Civil Engineering April 2021 | Vol 29 No 3

Civil Engineering April 2021 13 Geotechn i cal Eng i neer i ng | Prof i le A humble man, Kelvin was emotional upon hearing that he had been honoured with the SAICE Geotechnical Gold Medal. He sees the award as a recognition of the geotechnical industry’s achieve- ments over the past 39 years. “I am the privileged one who gets to hold the medal, but it is actually a reflection of the abilities and strength of the many people who I have worked and interacted with over many years,” he says. A LASTING LEGACY Kelvin, who currently serves as Chief Engineer at the Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS), has built upon a long family legacy in the department. Kelvin and his forbears have maintained an uninterrupted commitment to public service in the national department responsible for water resource management, as served by his father, and grandfather since August 1913. Kelvin’s impressive career spans several decades and includes being the inventor of two patents. After obtaining a BSc in Civil Engineering from the University of the Witwatersrand in 1982, he went on to gain experience across a broad range of areas, including the design and construction of bulk water resources and associated infrastructure, augmented by materials and technology investigations pertaining to fluid flow through soil, filter systems and geosynthetic materials. Diverse responsibilities in bulk water infrastructure design and construction, especially of large dams, have included grave and archaeological rescue, as well as agriculture and housing developments, in- cluding the provision of services. Kelvin was also involved in the development of waste management and related regulations and the review of their engineering implementation. Kelvin has travelled the world deliv- ering papers on geosynthetics, often on behalf of the International Geosynthetics Society, and is acknowledged as a world expert on both granular and geosynthetic filter design and is mentoring DWS engineers in these matters. Kelvin feels indebted to DWS for the diverse work opportuni- ties the department has afforded him over the past 39 years, and to colleagues who have embraced a team approach to the improvement of livelihoods touched by the water sector. Kelvin describes his work experiences over the years as diverse and a lot of fun. He provides a long list of fantastic opportunities that include geotechnical investigations, assessments of dispersive soils, filters, remedial grouting, containment systems for water pollution control, working on Category III dams, as well as “oh dear” projects. One of those “oh dear” projects came about when the 1987 floods badly damaged the KwaZulu-Natal coast and washed away the Umlazi canal outfall. The canal was built in the 1950s to divert the Umlazi River in order to reclaim the wetland on which the then Louis Botha Airport was built. The floods did a great deal of damage to the canal and surrounding areas, and the task of repairing it fell to Kelvin who faced great difficulty because the project required both land and marine engineering expertise. After two years of working on the project, Kelvin got stuck into hydraulic modelling and found that the existing hydraulic model was not accurate because the time period it used was too short and did not reflect the tremendous erosion that was occurring and that likely caused the loss of the outfall. Kelvin then went on to help develop a new piled solution for the canal outfall. Kelvin Legge – an extraordinary man who has known great sorrow and joy Described by Peter Davies as “an extraordinary man who has known great sorrow and joy,” Kelvin Legge (Pr Eng, FSAICE) was recently awarded the 2020 SAICE Geotechnical Gold Medal. Kelvin Legge, recipient of the 2020 SAICE Geotechnical Gold Medal Kelvin (middle right) with his wife Linda (middle left), daughter Ashleigh (right), son-in-law Stewart Chaperon (left), and grandson Zach (middle)