Molefe Matlou
WORKERS at the remote Vametco mine, which produces vanadium on the outskirts of Brits in the North West Province, say they and their kin in surrounding rural settlements are being poisoned by the mine, and that 10 former workers have already died.
“We heard of workers dying, children and old people becoming ill from mine dust blowing into their homes and ‘poisoned’ underground water,” says a newsletter of the Environmental Justice Networking Forum (EJNF) published after the organisation’s officials visited the area to investigate the claims.
“Just days after we interviewed Mr Albert Modibela (64), he died in the Garankuwa hospital with the same bleeding symptoms as eight other former Vametco workers before him. Mr Modibela had a history of vanadium- related health problems and was offered early retirement by the mine in 1990.”
Ironically, Vametco mine used to be owned by American multinational Union Carbide, the company that was responsible for the Bhopal disaster in India in 1985 that killed more than 200 people.
The National Union of Metalworkers (Numsa), which organises at the mine, charges the company has a history of refusing to co-operate with the union around collective bargaining as well as health and safety issues, and that in the past it made use of the fact that it was located in Bophutha-tswana to avoid dealing with the union.
Vametco’s management was unable to comment on the allegations when approached by the Mail & Guardian, saying its managing director, Hein Enslin, was the only person allowed to speak to the media and was abroad this week. However, a briefing document produced by the company claims vanadium is a fairly harmless substance that has no major health and safety dangers.
“Allegations have been made that, due to our earlier association with Union Carbide, our plant and operations can cause an incident with catastrophic results like what happened in Bhophal in 1985,” says the report.
“The Bhopal process was a chemical process … At Vametco these chemicals are not used. The chemicals used at Vametco like soda ash and amsul are safe to use and cannot cause explosions. The most dangerous chemical we use is sulphuric acid. This acid is used in many industries and, when handled correctly, can be used safely.”
The Vametco document adds that there is no record worldwide of any worker who has suffered permanent health damage because of exposure to vanadium, let alone death.
But according to Dr Mark Colvin of the Enviromental Law Alliance Worldwide, scientific articles show that workers exposed to vanadium salt experienced a green discoloration of the tongue. Severe respiratory tract irritation occurred in at least 74 of 100 boilermakers after exposure to vanadium fumes. Wheezing, rales and hoarseness were found in workers by physicians. One patient continued to wheeze eight weeks after his last exposure.
The information also indicated that workers exposed to the mineral for a few days developed irritation of the conjuctivate, dryness of the throat, pneumonitis and
A medical examination conducted in 1992 by the National Centre for Occupational Health (NCOH) at the request of the Legal Resource Centre in Pretoria on 67 former workers of the mine indicated that 41 of them reported chest pain, bronchitis or asthma and one of them had cancer of the larynx.
Workers also complained of wheezing, dryness of the throat, discoloration of the tongue and lung problems. But the NCOH report stresses that the workers had been out of work for more than a year and, as a result, the symptoms could not be positively linked to conditions at the mine alone. NCOH officials say a larger study, focusing on workers currently employed at the mine, was necessary before hard and fast conclusions could be made about the plant’s health and safety record.
Louis Khompela, the chairman of the civic association at Mothotlung township some five kilometres from the mine, told the Mail & Guardian that the Vametco saga has negatively affected the whole community.
“The dust blowing off the mine dumps makes children and old people ill, the community has seen what has happened to the workers and we are afraid,” said Khompela.
Borehole water on which the villagers depend is allegedly contaminated by vanadium and chemicals used in the mine infect people and their livestock.
“The problem at the mine dates back to 1990 when the mine workers went on strike over salary deductions that were made without their consent for clothing, canteen and medical coverage and also because of unhealthy working conditions,” said Numsa official Jacob Ngakane.
“On the day of the strike the workers were locked in and the former Bophuthatswana police were called, ten strikers including a shop steward, Mohammed Rashid and a trade unionist, Tsheko Ngalo, were detained for a week without being charged. Workers went on strike despite a ban on trade unions organising in the homeland,”says Ngakane.
“Following the strike all the workers were dismissed and later others were re-employed. Workers who applied for re-employment were medically examined by doctors arranged by the mine management and those with signs of vanadium poisoning were allegedly turned down,” added Ngakane.
Ngakane said conditions at the mine are still the same since 300 mine workers went on strike over a salary dispute and the health conditions five years ago. “Attempts to engage the management in negotiations to address the working conditions and compensation for the families of the victims have failed,” Ngakane says.
“We tried to get the mine management into negotiations but they chose to hold talks with the Greater Brits Development Forum (GBDF) without any reason, they are using the Forum as a cover and it’s just a huge RDP body with no stakeholders. We therefore call for immediate goverment intervention with a duty and responsibility to attend to communities exposed to danger of minerals,” says Ngakane.
In response to the civic’s proposal to the mine management to attend a meeting with a negotiating forum in August this year, Enslin said that “adequate statutory mechanisms exist to address the issues raised and other non – statutory matters will be the subject of discussion of the Greater Brits Development Forum, we therefore do not agree to a meeting as proposed.”
The forum was formed in 1992 by the civic associations of Rankwetea and Mothotlung township on the outskirts of the mine and Numsa to address the compensation for victims of the mine and the impact of vanadium on the environment.
Former mine workers and families of the victims want legal assistance in claiming compensation from Vametco ‘s current parent company, Strategic Minerals Corporation. Meanwhile in the US, the South African Exchange Programme on Environmental Justice (SAEPEJ) and Global Response are organising publicity and putting pressure on the parent company to address the problem.
According to Rashid, the mine changed its name from Ucar (Union Carbide) to Vametco in 1985 after the Bhophal incident in which a gas leakage killed more than 200 people in the Indian town. “Workers were informed that the mine (including the workers) was sold to the Strategic Mineral Corporation. As a result all the former mine workers forfeited their pension money earned before 1986.”
Added to the Vametco saga is the conflict between the villagers over the royalties from the mine. According to villagers the mine was built on their land and they are therefore entitled to a monthly payment by the mine manangement.
A committee, with a local businessman and a school principal, was responsible for managing the royalties but apparently mismanaged them. “As a result of corruption the community is torn apart and we now have two committees which are fighting each other,” says a member of the local civic association, who asked not to be named.
When conflict erupted late last year some members of the old committee fled the village because the villagers alledgedly wanted to kill them. The payment of royalties was suspended last year pending a decision by the Mmabatho Supreme Court due to be made on 22
As a dark cloud of vanadium dust from the mine dumps covers the sky people in the village and the nearby Mothotlung start to ask each other two questions: who is next and until when will people die without the mine management taking part in the negotiations to address their plight?