SPEECH FOR MEC NANDI MAYATHULA-KHOZA
AMD AND MINING POLLUTION AWARENESS OPEN DAY
KRUGERSDORP GAME RESERVE
Tuesday 26 February 2013
Programme Director
MMC’s and Councillors Present
Our valued Stakeholders
HOD Ms Simangele Sekgobela
DDGs and Senior Managers Present
Ladies and Gentlemen
Members of the Media
Dumelang, Molweni, Sanibonani, Good Morning, Dimatsheroni
It is a privilege to address you at the Acid Mine Drainage (AMD) and mining
pollution awareness open day. Programme Director, I am certain that we are
all aware that AMD is an issue of controversy which has been in the media
spotlight in recent years. As a result, the Gauteng Department of Agriculture
and Rural Development (GDARD) decided to dedicate a day, to draw much
needed awareness to this topic as well as broader issues about the impact of
mining pollution on the environment, health and infrastructure.
And we are therefore grateful to Mogale City for allowing us to use this
venue, as it is here where the impact of AMD have been the most significant
and visible. Ladies and gentlemen, proof of the extent of AMD problem were
made real when photographs of hippos covered in toxic yellow sludge went
viral and were seen both nationally and internationally.
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Ladies and gentleman, the AMD problem and the issues of mining legacy are
complex and solutions require highly expensive and multifaceted technical
interventions.
The release of contaminated mining water into our rivers have been affecting
water quality in both surface and ground water for almost a hundred years,
since mining activities started in the region. However the problem became
much more acute when mining stopped in some areas and nobody would
take responsibility for dealing with water flooding old mining voids and
eventually filling some of the compartments and outflowing through an old
mining shaft or through a natural spring to surface. This process is called
AMD decant.
Program Director, I would like to mention that AMD is not unique to South
Africa and most of the counties that have and had extensive mining
experience this problem, including advanced countries like Germany and
Britain as well as developing countries.
The mining voids created by mining activities are separated into
compartments, but most of the compartments are interconnected. However
these voids formed 3 large and separate basins – Western, Central and
Eastern covering large part of western and southern areas of Gauteng. The
western basin is the smallest and decant there started already in 2002 from
the mining shaft just across the road from here.
Although the AMD decant was expected and predicted, high level
government intervention was initiated in 2010, when a team of experts was
tasked to find solution. The report released by experts in November 2010
called for urgent interventions. The AMD Intergovernmental Task team was
subsequently set up to implement the recommended interventions.
In light of the recent media articles alarming Gauteng residents over the
planned release of pre-treated acid mine drainage into the Vaal and other
rivers, it is important to provide to the public, clear and objective
information on the current status of AMD and how decisions made around
the mitigation of AMD may impact potable water quality and quantity and
household costs in the future. It is even more important for people who are
directly affected by mining pollution when they rely on water from polluted
streams and inhale the dust from the mine dumps, like many of you are.
The two-pronged approach undertaken by Department of Water Affairs
(DWA) in response to AMD seeks to mitigate the symptoms of AMD through
the implementation of ‘immediate and short term’ and ‘long term’
interventions.
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The immediate and short term intervention by the Trans-Caledon Tunnel
Authority (TCTA) aims to neutralise un-treated water decanting from the
Western Basin and to pump and treat water from voids in the Western,
Central and Eastern Basins to prevent further decant. The extension of the
treatment plant and pumping has finally managed to stop decant. As you
could see in the programme the presentation by mines will explain what
they are doing together with the national government to address the problem
in your area.
A High Density Sludge (HDS) technology and chemical reagent combination
has been selected to neutralise the pumped water in the Western, Central
and Eastern basins, but the process will not remove all dissolved salts,
heavy metals and radioactive contaminants.
The immediate and short term interventions had to be designed and
implemented in a relatively short time to ensure that decant in your area
stops and no decant is allowed in the Central and Eastern basins. Therefore
mature and well known treatment technology has been selected and the
Department of the Environmental Affairs granted to the Department of
Water Affairs exemption from the EIA process last month. Although some
stakeholders expressed concern and even anger about this decision I hope
that you all will agree that some treatment is better than none and you
would not like your neighbours in central and eastern areas of the province
experience pollution you have had since decant started. At present, the
immediate term solution has been implemented and currently no decant is
taking place in the Western Basin.
It is also good news that the contract to build a new High Density Sludge
(HDS) treatment plant on the land that belong to ERGO in the Germiston
area has been awarded. Furthermore the ERGO will use their own tiling
dam for disposal of the sludge produced in the process of treatment and
acquire a large portion of untreated or partially treated water for their
operation thereby reducing the amount of water that has to be discharged
into stream.
The interventions in the Eastern basin have not yet been finalised as this
mining void is the biggest and pumping there stopped only in 2011.
Ladies and gentlemen, further good news is that more interventions by
national government are planned in West Rand and again I leave the
technical details to the mining representatives. On this note I would like to
express my gratitude and appreciation to both mines, Mintails and Gold 1
who were very cooperative and supportive in organising this event. We hope
that we can demonstrate today that government works with private sector,
particularly mines to jointly find most appropriate solution to this problem.
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However, I must agree that it remains unclear as to how the short and long
term interventions will align, as possibly a medium term plan is required to
span the time period between the implementation of the short and long term
solutions.
Despite the actions taken to mitigate AMD, some stakeholders remain
sceptical as to whether the short term intervention will be completed as
planned and fear that the immediate and short term intervention may
become ‘the only plan’ to mitigate AMD as the long term plan currently has
too narrow focus and lacks secure long term funding. Uncertainties stem
from the slow pace of implementing the immediate and short term
interventions and the perceived lack of co-operation that exists between
role-players involved with the implementation of the immediate, short and
long term interventions together with escalating budgeted costs.
So the two main questions we would like to focus on today are:
1. What government is doing?
2. What a private person can do?
Programme Director, as President Zuma articulated, our country is facing a
serious challenge of high levels of unemployment, gross inequality and heart
wrenching poverty. These challenges happen at the backdrop of the global
recession which has brought new attention to chronic structural flaws in
current economic models and assumptions. The prevailing economic growth
model is focused on increasing GDP above all other goals. While this system
has improved incomes and reduced poverty for hundreds of millions, it
comes with significant and potentially irreversible social, environmental and
economic costs.
Sadly, we realize that poverty persists for as many as two and a half billion
people worldwide, while the natural wealth of the planet is rapidly being
drawn down. One of the most important natural resources are mineral
resources. South Africa is blessed with most abundant natural resources.
Ladies and gentlemen, the persistence of poverty and degradation of the
environment can be traced to a series of market and institutional failures
that make the prevailing economic model far less effective than it otherwise
would be in advancing sustainable development goals. These market and
institutional failures are well known to economists, but little progress has
been made to address them. For example, there are not sufficient
mechanisms to ensure that polluters pay the full cost of their pollution.
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There are “missing markets” – meaning that markets do not systematically
account for the inherent value of services provided by nature, like water
filtration or coastal protection. A “market economy” alone cannot provide
public goods, like efficient electricity grids, sanitation or public
transportation. And economic policy and particularly mining development is
often shaped by those who wield power, with strong vested interests, and
rarely captures the voice and perspectives of those most at risk.
A Green Economy, therefore, attempts to remedy these problems through a
variety of institutional reforms and regulatory, tax, and expenditure-based
economic policies and tools. The National Development Plan suggests strong
focus on Green Economy and a balance between development of sectors
such as mining, agriculture and rural development.
Here in Mogale area most of the mining companies closed down and left
behind the legacy of AMD and mining pollution. As Department of
Agriculture and Rural Development our responsibility is to support these
two sectors which were prioritized by the National Development Plan and
play very important role in creating jobs and usually fit well within green
economy approaches. On the other side, mining development is very seldom
sustainable and often conflicting with the green economy approaches.
Program Director, we would like to become more proactive and preemptive to
ensure that mining development legacy is addressed through green
economic principles. The Department recently developed Gauteng Mine
Residue Areas Strategy which looked at mining pollution from sustainable
land use perspective. It focused on aligning all existing efforts within
government in order to enable the extensive mine residue areas to be
reclaimed or rehabilitated to the point where the affected land becomes safe
for human use; and where the land can be brought back into productive use
after the cessation of mining activities, consistent with the broader policy
imperatives of Provincial Government.
The MRA problem in Gauteng is wide spread and complex and the strategy
identified eight distinct elements deemed necessary and needing individual,
but integrated responses (environmental pollution, geotechnical stability,
monitoring and evaluation, human health, communication, safety and
security). The strategy identifies 374 areas over more than 32 000ha that
need attention and majority of these are related to gold mines. The MRA
issues are closely linked with the Acid Mine Drainage (AMD) problem in all
areas where mining of gold has been discontinued.
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The Mine Residue Areas are often the source of the acid mine seepage and
significantly contribute to the ingress of polluted water into groundwater.
Therefore they affect water quality for both surface and groundwater and
increase the costs of addressing AMD.
Mogale area has unique feature of being located on the continental divide.
This means that water originating from this area is the source of water for
two biggest catchments that bring water across South Africa up to Atlantic
Ocean (through Vaal and Orange rivers systems) and to Indian Ocean
though Crocodile river system. So the pollution in your area has impact not
only on South Africa, but also has international impacts. This is why MRA
strategy suggested that the first project to be developed as part of the
implementation of this strategy should take place in Mogale.
During last year the Department has developed a proposal on the pilot
project for investigation into passive treatment in the West Rand District. .
An innovative approach has been identified that helps impacted
communities and uses cooperative financial model and EPWP to support
green jobs. The project will rehabilitate a polluted wetland to act as passive
treatment and to minimize impact of pollution from diffuse mining sources,
such as MRA, and reduce AMD ingress. It will also build capacity in
community to benefit from improved water management. The Terms of
Reference for the project has been approved and the Department is busy
with procurement process.
And today’s Open day is the first step of this project. We are well aware that
the communities living around MRA and or using polluted surface or ground
water are most affected. Therefore it is critical to build awareness in the
affected communities, involve them in finding productive solutions and
capacitate them in implementing site specific solutions.
This brings me to the issue of what you, as a concern citizens can do.
The obvious thing is that you can complain. There a number of NGOs who
are doing sterling job on facilitating and channeling complaints to the
government. This work is important and appreciated by government.
However we would like you to have opportunities for more positive
contributions.
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The first and most important contribution every person here is already made
is to learn more about these issues. We are really glad to see so many of you
are interested and wanting to learn and understand. As I explained, this is
just the beginning and through the passive treatment project we are going to
work together for next 2 years to search for mutually beneficial and
sustainable solutions.
The 2nd contribution is community monitoring. We hope that it will start as
part of the pilot and spread widely to ensure that community and NGOs
communicate with government and polluters using objective information.
However the last and most important contribution is your contribution to
look after our Mama Earth.
Lets stop wasting our resources – we can reduce waste, recycle and reuse.
Lets plant fruit trees in every household.
Lets treat environment with respect and appreciation, like we would treat
your parent who feeds you and looks after you.
Lets make the following quote of the late Wangari Maathai into our mantra
“If we cannot sustain environment we cannot sustain ourselves.
I thank you
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