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Steenbras Upper Dam

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Steenbras Upper Dam is an earth-fill type dam located in the Hottentots Holland Mountains above Gordons Bay in the Western Cape, South Africa. It impounds the Steenbras River upstream of the older Steenbras Dam. The dam was constructed in 1977 for the City of Cape Town and serves mainly for municipal and industrial use. The hazard potential of the dam has been ranked high (3). Steenbras Upper Dam also functions as the upper reservoir of the city's Steenbras pumped-storage hydroelectric power scheme, with a lower reservoir at the foot of the mountain. It is also linked by an open canal and pipeline to the Rockview Dam, which acts as the upper reservoir of the Palmiet Pumped Storage Scheme, a separate pumped-storage scheme operated by Eskom and the Department of Water and Sanitation. The link allows water from the Palmiet River to be transferred to the dam.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Steenbras Upper Dam (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Steenbras Upper Dam
Steenbras Dam Road,

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Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N -34.168055555556 ° E 18.901388888889 °
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Steenbras Dam Road (Steenbras Pass Road)

Steenbras Dam Road
7150 , Gordon's Bay
Western Cape, South Africa
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Gordon's Bay
Gordon's Bay

Gordon's Bay (Afrikaans: Gordonsbaai) is a harbour town in the Western Cape province of South Africa. It is included in the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality as a suburb of the Helderberg region (formerly called Hottentots Holland). It is situated on the shores of Gordon's Bay in the northeastern corner of False Bay about 58 km from Cape Town to the south of the N2 national road and is named after Robert Jacob Gordon (1743–1795), the Dutch explorer of Scottish descent.Gordon's Bay is the smallest of three towns in the Helderberg region (Somerset West, Strand and Gordon's Bay), so named after the Helderberg Mountain which is part of the Hottentots-Holland Mountains which border the locality on two sides. Gordon's Bay was originally named "Fish Hoek", many years before the town of the same name, located on the western side of False Bay, was founded. Evidence of this can be seen on the outside wall of the local Post Office. Gordon's Bay consists of the old village, situated around the old harbour and Bikini Beach, the mountainside on the lower slopes of the Hottentots-Holland mountains overlooking False Bay, and the low-lying suburbs close to the main beach, making up the most recent expansion of the town. The older part of Gordon's Bay includes the South African Naval College, a junior officer training center adjacent to the old harbour and yacht marina. Above the harbour on the mountainside is an emblem of a giant anchor and the letters "GB" assembled from painted stones which stands for General Botha, the name of the earlier training base, SATS General Botha, which was also the original name of the naval station in the town. The Steenbras Dam, one of Cape Town's suppliers of drinking water, is located behind the mountain above the town. Gordon's Bay has a blue flag beach, Bikini Beach, to the south of the harbour, which is generally popular, particularly with students from the University of Cape Town and Stellenbosch University. The beach is funded by the City of Cape Town to properly maintain facilities that include public showers, changing rooms, bathrooms and a grassy promenade. The beach is considered safe and is regularly patrolled by a seasonal security guard.

Steenbras Dam
Steenbras Dam

The Steenbras Dam ("STEE-un bruss"), now referred to as Steenbras Lower Dam, is a gravity concrete arch type dam located in the Hottentots-Holland mountains, above Gordons Bay, near Cape Town in South Africa. It is one of the six large dams that make up the Western Cape Water Supply System. It is owned by the City of Cape Town and serves principally to supply water to that city. The dam wall is 28 metres (92 ft) high and 412 metres (1,352 ft) long; it impounds a reservoir of 36,133 megalitres (1,276.0×10^6 cu ft) over a surface area of 380 hectares (940 acres) when full.In 1916 a Board of Engineers was appointed to report on a water augmentation scheme for the City of Cape Town. Their proposal was the Steenbras scheme which would consist of a concrete gravity and arch dam on the Steenbras River. This dam would be connected to the Molteno reservoir through a tunnel in the Hottentots Holland mountains and a 64 kilometre long cast iron pipeline. Work began on the scheme in 1918 and was completed three years later. The Steenbras scheme could supply Cape Town with up to 42 million litres of water per day although the average consumption was in the region of 29 million litres per day. The consumption however grew rapidly and it was not long before Cape Town once again had a water supply problem. To solve the demand for additional water supplies the Steenbras dam wall was raised and an additional pipeline was laid into the city. This work was completed in 1928. For much of the first half of the twentieth century it was the main reservoir for Cape Town but is now only one of many dams that supply the city. The hazard potential of Steenbras has been ranked high (3). The dam is on the Steenbras River, which, in common with most rivers in the Western Cape, has a low sediment load and delivers water of very high quality. The river and dam are named after the steenbras, a fish endemic to South Africa. In 1977 the Steenbras Upper Dam was constructed directly upstream. It is used for the Steenbras pumped-storage hydroelectricity scheme which supplements Cape Town's electricity supply during periods of peak demand.The City of Cape Town is investigating strengthening and raising the wall to increase Steenbras Dam's capacity.