Mining is never a pretty sight. It has a deserved reputation for defacing nature and putting profit before everything, including the environment. By their very essence, mining and conservation seem to be antithetical concepts.
‘By definition, mines have a finite life; individual mines are clearly not sustainable,” Mzolisi Diliza, chief executive of the Chamber of Mines of South Africa said at a conference last year. ‘Tragically, people tend to observe of our industry that the only thing that is sustainable about a mine is the pollution it causes.”
The list of damages mining has caused to the environment reads like the script of a doomsday movie. Surface and ground water pollution will pollute drinking water, soil pollution will make valuable land infertile, radiation level increases can cause cancer, and dust pollution leads to respiratory diseases.
Yet the world needs resources to function, just as much as it needs a clean environment. But it is only in the last decade that conservationists have begun to realise that, instead of working against the mining industry, it might be better to work with it to create a partnership in which mines are willing to clean up their acts, as well as trying to rectify the mistakes of the past.
Formal mining in South Africa is over 100 years old, and has created a negative legacy. South African legislation only began to address this constructively in the 1990s. Prior to the Minerals Act of 1991, many mining companies used careless mining methods that took no regard of the environment. They also often dodged the few environmental responsibilities there were.
Nowadays, new mines have it a bit tougher. When a company applies for a mining or prospecting licence, it must have a comprehensive environmental management plan, which also shows that the plan can be funded throughout the life of the mine.
The past
South Africa’s blessing and curse
South Africa is blessed with large and varied deposits of mineral resources. But the blessing has also been a curse. The discovery of gold in Johannesburg in 1886 led to a scramble for riches, a painful war, and an explosion in urbanisation. No one stopped for a moment to consider the impact the gold boom might have on the environment.
In other parts of the country as well, miners were smiling as the tills kept ticking over. As long as the mines kept yielding gold, diamonds, platinum and coal, everyone was happy. Environmental legislation was not even a twinkle in the eye of the government of the day. No one foresaw the damages their children would inherit.
Gauteng
Gauteng is one of the provinces worst affected by mining pollution. A flight along the main gold reef reveals dozens of old mine dumps and disused slime dams, often alongside illegal squatter camps — a wasteland where only the desperate dare to come. Yet this wasteland shows the tracks of the rich golden artery that built today’s burgeoning province.
Mining built this place, but it has come with an expensive environmental price tag.
On windy days, people living near mine dumps suffer from the irritating dust that seeps through even the smallest gaps. The soil around old mines is heavily polluted and so is the underground water. That many rely on water from boreholes makes matters worse.
The residues of gold mining also had to go somewhere. The Gauteng Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Environment and Land (GDace) estimates that in Gauteng alone there are approximately 240 gold mine residue deposits, stretching some 80km from Randfontein in the west to Nigel in the east.
In the past this was not well regulated, but legislation has now been created to deal specifically with mine residue deposits. No mine residues may be deposited anywhere but on sites demarcated in a mine’s environmental management plan, which has to meet government approval.
The Department of Minerals and Energy (DME) stipulates: ‘Every such site shall be limited to a minimum and the residue shall be managed in the prescribed manner to prevent environmental pollution and degradation and to ensure safety.”
The East Rand
In 2001 the Gauteng Mining Pollution Forum was formed by affected communities and stakeholders in mining pollution. The forum aims to tackle pollution caused by mining activities.
One of the areas in which the forum operates is the East Rand, long plagued by mining pollution. The Reiger Park community is only one of many that today lives with the legacy of the past. In some places, only a fence separates communities from mines.
As in central Gauteng, wind-borne dust from the mine dumps is a scourge. And if the residents have gathered enough of the mine soil to start an acid-rich garden, they can always use mine-polluted water to nurture their own little mutant mine gardens. Polluted water of ERPM and other gold mines on the reef has been a problem for over 100 years.
The DME is aware of the water problems caused by Witwatersrand gold mines. In conjunction with the Council for Geoscience, it has developed a comprehensive strategy with which to address polluted underground water. It includes cost- effective preventative measures to reduce environmental impacts and also substantially lower gold mining costs.
The department has budgeted for ‘engineering interventions” in the central and East Rand mining basins to pump polluted water out of mines. But ERPM has argued that the subsidy is not enough and they cannot pay the shortfall. In consequence, the government no longer pays out its R1,7- million-a-year subsidy to the mine, which stopped pumping out water in May last year. As a result, the water level in the ERPM mine is rising.
DME has given assurances that there is no threat to sensitive wetlands or the Vaal river water catchment areas for at least six years as a result of the discontinuation of the pumping.
‘EPRM is situated in the Central Rand basin, which is not directly linked to the East Rand basin where Grootvlei Mine, the major wetlands and the extensive dolomitic areas are situated,” Sandile Nogxina, director general of DME said in May.
He added that the Central Rand basin is not directly linked to the West Rand basin, in which Harmony/Randfontein and Western Areas mines are situated. ERPM’s termination of pumping would therefore only affect the Klip River.
Nogxina says ERPM was informed at the beginning of April 2004 that further grants would not be made while the company refused to address water management issues at its mine, as required by its water-use licence from the Department of Water Affairs.
ERPM argues that the water is not their responsibility alone and that other mines should also contribute to pumping costs. It says water pools inside its mine because it is last in the queue of the natural slope.
Coal mines
Water draining from collieries is often highly acidic and laden with heavy metals, which may persist for centuries after a mine’s closure.
Coal mines also struggle to control methane emissions. Methane is a ‘greenhouse gas” that is 21 times more potent in its greenhouse effect than carbon dioxide, and the gas is growing in the atmosphere at a faster rate than its famous cousin.
All coal contains some methane. The deeper the mine, the higher the level of methane. As mining proceeds, this gas is released into the mine air and eventually discharged into the atmosphere. South Africa currently emits nearly seven million tons per annum of carbon dioxide or simliar gases from underground coalmines.
A number of underground coal works to the west of Witbank were abandoned in the 1950s and since then have been steadily burning. The resulting air pollution and unstable ground has left large areas of land around these mines unusable and dangerous.
A typical case is the abandoned Transvaal and Delagoa Bay (T&DB) Colliery near Witbank, Mpumalanga, where severe safety, health and environmental problems exist.
The government is working on the T&DB problem. Last year, the Department of Minerals and Energy in co-operation with the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry implemented urgent short-term rehabilitation measures at the burning mine.
In her 2004 budget speech, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, the Minister of Minerals and Energy, told parliament that her department had budgeted for the construction of safety pathways over the T&DB site and access control. The construction of a stormwater diversion system to prevent rainwater flowing through the site and becoming acidic would also be a priority.
‘Investigations regarding the methods of rehabilitating the T&DB Colliery were finalised,” she said. ‘These methods included remining, blast-and-collapse, flooding and ashing.”
She said ‘piecemeal” options which included a combination of these methods had been agreed to as the preferred rehabilitation option. Tenders were being approved for blast-and-collapse test work at the site.
‘The rehabilitation work is focused on achieving a sustainable end land use on the site that includes small-scale community agriculture.”
The present
New legislation
Though mining is recognised as a big polluter, the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism (DEAT) treats it as it would any other business sector that has development aspirations and environmental impacts.
Joanne Yawitch, deputy director-general for environmental quality and protection, says mining is not a primary concern for DEAT, but the department wants to ensure that mining develops into a sustainable activity that will not damage the environment — the same way housing or road development should be handled.
‘We follow the best practices model for any activity,” she says.
But mining rehabilitation remains a thorn in the side of DEAT as well as DME. Before the legislation came into place in the 1990s, a lot of damage was done by mines with inadequate rehabilitation programmes.
Many mining areas were left unrehabilitated after mining companies were liquidated or left the country. It is these mines the government now has to rehabilitate on its own.
In 2002 the department spent R20-million on the rehabilitation of abandoned mines and every year a bigger budget is required for this important work. The Minerals Act of 1991 places the onus entirely on the mining company to pay for rehabilitation and closure of mines, but unfortunately the government has to foot the bill for past sinners.
Closing mines
The large number of abandoned mines without rehabilitation funds contributes to the pollution problem. Phasing out and closing mines is an expensive exercise, and with the strong rand, many mines cannot afford to close, so mines are abandoned except for a few skeleton staff to keep the mine ‘open”.
The new legislation seeks to prevent this from happening with new mining operations. A formal undertaking to rehabilitate and safely close a mine has to be made in a mine’s environmental management plan before an operating permit will be granted. Before the director of mineral development approves any environmental management programme, a mining applicant must prove that it has the financial means to fund rehabilitation.
Mine closure incorporates a process which must begin at the start of mining and continue throughout the life of a mine. Mineral and energy laws also stipulate that mine closure must be executed within the framework of sustainable development.
‘Risk to elements of the environment must be quantified and managed proactively. This includes the gathering of relevant information throughout the life of a mine,” the department states.
A mine can be considered closed only once a certificate has been issued by the relevant regional director stating satisfaction that the mine has met all its rehabilitation responsibilities.
Phepafatso: Cleaning up after others
To achieve these aims, DME launched the Phepafatso strategy in 2003, which means ‘cleaning up” in seTswana, as part of its mine environmental management plan.
Phepafatso is aimed at strengthening enforcement, supporting site inspections, assessing the state of compliance, identifying pollution hotspot areas, developing strategies to address water ingress into mines, and establishing an inter-departmental working group to determine specific environmental norms and standards for hotspot areas.
The Phepafatso strategy will provide a legislative framework for sustainable development in mining and will play a leading role in the rehabilitation of abandoned and ownerless mines.
Much of the rehabilitation has been focused on the asbestos sector. Rehabilitation work has been done at old Voorspoed Asbestos Mine, Koegas, Ncweng and Whitebank Complex in the Northern Cape.
‘We spent R17-million on rehabilitating asbestos mines alone,” Mlambo-Ngcuka told parliament.
But the government is struggling to fund the closure of the deserted asbestos mines on its own. Without additional funding, it will cost South Africa about R100-million and take another 10 to 12 years to rehabilitate about 64 abandoned and ownerless asbestos dump complexes, officials inside the department say. It is also difficult to decide which mine has first priority.
Dialogue with mining companies
IUCN-The World Conservation Union has become involved in the effort to clean up the damage caused by mining in South Africa, and they believe keeping dialogue open with mining companies will encourage best practices.
‘Mining is often viewed as more damaging to the environment than other development,” says Mohammad Rafique, an IUCN member who is part of the dialogue team. ‘In part, this is due to the legacy of industry environmental neglect and in part to the very nature of mining.”
He says mining requires a portion of land to be removed, even if it is only for a short while, to allow the extraction of minerals and this often destroys biodiversity. Unfortunately, often the choice must be to favour either mining or biodiversity conservation, but not both.
Yet, ‘a world without mining is unlikely,” Rafique says, as people need the resources and depend on the riches of mining in their daily lives, and the mining industry is facing up to the difficult issues and choices it faces.
‘Leading companies have demonstrated in several places that the negative impact of their operations can be anticipated and then mitigated or minimised,” he says.
The IUCN believes both a rich biodiversity and access to mineral resources can be achieved. ‘A sustained industry commitment and collaboration between industry, civil society and governments can make this dream come true.”
Andrew Parsons of the International Council on Mining and Metals says the negative legacy of past practices has created a deep level of mistrust about the mining industry in conservation circles, but he feels that partnerships between conservationists and mining companies can only be beneficial.
‘The challenge is to ensure that mining is part of the solution that enables better outcomes for biodiversity conservation and sustainable development,” he says.
Improvements
Diliza told an Anglo Platinum Human Resources Conference last year that at first glance, ‘sustainable development” and ‘mining” seem to be the ultimate contradiction in terms.
‘But this is certainly not our vision of the South African mining industry. It is not even the current reality of the industry.”
He said that, although the environmental impact of mining per hectare of land or per cubic metre of water used was high, the overall impact of mining on the environment is relatively small in comparison to other sectors such as housing developments.
Admittedly, however, mining uses large quantities of water, energy and timber, and is ‘a large contributor to the waste stream in South Africa”.
‘The scale of these impacts resulted in the mining industry introducing environmental management programme reports as best practice, before they were required under the Minerals Act of 1991,” Diliza said.
This was the first mandatory environmental management requirement introduced in South Africa. Industry is building on this pioneering work through widespread adoption of the ISO 14001 system and improved environmental management programmes.
Rehabilitation: A response from the industry
Bill Nairn, executive director of Anglo American, said at the same conference that it is clear mines need to recognise and be responsive to possible environmental impacts of their exploration and mining activities.
He also said mines need to develop approaches to mine planning and development that are responsive to possible environmental impacts through every stage of the mining cycle, including closure and post-closure activities.
‘Mines need to plan in advance for the timely rehabilitation of sites, taking into account the needs of communities to have productive lifestyles after closure and we must [take] the lead in developing, establishing and implementing good environmental management practices.” The important point is that mining and biodiversity conservation are not mutually exclusive.
The clean-up of 38 radioactively contaminated sites in Gauteng and the Free State last year, funded by the Chamber of Mines, he added, goes a long way in demonstrating a culture of responsibility in the industry.
Looking ahead
Obviously, a lot of work remains to be done, and the relationship between mining companies, on the one hand, and environmental groups and conservation bodies on the other, is still young and tender.
Somehow, the government must find the funds to rehabilitate the abandoned mines if South Africa is ever to be free of their negative legacy.
What has already made a big difference is the impact of new and improved legislation, and greater conscientiousness on the part of mining companies to give greater due to preserving the environment.