20 April 2022
Heavy rain over the Easter weekend resulted in excessive water flowing down the water course and into the Power Station at Ruperts on Monday, 18 April 2022, which almost caused the site to be fully shut down.
The area has since been cleared and sandbags used to mitigate further flooding. However, due to no sand being available to purchase on-Island at this time, a small amount of sand has been removed from Ruperts Beach to provide a form of urgent flood defence to ensure the Power Station is protected. Other options were considered but it was determined that sand bags would be the most effective option to maintain safe operations at the Power Station if we were to have a similar heavy rainfall over the next few days.
Prior to removal of the sand from the Beach, a risk assessment of Ruperts Beach was carried out and environmental impacts were considered. It was concluded that impacts would be minimal as:
- This is a one-off and only a small amount of sand would be taken (enough to fill approximately 10 sandbags)
- The risk to the beach habitat and species would therefore be low
- Regeneration/ replenishment of the sand taken (based on the development of the beach profile in recent years) should be fairly quick.
Members of the public might also be aware that there have been reports of some turtle nesting at Sandy Bay Beach. To date, there has been no reports/observations of nesting attempts on Ruperts Beach which is not considered suitable habitat for turtle nesting. Therefore the removal of sand from Ruperts Beach at this time will not have an impact on turtle nesting.
#StHelena #FloodMitigation #AltogetherSafer
SHG
20 April 2022