Coega construction strikes venomous obstacle

Ed Richardson CONSTRUCTION AT Coega was recently held up by a baby puffadder. A bulldozer operator stopped work so that the puffadder could be rescued from a trench. His concern for the snake follows environmental training of all operators and workers in the Coega Industrial Development Zone, according to Linda Redfern of Landscape and Environmental Services. Her team has been busy relocating reptiles and plants in preparation for the clearance of one of the largest of Coega’s Industrial Development Zone sites - a 150-hectare area prepared in the metallurgical cluster for a proposed aluminium smelter using technology from French firm Aluminium Pechiney. “A ten-strong team has been on site from sunrise each day for the past three weeks. Already, we have moved nearly 100 tortoises, about 50 lizards and more than 46 000 plants,” she says.