An expert team appointed by Cabinet to advise the inter-ministerial committee on the dangers of acid mine drainage to Gauteng warned earlier this year of the need to avert an impending crisis.

The team, drawn from the Council for Geosciences and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), among others, identified various risk categories, including the contamination of surface and ground water required for agricultural and human consumption.

Their recommendations were housed in an acid mine drainage report.

According to a statement issued by the Department of Water Affairs this week, “important progress” had been made by the state in implementing the immediate and short-term actions recommended in the acid mine drainage report.

Infrastructure

BuaNews reported that Water Affairs Minister Edna Molewa had also tasked state-owned Trans-Caledon Tunnel Authority to oversee installation of pumps to extract water from the mines to onsite treatment plants and construction of an on-site mine water treatment plant in each basin.

There will also be an installation of infrastructure to convey treated water to nearby watercourses and the facilitation of the best model, which shall be proposed to the Department of Water Affairs, for the operations of the pumping stations and treatment works.

Treasury had made a budget allocation of R225m in the next three years toward the design and building of an acid mine water treatment facility, R5m of which would be spent on a five-year plan to deal with acid mine drainage.

The statement said recent “collaborative efforts” between the department and Trans-Caledon Tunnel Authority had resulted in an investigation of existing mine water treatment infrastructure in the western and central basin mining areas, and of potential institutional arrangements with the mining companies that were active in these basins.

“The Trans-Caledon Tunnel Authority, by way of tender protocol, appointed a professional service provider to provide an intensive appraisal of the available infrastructure and to formulate appropriate engineering options to adequately resolve the acid mine drainage problem,” said the department.

The highest priority is being given to the development of solutions to reduce, if not eradicate, the surface decant of acid mine drainage in the West Rand area.

Also of high priority was the development of measures focused on ensuring that underground mine water levels in the central basin of the mines did not reach the environmental critical level, which would pose a threat.

Source: News24

“TAU SA also wrote to the Independent Complaints Directorate requesting feed-back of the police investigation into the matter,” said its general manager Bennie van Zyl.

The union laid the charges against Minister of Agriculture Tina Joemat-Pettersson, Mining Minister Susan Shabangu and Water Affairs Minister Buyelwa Sonjica at the Brooklyn police station in Pretoria, on May 7 last year.

Its chairman Louis Meintjes said at the time that all three had repeatedly failed to address the water pollution problem.

Meintjies said Sonjica should have acted in line with the National Water Act and that Shabangu should have known that mining, water supply and food security were directly linked.

He said the Act provided that it was criminal for ministers to knowingly or unintentionally allow for natural resources to be jeopardised.

On Tuesday, Van Zyl said the case was not properly investigated and that consequently answers to all complaints submitted were expected.

“The South African authorities do not realise the gravity of the situation caused by polluted water,” he said.

Both the National Prosecuting Authority and the ICD could not immediately confirm or deny receiving the letter from the union.

Source: Times Live

Will the South African government enforce the laws surrounding a clean and safe water supply for all or will individuals need to secure a private water supply so that they can be ensured of safe drinking water?

Spokesperson Patrick Craven said the Congress of SA Trade Unions (Cosatu) had joined other organisations in the campaign to highlight the water crisis.

Cosatu had submitted a notice setting out the problems and challenges and demanding urgent measures to resolve the crisis, he said, noting that the Federation of Unions of SA had also filed a Section 77 notice on water.

“Should there be no progress in addressing the challenges raised in this application, Cosatu will have no option but to mobilise its members for a protest which will take the form of marches, demonstrations, pickets and stayaways,” said Craven.

Section 77 of the Labour Relations Act gives workers the right to take part in protest action to promote or defend their socio-economic interests.

In terms of the Labour Relations Act, the National Economic Development and Labour Council must bring the parties to a section 77 notice together, to attempt to resolve the reasons for the contemplated protest action.

Craven said that while the number of people with access to water had increased since 1994, the quality of water available to South Africans was not acceptable.

An increasing number of water service users had serious complaints about the quality.

While in 76% of water users were satisfied with the quality in 2005 and 72% in 2007, only 58.8% were satisfied in 2009.

People complained that the water they received was “not clean, clear, good in taste or free from bad smells.

“These complaints represent the microcosm of the water challenges the country is facing: pollution, poor quality and scarcity,” said Craven.

Among other things, there was poor sanitation and water service delivery, eutrophication (excessive nutrients) in dams and rivers, failing waste water treatment infrastructure and acid mine drainage.

Craven said an enhanced exploration of ground water, which should not only be relied upon during droughts, was one of the measures that could be adopted to address the water challenge.

Other measures included desalination, rainwater harvesting, conservation and water reuse.

Cosatu had called for policies that included punitive incentives against those who waste and pollute water, especially large water users.

Source: News 24

Water pollution

CAPE TOWN — The pumping of the acid mine water rising under Johannesburg would begin in a year’s time, just four months before the “environmental critical level” was reached, a team of officials led by Planning Minister Trevor Manuel said yesterday.

But they said that at this stage there was no need to panic.

The Department of Water and Environment Affairs will be in a race against time over the next year to put pumping and treatment infrastructure in place to counter what has been described as the country’s most critical environmental threat.

Details of how much it will cost are expected to emerge in today’s budget speech by Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan.

Mr Manuel was briefing the media on the outcomes of last week’s Cabinet meeting during which the recommendations of a team of experts on acid mine drainage were accepted.

He was at pains to emphasise that there was no looming “catastrophe”, that the scientists who had investigated the problem were “calm and controlled” and that “you can throw away your gum boots and relax”.

Mr Manuel said the heavy rains of this summer had raised the water table, considerably increasing the levels of acid mine drainage in the three basins — the eastern basin under the town of Nigel, the central basin under Johannesburg and the western basin under Krugersdorp.

Acting director-general of water affairs Trevor Balzer said the critical situation was the western basin.

This basin has been decanting onto the surface for some years. He said the focus would be on the central basin and that the pump stations would be operational across all three basins by March next year .

His colleague Marius Keet, when asked to comment on the risks involved, said there was no risk in the eastern basin as the acid mine drainage there was 700m below the surface and in the central basin was at 500m below the surface. The environmentally critical level of 150m below the surface would be reached at current rates by June next year, Mr Balzer said.

Deputy Mineral Resources Minister Godfrey Oliphant moved to allay fears that nothing had been done while the task team was conducting its investigation.

“A lot of work has been done already,” he said.

He said the Florida canal phase one, designed to stop a acid mine drainage decanting from the western basin from flowing into natural streams and rivers, had been completed and acid mine water was being treated.

Mr Manuel said that the government would attempt to reclaim the cost from mines that showed a profit as part of a collective responsibility to ensure water safety in river systems.

Negotiations with the mining industry were continuing.

Source: Business Day

I really dislike being a pessimist about the situation but when it comes to construction, building always takes much longer that expected. It would be amazing if the pumping and purifying of the acid mine water would start before or even withing the three month window before the acid mine water reaches critical levels.

According to economists, academics and researchers speaking at the South African Water and Energy Forum yesterday, the problem with South Africa’s water can be attributed to pollution such as acid mine drainage from mining companies, invasive plants and eutrophication – a result of a severe increase in chemical nutrients, mostly nitrates and phosphates, in the runoff from fertilised agricultural land.

Dennis Dykes, the chief economist at Nedbank, said South Africa was lucky not to have experienced droughts as these would have aggravated the crisis.

The issues facing water supply in the country were that quantity was low and quality poor, coupled with the fact that many poor South Africans did not have access to safe water.

Anthony Turton, a professor at the Centre for Environmental Management at the University of the Free State, said the country was transitioning from a demand-driven economy to one that was constrained in its supply of energy and water.

“A whole new business plan needs to be invented and that is a major challenge for companies. The second implication is that assurance of supply will increasingly become a constraint as poorly maintained infrastructure breaks down, and existing water supply sources reach their finite limits,” he said.

Michael Spicer, the chief executive of Business Leadership, said South Africa was already a high-cost environment and the looming crisis would kill business and dent the government’s aspirations of creating jobs. The country was also no longer a viable alternative for cheap business, coupled with the decaying infrastructure in Johannesburg.

Mike Muller, a registered professional engineer and former director-general of water affairs and forestry, suggested that the problem was embedded in the water services and the quality of the water in the pipes. He argued that even where there was infrastructure, its management was an impossible task with too many users and not enough supply.

The deputy president of AgriSA, Theo De Jager, said there used to be 120 000 commercial farmers in country 15 years ago but the number had dwindled to 37 000. He warned that once the population reached 60 million, one farmer would be responsible for feeding 1 500 people.

He highlighted that this would put strain on future water supply in a system where farmers used close to 70 percent of water, which was increasingly becoming unusable due to its low quality. – Ayanda Mdluli

Source: IOL

Mines dug more than a century ago stretching about 40 km (25 miles) along one of the world’s largest gold deposits have reached their water storage limit and will start leaking a toxic cocktail of chemicals in the coming months, independent experts and government officials have said.

If left unchecked, acidic mine water is expected to foul up works near the country’s famed Apartheid Museum, flood basements in downtown Johannesburg and then seep into the streets of the city of about 4 million people.

“The threat of acid water decanting from old mine workings is a real and present danger. It poses a threat to our economy, environment, health and history,” Terence McCarthy, a professor of geosciences at the University of Witwatersrand, wrote in a report.

Acid mine drainage has plagued derelict mines globally for decades but most of the damage has been in remote areas.

The problem for Johannesburg is that the city was built over its gold mines and that land now is home to some of the country’s biggest firms and greatest population densities.

About three years ago, the last major pump removing water from the mines stopped, signalling an end to a gold rush that brought wealth to a few while hundreds of thousands of black Africans went deep underground to dig.

Then the water began to accumulate in the massive underground cavities, reacting with rocks formed about 2.8 billion years ago and triggering chemical reactions that produced sulphuric acid, heavy metals, toxins and radiation.

The water, once several hundred metres underground, has been rising at an average rate of 15 metres per month, with the void expected to fill up completely in less than three years.

The leakage problems will be small at first and grow more costly the longer action is delayed, experts said.

McCarthy said the spillage can be avoided by immediately setting up two pump and treatment stations along the main gold reef to keep the water to at least 300 metres below the surface.

“The solutions are expensive, though not technically daunting — and must be implemented in a matter of months,” his report said.

PICKING UP THE BILL

The government agrees that urgent action is needed but has given little indication it will do anything before the acid water reaches underground facilities in Johannesburg.

A report from a government-appointed team of experts planned for release in early January has yet to see the light of day, prompting the opposition Democratic Alliance to say delays are putting lives at risk.

Along with finding a way to solve the problem, government has yet to figure out how to pay for it.

It cannot pass the bill onto firms since ownership of mines has changed hands so often and many firms have vanished. There also is not enough gold left to make it commercially viable for a new firm to go in — and pay for a clean up.

The environment ministry warned of the escalating costs of inaction about three years ago, saying in a report: “If the threat from acid mine drainage is not solved in the short to medium term, it is likely to persist for centuries to come.”

But environmental protection ranks low in the state’s budget with the government giving it half the funds it allocates to state workers to help them pay their rents and mortgages.

On top of the funding woes acid mine water clean up, the mining ministry is already struggling to fund a 1.46 billion rand ($202 million), 10-year plan for basic measures to prevent environmental damage from 6,000 ownerless and derelict mines.

BLIND HIPPOS AND RADIOACTIVE LAKES

“We will not allow the situation to get out of hand; it will not reach crisis proportion,” Sandile Nogxina, Department of Mineral Resources director-general, told parliament last year.

But it has let the problem grow in the western Johannesburg suburbs, where acid mine water began leaking in 2002.

In towns such as Krugersdorp, acidic lakes dot the landscape near mammoth, open piles of chemicals extracted from mines.

Signs warning of radiation are posted outside a sludge filled pool of a copper coloured liquid, hippos at a nearby nature reserve are going blind due to what is thought to be acid water run-off and fish are dying in polluted water near the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site — a rich fossil site providing clues on the origin of humans.

“There is not insufficient information. The fact that government has not acted is astonishing,” said Mariette Liefferink, CEO of the Federation for a Sustainable Environment, who has campaigned for acid mine water clean up.

Liefferink is an expert on the mountains of iron pyrite dumps and toxic water leaks in the area as well as the devastating impact the pollution has had on the poor.

She warns that the country’s water supplies are increasingly at risk the more toxic water nears the surface and mixes with supplies of fresh water.

“Over 120 years, there were more than 120 mining companies who passed on or externalised their costs,” she said.

“There are no short-term, medium or long-term plans put in place. It is just crisis management.”

Source: Reuters

Hearing Starbuck curse was an object lesson in the poetry of vloeking. It was from the heart.

The new meaning of “fracking” doesn’t come from the heart. Instead, it’s a punch to the gut.

The word “fracking” is a convenient abbreviation of the phrase “hydraulic fracture”. I’ll tell you more about that in a second.

First, let me set the scene. Picture, if you will, the Groot Karoo. Graaff Reinet. Ostrich territory. Dusty, scrub-covered terrain. Angora goats. Sheep. Boreholes.

All right. Now hold that image as you cast your mind halfway around the world to where Big Energy has turned its attention from the PR disaster in which oil is engulfed, to the relatively unexplored miracle of natural gas.

The sedimentary shale formations that stretch across the United States contain untold volumes of natural gas just waiting to be tapped for energy. Until recently, it was very difficult to get to, but new drilling methods are able to clear a way down.

What happens next is extreme, and brings us back to that curious word, “fracking”.

“Hydraulic fracturing” involves injecting vast amounts of chemically treated water into the cavities created in the drilling process, the pressure of which then fractures the rock formations around it, allowing the gas trapped in the shale to be harvested.

The gas is then processed and turned into energy, and not only does everyone live happily ever after, but wealthily ever after too – because, you see, the companies that do this have been paying good money to lease land for this purpose from private landowners across the length and breadth of the United States.

And there we thought the world was running out of fossil fuels.

No, no: we get to loot and pollute the planet for a little longer.

Good times.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, if you’d kindly turn your attention to The Catch.

It turns out that many of the land owners who have leased their property out for this process are having a bit of a rough time. Sure, the actual equipment is about the size of a small van – hardly takes up any space at all. But it squirts some apparently rather dodgy chemicals into the ground. Which trickles down into the groundwater – and if the land is serviced by boreholes… well, you can imagine.

But if you can’t . the documentary film Gasland shows footage of people turning on the taps in their home, letting the water flow, and then bringing a lit match near to the running water.

Have you ever seen running water, coming out of a tap, catching fire? Watch Gasland. In some instances, we’re talking fireballs.

In the film there’s also footage of farm and domestic animals with hair falling out, testimony from families who have developed serious and chronic illnesses, and energy executives insisting that there’s nothing wrong with the water – yet in the same breath refusing to drink any of it.

Of course, the companies involved in the fracking deny there’s any risk to the public. They’ve got studies to prove the chemicals they use cause no harm to the water, the environment or to humans.

Perhaps they’re right. But so what if they’re not? What’s it to us, here, halfway around the world?

Well, fellow citizen of the RS of A, encouraged by their success in the United States, the companies involved in fracking are spreading their wings and hopping the slick – sorry, I mean “pond” – and are partnering up with the likes of Sasol to apply for licences to frack the crap out of the Karoo.

Our Karoo. Which lies atop a vast – and evidently gassy – shale formation. They’re lining up for it! Shell International and oil and gas company Falcon already have a licence to scout for gas. And potentially flood the Karoo’s groundwater with tasty chemicals.

And of course we’re letting them. Because sometimes this land – my land, your land – is its own worst fracking enema.

Source: Times live

“Nothing has changed. Government has convened a team and is considering technical reports but, as of now, no decision has been communicated to society,” said Turton.

“The main story now is Central Rand Gold, (CRG). If they do engineering then the AMD rising in the void is stopped. If not, they will start to flood in about six months.”

Johan du Toit, chief executive at CRG, said the company has ordered pumps to combat the threat.

CRG, in the central Witwatersrand basin, employs 250 people and has a similar number of contractors.

“The industry has indicated its willingness to help and the costs could amount to R180-million,” said Du Toit. “CRG doesn’t have that kind of money and all I can say is that we are anxious to see the problem resolved. The government needs to act quickly; this is not a CRG problem but a national crisis.”

Source: Times Live

Jo Burgess, research manager at the Water Research Commission, said recent rains would cause the underground water table to rise faster.

“However, the average rates of rise that are worked out per annum are not affected, as the average takes dry and wet season rates into account. Heavy rains make action more urgent, but it’s never too late to do the right thing,” Burgess said.

Turton added: “Higher rainfall will also result in higher ingress (movement of water through rock into mine voids). But, no, greater flows in rivers actually dilute out contamination by AMD and other sources of pollution.”

NWF national chairman Louis Meintjies said that in Gauteng, acid mine water levels rose quickly because of the rain and that the acid water had now affected a wider area, with the water pollution spreading.

“The downpours may have diluted the concentration of heavy metals in polluted water but it certainly did not allow contaminants to dissolve,” he said.

Meintjies warned that several sewage plants were flooded due to the heavy rains and that raw sewage had ended up in the water systems.

“Farmers have to take note of the possibility of the outbreak of fungi and diseases spread by the contaminated water on farm lands,” he said.

Water Affairs ministry spokesman Mandla Mathebula acknowledged that the floods had the potential of contaminating the water.

“We did anticipate cases of flooding and as a result of that we have a team that is looking at that situation,” he said,

“We don’t think we will have that problem of contamination, we are guarding against that.”

Experts from the department were put on high alert to ensure that the country’s water supply remained safe, Mathebula said.

Source: Times Live