Range. Bedrocks of the Late Devonian to Early Carboniferous Witteberg Group (Cape Supergroup) represented here include highly-resistant, clean-washed quartzites of the Witpoort Formation, the recessive-weathering, mudrock-dominated Kweekvlei Formation and overlying prominent-weathering, cross-bedded, pebbly sands of the Floriskraal Formation (The presence of younger Waaipoort Formation mudrocks and wackes here is equivocal). The Witpoort and Floriskraal arenites are of low palaeosensitivity, having only yielded sparse reworked vascular plant debris, low-diversity trace fossil assemblages and rare fish remains in the Matjiesfontein region and elsewhere. The Kweekvlei mudrocks in the study area are poorly-exposed, highly-weathered as well as fractured near-surface and show zones of intense soft-sediment and