Toxic, radioactive drainage is oozing from old mines
More than 30 environmental organisations and human rights campaigners have united in their "extreme concern" over contaminated water seeping from the underground voids of the Witwatersrand Mining Basin.
Their fears - about how the uncontrolled decant of acid mine drainage from historic gold mining threatens health, the environment and the agricultural sector in the Western, Central and Eastern Basins - stretching from Springs to Carletonville - are contained in a statement presented to the government task team for mine closure and water management late last week.
The signatories include Lawyers for Human Rights, the Endangered Wildlife Trust, Earthlife Africa Johannesburg, the Federation for a Sustainable Environment, the Centre for Environmental Rights and groundWork.
"We regard this (acid mine drainage) as the most significant environmental challenge facing the region and one that requires urgent, co-ordinated action on the part of the government, the mines and civil society," they write.
Acid mine drainage is the highly toxic and radioactive water oozing from the underground voids of abandoned or closed mines. Since 2002, 15 megalitres of acid mine drainage have been discharging daily from the Western Basin into the Tweelopies Spruit, causing "serious downstream pollution of boreholes", affecting water quality at the Krugersdorp Game Reserve and threatening to flood and damage the Sterkfontein Caves.
The decant of the Central Basin, which lies directly underneath the Joburg city centre, is predicted for 2011, which could have catastrophic consequences for the structural integrity of the CBD.
"With the level of acid mine drainage only 30cm below the surface in the Western Basin, and the flooding of the Central and Eastern Basins imminent, we strongly believe the time for implementation of an effective, sustainable solution is upon us," the groups emphasise.
"The next 18 months represent a critical, narrow window of opportunity to implement a proactive solution, which could address the negative consequences of acid mine drainage and have significant additional benefits in reducing the amount of water required to dilute the discharge that accumulates at the Vaal Barrage, and to extend the limited water resources available to Gauteng."
The solution proposed by the Western Utilities Corporation (WUC), through the creation of a central water treatment plant to pump and treat acid mine drainage in the basins, to a potable water standard, is the only solution being presented. The gold mining sector created the WUC to address acid mine drainage, which it says poses a "severe threat".
The environmental groups say that compelling polluters to pay, as environmental legislation dictates, is not feasible as the problem is caused by more than a century of gold mining in the region. Many of those mines are now closed or abandoned.
"We fear that an approach that simply directs the relatively few remaining players in the gold mining industry to pay for the remediation of the entire problem into perpetuity might not be feasible... and ultimately lead to the state having to assume liability for pumping and treating acid mine drainage for an indefinite time.
"We're open to critics coming forward with a solution, but no other comprehensive proposal appears to be far enough developed for the urgent implementation required."
Critics include water scientist Dr Anthony Turton, who has maintained his opposition to contaminated mine effluent becoming part of Gauteng's drinking water as "no treatment process can remove 100 percent of contamination 100 percent of the time", he says.
"The public has been given no choice and is expected to subsidise the solution that gets the mines off the hook (avoidance of legal liability)".
The WUC, the Department of Water Affairs and provincial authorities failed to respond to the Saturday Star's queries.
