A recent aerial picture of the property to be auctioned in Umhlanga Rocks. The site is part of a sensitive wetland and falls within the flood highwater zone which poses real threats to any future development.
Prawn farm to be auctioned
After more than 20 ill-fated years of no less than five failed attempts to turn the property known as the Prawn Farm adjacent to the Umlalazi Nature Reserve into a thriving local business, the present owners have gone into liquidation and the property is to be auctioned on 25 January at the Oyster Box Hotel in Umhlanga Rocks.
The 45-hectare site between the railway line and the nature reserve - which is zoned for agriculture - includes 52 empty earth ponds, a double-storey block of office and accommodation space as well as several outbuildings.
The land was initially part of the Town Board sugarcane farm until it was sold in the late 1980s to be developed as a prawn farm which was hoped would boost tourism to the area.
The first owners went under when the project was still in the earthworks phase and not a single prawn had been hatched. Since then several successive companies tried vainly to establish it as a viable business but all attempts failed - all losing millions of rands in the process.
There were ongoing problems with salinity levels and with the water pumps which had to pump seawater from the ocean through the sand dunes and into the ponds.
Once the ponds were up and running, it became clear that Mtunzini did not offer the optimum conditions for prawn farming.
This however did not stop the town from becoming known as the home of the popular annual Prawn Festival in the 1990s but few festival goers realised that not a single prawn sold at the festival was ever freshly harvested in Mtunzini. They were all imported frozen from Mozambique.
The last attempt at resuscitating the area was to turn the property into a residential marina combined with an aquaculture business sideline offering fee fishing ponds and hatchery.
This proposal was successfully opposed by the Mtunzini Conservancy, the Wildlife and Environment Society of SA (WESSA) and the uMlalazi Local Municipality who believed that the development of 250 houses in the environmentally sensitive floodplain would have dire consequences for the Mlalazi River and estuary.
"The original prawn farm was developed before today's stringent environmental regulations were in place and it's highly unlikely that such a development would be approved today," says chairperson of the Mtunzini Ratepayers Association, Wendy Forse.
"The property is going under the auction hammer as a 'fish breeding opportunity' but the water pump apparatus has been removed and there is no guarantee that a new owner will receive the requisite water-use licences or even a servitude to access seawater.
"The site has been completely flooded in the past and will be again. Within living memory of residents of the town there have been several floods, including the 1987 flood which reached the roof of the Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife offices adjacent to the prawn farm.
"The question we would like to ask is: What is the auctioneer selling?
"It would seem that the auctioneer is putting a 'silk purse' under the hammer when it really is a 'sow’s ear'," said Ms Forse.
• The property will be auctioned by Auction Alliance at the Oyster Box Hotel, Umhlanga Rocks, on Wednesday 25 January 2012 at 11h00.
For more information contact Ryan Berry on 083 607 8128.

We approached a digital artist to give us a preview of what we could expect should Exxaro/Tronox ever start mining 100 metres from our town. Using photographic data from Exxaro's mine at Hillendale, Mtunzini residents can get a good idea of the blot on the landscape that will greet them as they approach the town near the Mtunzini Toll Plaza.

• SPECIAL REPORT: How mining will change Mtunzini
Protected areas face 'unacceptable risks'
'Potential fatal flaws' in mining
The Wildlife and Environment Society of South Africa (WESSA) and its sister NGO Coastwatch have lodged their formal objections to the proposed mining south of Mtunzini.
Speaking at a Media Day at Twinstreams Environmental Education Centre, Bianca McKelvey, Conservation Manager with WESSA (KZN Region), said she could not see how the 'potential fatal flaws' raised by Exxaro's current bid to mine Fairbreeze could be resolved and that WESSA and Coastwatch had no option but to object.
Despite the vast volume of documents produced by Exxaro's bid to mine, the investigation and assessment of the impacts remained inconclusive.
"The overall impression of this project is that currently there is insufficient clarity on the potential impacts of the mine to allow for an informed and defensible decision," said Ms McKelvey.
Several key potential fatal flaws which had not been clearly addressed included the unacceptable risks to the ecology of protected areas, the inadequate quantification of impacts upon biodiversity leading to under-designed mitigatory measures, and the lack of evidence that Exxaro has demonstrated the ability to successfully rehabilitate Fairbreeze after the mining process.
The desirability of allowing mining at Fairbreeze was questionable due to the low confidence in Exxaro's ability to re-establish a land-use that would be acceptable and environmentally benign.
The proposed mine includes 200hectares of wetlands, including a swamp forest of 40ha and affected five different protected areas - the Mlalazi estuary, the Siyaya estuary, the Mhlatuze estuary (due to the mine's huge demand for water which will be pumped from the Mhlatuze River), the Matigulu River and the wetlands behind the coastal dunes in the Siyaya Coastal Park.
It was likely to have 'severe detrimental impacts' on Twinstreams Environmental Education Centre, through noise and air pollution and also through its impact on groundwater as the Centre is entirely dependent on borehole water. The environmental practitioner involved in the Basic Assessment Report (BAR) proposed that Twinstreams be moved, but this seemed 'unlikely and unfeasible', said Ms McKelvey, and did not have the support of Exxaro or Twinstreams.