Melissa Fourie
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/ 12 April 2005

A rising acid tide

The name "Witwatersrand" has come to haunt the people who live along this ridge — the source of so much wealth from gold and other minerals. But with many mines nearing the end of their productive lives or already closed, the water table is recovering after being driven down by decades of pumping water out of mineshafts. But with it come rising levels of polluted water, threatening to drown the Cradle of Mankind.