Source: Mail and Guardian

Dangerous levels of radio­activity in Gauteng's mine dumps will take decades and billions of rands to clear, say the scientists who blew the whistle on the province's acid mine drainage problem.

In the wake of the government's decision last week to set aside R225-million to treat toxic water in underground mine voids, the focus fell on cleaning up hundreds of tailings dumps and slimes dams across the Reef. According to the government report on acid mine drainage toxic residues in mine dumps are seeping into underground water and exacerbating the problem.

Anthony Turton, a scientist who raised the alarm about acid mine drainage a decade ago, said this week that sorting out the dumps would be difficult. "The sheer scale and complexity of dealing with radioactive dumps is far worse than the water problem," he said.

Families were already being moved and legal action was being threatened over the best way to deal with this legacy of the gold rush more than a century ago. Mariette Liefferink, the chief executive of the Federation for a Sustainable Environment, said the tailings dumps and dams were historically sited on unlined dolomite, resulting in heavy metals and uranium ­seeping into groundwater.

"There are at least 270 tailings dams on the Witwatersrand that will continue causing acid mine drainage for hundreds of years," she said. Liefferink pointed to the recent relocation of families from a tailings dump at the Tudor Shaft informal settlement on the West Rand after radiation levels were found to be 15 times higher than normal.

Thirty-five of 197 affected families had been moved in the past fortnight after a world expert in uranium products, Chris Busby, found that radiation levels at Tudor Shaft were comparable with "the Chernobyl exclusion zone -- higher in fact". Other informal settlements, including Bull Brand, Soul City and Baghdad, and an RDP housing settlement established close to Tudor Shaft, might also have to be moved.

Contamination
Like the escalation of acid mine drainage problems a decade ago, the focus on radioactive contamination started on the West Rand. A recent study by the Council for Geoscience showed residential areas such as Carletonville, Westonaria and Khutsong had a high risk of contamination.

"All the tailings dams on the West Rand contain sediment high in uranium," said Liefferink. "But Tudor Shaft is mirrored by all the other goldfields of the Witwatersrand. Residents are exposed to dust pollution from the mine dumps, contamination of water and crops and pollution of soil and other materials they use for construction."

Health risks included cancers, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's, neurotoxic syndromes and growth deficiencies. Turton and the Gauteng government have compiled a report on the reclamation of "mine residue areas" that will be released next week for public input. "Our task is to decide what to do with the mine residue," he said. "Billions of rands could be involved."

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