Who should be hauled over the coals?

Environmentalists are up in arms about who should be responsible for ensuring the mining industry cleans up its act as Eskom fast-tracks its coal-fired power plans.

Eskom has announced its intention to double electricity output in the next 20 years and the department of minerals and energy is the main player and referee in issuing and policing coal-mining permits.

In terms of a controversial Bill introduced in May, landowners need not consent to plans to mine on their property.

There are 114 mining-related applications for coal on farms in Mpumalanga’s Great Lakes District, near Ermelo, which includes ancient peat lands and a water catchment area classified as ‘irreplaceable” by provincial conservation authorities.

According to the Lowveld branch of the Wildlife and Environment Society of South Africa (Wessa), mining in the wetlands and surrounding agricultural land is being accelerated because the lakes district is close to Eskom power stations and the company can get the coal cheaply.

‘Much of this coal is not even economically viable to mine unless Eskom buys it,” says Wessa representative Marina Caird. ‘If all the coal from the proposed mines went to Eskom, it would provide only enough power for the country for one year.”

Caird says that in terms of the 2002 Minerals and Petroleum Resources Development Act, the decision to mine the area rests solely with the minerals department and is ‘almost completely out of the reach of just about all other legislation”.

She adds: ‘Under this Act environmental legislation has been hijacked, internalised and tailored specifically to the requirements of the department, to serve the sole interests of the mining industry.”

In May the department introduced a proposed amendment Bill that effectively gives mining companies the ability to apply for prospecting and mining licences on land without informing landowners. The Bill also empowers the department to grant environmental permits.

Caird says mines need only have an environmental management plan approved by the department. ‘All they basically need is to show that their impact can be mitigated in some way — And the impact of a mine is never considered in relation to its contribution to the cumulative impact many mines in the same area can have.”

Geasphere, a Lowveld environmental, non-governmental organisation, says a full-scale strategic environmental assessment is needed for the whole Great Lakes District.

The environmental justice group, groundWork, takes issue with the new Bill’s proposal to do away with landowners’ consent. ‘It is clear that people’s land is still, in the present dispensation, being taken away from them in order that mining operations can take place,” the group says.

GroundWork says a previous clause requiring that landowners be consulted about mining-related applications would be changed to one requiring that they be given 21 days’ written notice. ‘This allows for companies and the government to act unilaterally in confiscating people’s land and therefore their livelihoods.”

In terms of the mining legislation, the minerals department is the lead government agency. Other organs of state responsible for the environment and water resources can participate in and comment on authorisations, but only the minister of minerals and energy has the mandate to suspend or cancel mining-related permits.

Caird says when other government departments raise objections, they are referred to a minerals department internal environmental forum, which is called a regional mining development environmental committee.

‘The objections brought to this forum by ‘outside’ departments are effectively devalued to the level of a comment. They are then submitted to the minister for her consideration. This is complete concentration of power in the hands of the minister,” she says.

Songezo Zibi, the communications manager at Xstrata South Africa — one of the companies with mining plans in the Great Lakes District — says the industry prefers to work with a single agent to simplify the application process.

‘When working with different departments it is almost inevitable that regulatory approval by each will not necessarily come at the same time — and the outcome may not necessarily be the same. Getting licences has sometimes taken longer than we wish it would,” Zibi says.

Questions to the department of minerals and energy remained unanswered at the time of going to press.

What’s at stake

Chrissiesmeer in Mpumalanga’s Great Lakes District includes the largest freshwater lake in the country. It has several hundred pans surrounding it and is classified as an ‘irreplaceable” water resource. It is home to at least 215 bird species.

Tourism in the area, between Ermelo and Carolina, is in its infancy still. The Matotoland Tourism Association says tourism contributes at least R4million a year and 50 jobs to the local economy. Chrissiesmeer is popular among froggers, birders, rock art enthusiasts and stargazers.

The lake system’s greatest value, however, is as a water source for agriculture in the Mpumalanga highveld and as a catchment resource for rivers such as the Vaal and Komati.

The province’s biodiversity conservation plan categorises the lakes, pans, streams, rivers and seepage wetlands in the Chrissiesmeer area as an ‘irreplaceable sub-catchment. This means the catchment has been so reduced by loss of natural area that 100% of what remains must be protected,” says Jerry Theron, a herpetologist at the Mpumalanga Parks and Tourism Agency.

Coal-mining companies that supply Eskom power plants in Mpumalanga have applied to mine in and around Chrissiesmeer. But opponents say the price will be too high and the yields too low.

According to calculations by Koos Pretorius, the secretary of the Mpumalanga Lakes District Protection Group, proposed new mines at Chrissiesmeer will yield ‘a few days of coal only for Eskom, if it is all mined”.

Pretorius bases his assessment on applications by two companies, Inyoni Colliery and Usuthu West Mine, to mine next to Lake Chrissies — the huge freshwater lake — and related pans. He has calculated that the mines will produce 23million tons of coal between four and 10 years.

‘Eskom wants a supply of cheap coal and this is causing a lot of the problems. The cheapest coal is mined without sustainability considerations or the consideration of alternatives,” he says.

One of Pretorius’s biggest concerns is that the mines will decant acid water into the Chrissiesmeer system, leading into either the Vaal River or the Komati River.

A report by Terence McCarthy from the school of geosciences at Wits University points out that groundwater and surface water in the area will be permanently contaminated by mining.

‘No matter what precautions are taken, the mine[s] will inevitably contaminate the lake — either rapidly if decant occurs or more slowly if decant water is adequately contained. The question that needs to be asked is simply this: Is it worth taking the risk to the integrity of the lake’s ecosystem for mine[s] with a five-year projected life?” McCarthy writes.

The issue of whether Chrissiesmeer should be mined is becoming as emotive as the debates about mining the Wild Coast in the Eastern Cape. — Fiona Macleod