The Jakkalsvlei Catchment Management Forum (J-CMF) was officially established following its inaugural meeting on 21 May 2025 at the Parow Council Chambers. This highlights the City’s Water and Sanitation’s efforts to collaborate with communities towards local catchment stewardship.
This newly formed forum is part of the broader Salt River Catchment, the third largest in Cape Town, covering about 270 km². This catchment includes the Liesbeek, Black, and Elsieskraal rivers, along with their tributaries and canal systems, which flow into Table Bay through the Salt River Outlet Canal near Paarden Eiland.
To strengthen local engagement and improve targeted catchment management, the City’s Catchment, Stormwater and River Management (CSRM) Branch has subdivided the larger Salt River Catchment into three more manageable catchment areas. These include the Lower Salt River CMF, the Vygieskraal CMF and the Jakkalsvlei CMF.
The Jakkalsvlei CMF encompasses diverse communities such as Bishop Lavis, Nooitgedacht, Valhalla Park, Kalksteenfontein, Montana, Matroosfontein, Elsies Rivier, Epping Forest, The Range, Elnor, Clarkes Estate, Adriaanse, Charlesville, Bonteheuwel, Langa, Epping Industrial 1 and 2, and Matroosfontein.
‘The formation of this forum marks a vital step forward in the City’s commitment to safeguarding and restoring our urban waterways. Through forums like the Jakkalsvlei CMF, we are creating space for meaningful partnerships that can drive long-term environmental and social change. True progress in river management happens when communities are empowered to be part of the solution,’ said Councillor Zahid Badroodien, Mayoral Committee Member for Water and Sanitation.
The purpose of the CMF is to foster community collaboration to enhance environmental water quality, improve river management, address sources of urban pollution and contribute to flood mitigation efforts in the catchment area.
Among the key pollution challenges identified in the Salt River Catchment are:
- Litter and domestic refuse
- Building rubble and illegal dumping
- Greywater discharge and night soil
- Runoff from vehicle wash areas
- Livestock presence
- Rapid urban densification and informality
- Treated effluent from Borcherds Quarry Wastewater Treatment Works
- Sewer system issues including pump station failures and inadequate sewer reticulation
- Cross-connections between stormwater/sewer reticulation and pump stations
- Illegal residential stormwater connections to the municipal sewer reticulation
- Industrial and factory effluent, particularly in Epping 1 and 2
Call to Participate
Residents, non-governmental organisations, environmental advocates, local businesses and ‘Friends of the River’ groups are warmly encouraged to become part of this important initiative by attending forum meetings and contributing to collaborative river stewardship.
The next Jakkalsvlei CMF meeting will be held on Wednesday, 11 June 2025 at 14:30 at the Bonteheuwel Civic Centre. This meeting will be particularly significant as elections will take place for key leadership positions: Chairperson, Vice Chairperson and Secretariat.
Sugar Apple
Botswana: You have two cows. But that\’s not surprising because you have pretty much every type of non-extinct mammal in your country.
Lady Pomegranate
A British man on safari walks into a bar far out in the reaches of a game reserve in Southern Africa, he stays at the bar for a while shooting the shit with the bartender and drinking like a fish, he offer to buy the barkeep a round and since no one else is within 2km of their small oasis of liquor the barkeep obliges. The englishman goes off to the bathroom to have a good old go at the porcelain, he\’s back and ready for a few more whiskeys. He\’s just sat down when suddenly in the distance he hears a scream. He looks over his shoulder and dismisses it as nothing, he turns to the barkeep and orders a drink, takes a sip and hears the scream again. He looks at the barkeep who just shrugs it off. A minute or two later he and the barman hear it again and go outside to take a look. They see a lone figure running towards them screaming, he spots them and lets out a cry, RUN!!!!! HE\”S COMING!!!!!
The barkeep and the Englishman both look at the terrified bedraggled sight before them, and try to calm him down, but he\’s completely inconsolable. They give him water and finally manage to get a word out of him but he struggles free from their grasp and run away screaming.
A few minutes later the same thing happens with a whole group of men running in and screaming, he\’s coming, he\’s coming the barkeep grabs hold of one of the men as he tries to sprint past the bar and tries to get information out of him, again no response other than terrified gibberish.
The barkeep and his customer are starting to get worried, they start to pack up before another group of horrified natives run up to the bar most of them flee but one tries to hide behind the bar, the barkeep pulls out a shotgun and points it at the terrified man\’s face, finally managing to coax some words out of him. \”He\’s coming for us, Vernon Koekemoer is coming for us, we have to hide!!! We have to get out of here.\” He gets up and tries to run but the barkeep grabs him, feeling trapped in a panic he grabs the barkeeps shotgun and blows his own head off. The Englishman and the barkeep look at each other starting to really panic now.
They look out of the window and off in the distance they see a tornado coming towards the bar, at the bottom of the tornado they see the hugest beast of a man they have ever seen, as he gets closer they spot that he is riding a rhinocerous and using a crocodile as a riding whip, with each smack of the crocodile across the back of the rhino the louder is screams and the faster it runs, the tornado following it getting ever larger.
The 2 look at each other and start to fortify their position, they\’ve got a gun and they\’re waaay to drunk to run, so they start piling bar stool and tables and anything they can get their hands on to make sure they\’ll be safe when he arrives. They\’re not gonna make it, they can see the man slowing down his rhino, by now the crocodile is nothing but reptile paste on the bruised rump of the half dead rhino, the rhino drops down dead from exhaustion and crashes to the ground right outside the bar the tornado loses it\’s last breath in a cloud of dust as the huge man crashes his way through the make shift barricade and charges up towards the bar where the 2 men have taken shelter, he grabs a bottle of the hardest liquor on the shelf and down the entire litre in 1 gulp, he peers over the bar sobbing and sees the 2 defenders cowering down behind the crates of beer, they look up at the mans\’ face and he stares at them with a look of complete and utter hopelessness, he stares at them for a half second and half screams, half sobs, \”Oh my god what are you still doing here!!! WE HAVE TO GET OUT OF HERE NOW!!!! Vernon Koekemoer is coming!!!!\”