Landowners haul miners over the coals

Ecotourism outfits based in one of South Africa’s most fragile ecosystems are discovering that coal mining and prospecting permits have been granted on their land without their knowledge or participation.

Landowners in the Mpumalanga highveld have gone to court to stop the miners. Some have vowed to deny the miners access to their ­properties.

One owner, who asked not to be identified, said department officials and the company, Trollope Mining Services, gave him the runaround and he had to use the Access to Information Act to find out about the prospecting plans. He alleges statutory processes were not followed and he was not given the opportunity to participate in the decision, as required.

Last Friday, after Trollope ignored demands for a written undertaking that it would suspend prospecting plans, lawyers appealed to the department against the licensing decision.

Peter Trollope, the company’s MD, said he believed the department had ‘acted correctly and in full ample [sic] of the law”. The landowners were illegally preventing his company from entering their property, he said.

Peter Aderne, owner of the nearby Dullstroom Trout Farm, said he had heard from a neighbour of a prospecting application on the ­Middelpunt wetland between Belfast and Dullstroom, including his farm. The neighbour had been notified by fax. ‘We know of no other owners who’ve been informed. Anyway, this should be done by registered letter. Fortunately, this was picked up early and we can possibly nip it in the bud. Once the permit has been granted it becomes very expensive, as one has to hire lawyers.”

The 820ha Middelpunt wetland includes the 11 600-year-old ­Lakenvlei peatland, Mpumalanga’s deepest peat bed. Conservationists have ringfenced parts of the wetland to protect endangered water birds, including the white-winged flufftail.

Acid water leaking from Witbank collieries has been linked to the death of fish, crocodiles, frogs and cattle on nearby farms. Aderne said even prospecting carried the risk of acid water seepage. In the recent ‘McCarthy report”, named after Wits University geoscientist Terence McCarthy, scientists warned that pans in the lakes district are particularly vulnerable to acid water seepage, because toxic materials cannot be removed by natural flushing. ‘The lakes district is a totally unique region in Southern Africa, perhaps even globally. It represents the last fragment of one of the most ancient land surfaces in Southern Africa. As a pan field it is also unique, and there is no other region with such density of perennial pans,” says the report.

It warns that opencast coal mining will irreversibly pollute the ‘pristine” pans and disrupt their hydrology, so that they become devoid of all but bacterial life forms. ‘The nation will have lost one of its true gems.”

With three new coal-fired power stations on the agenda, Mpumalanga’s coalfields are under pressure. Aderne said it appeared the department had been issuing permits ‘left, right and centre. Just about everyone is climbing on the bandwagon in a scramble for the remaining ground. Landowners, particularly those who are poorly resourced, are finding it difficult to defend their rights when a permit holder comes knocking on their door.

‘What is extremely worrying is that many applicants are fly-by-nights with little interest in rehabilitating the land after prospecting and mining.”

Koos Pretorius, owner of an organic farm near Belfast, took on the mines after his farm was threatened by a planned opencast coalmine. He now chairs the Escarpment Environmental Protection Group and is secretary of the Mpumalanga Lakes District Protection Group (LDPG), both active watchdogs.

Pretorius says at least 31 farms and ecotourism outfits are affected by new coal mining applications around ­Belfast. ‘We are notified and then kept in the dark till the last moment, when the documents are handed in. The cumulative impact of mining is never assessed and I have yet to see a sustainability study, required by law.”

Most applications violated the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act, the National Water Act or environmental legislation, but the department still granted licences, he said. ‘As far as I know not one mine has been prosecuted, even though most operate illegally.”

It could cost landowners up to R500 000 to have a mining licence reviewed and about a quarter of that to review a prospecting licence.

Late last year the LDPG won a Pretoria High Court interdict against a mining licence granted to Black Gold Coal Estates, ordering it to suspend mining next to Tevredepan, near Carolina, the southern hemisphere’s largest reeded pan and home to threatened bird species.

On January 11 the court ordered Minerals Minister Buyelwa Sonjica to provide documentation setting out reasons for granting Black Gold mining rights. Pretorius said the minister had not complied with the order and he was lodging papers for a contempt of court case.

Pretorius also tackled Xstrata Coal Alloys, which allegedly started mining at Onverdacht Colliery near Belfast without the necessary permits or water licence. The department of water affairs ordered the company to stop mining in April, but it has started again. This week the escarpment protection group was laying criminal charges.

Pretorius said landowners would no longer ‘put up and shut up” about the rash of mining applications. ‘We are refusing the mines entry now. This is difficult and could have repercussions,” he said.

Department of mineral and energy spokesperson Siseko Njobeni told the M&G the branch that dealt with mineral regulation could act only on facts, not ‘someone’s allegations”.

‘If M&G has proof, please submit it to the department and we will address the allegations and deal with individuals concerned accordingly,” he said.