Jock Botha (Foreman: #3 Shaft, Grootvlei mine): ‘Firstly, this is the only shaft that are pumping water for the rest of the mine to be able to mine in this area. Secondly it is very, very important because this is the last standing shaft pumping on the East Rand Basin.’

In other words, without 3 Shaft, Grootvlei mine would drown along with other mines on the East Rand.

Jock: ‘The pump station is about 780 metres below surface. We’re now on the way down there.’

It’s hot, humid and noisy in the pump station, more than three quarters the height of Table Mountain underground.

Jock: ‘Yes, very welcome to pump station, this is our pump station here, our heart of the mine.’

Jock Botha explains how ten giant pumps drive the water to surface up four massive pipes. He points out rust on the pipes.

Jock Botha: ‘You can see there is some of the rust that’s been accumulated through the time.’
Rust caused by acid contamination in the water 3 Shaft pumps up. 3 Shaft is in trouble, a victim of the management chaos at Grootvlei where, as Carte Blanche showed last week, most workers have been on strike since mid-March over unpaid salaries and miserable living conditions.

[Carte Blanche 2 May 2010] Man 2 (Striking miner): ‘Two months… two months, no pay!’

Reports say Grootvlei is falling apart because of top-level mismanagement and corruption in Aurora Empowerment Systems, the company in charge of the mine since October last year. Aurora’s directors include Zondwa Mandela, Nelson Mandela’s grandson, Khulubuse Zuma, the President’s nephew, and Michael Hulley, the President’s lawyer. Environmentalists are extremely worried about reports of pollution coming from Grootvlei. Mariette Liefferink, CEO of the Federation for a Sustainable Environment, is deeply involved in mine pollution issues.

Mariette Liefferink (CEO: Federation for a Sustainable Environment): ‘You must remember that within the Blasbokspruit we also have the Ramsar site, the Marievale Bird Sanctuary, and unless drastic measures are taken then this will be lost for future generations.’

Stan Madden used to work for a local gold mine and is the ‘father’ of Marievale

Stan Madden (Founder: Marievale Bird Sanctuary): ‘My initial visit to this area was in the 1940s, and one of the first things I saw was this beautiful spruit that meandered through this highland. I’d never seen this crystal clear water. It really began an obsession then which hasn’t left me.’

The nearby town of Springs got its name from the many freshwater springs early settlers found here; good for farming, not so good for mining. Jude Cobbing, a geo-hydrogeologist, explains:

Jude Cobbing (Hydrogeologist): ‘The natural groundwater levels are often just a few tens of metres below ground level, and so as soon as you start mining below the water table – below the level of the groundwater – water fills up your mine, so you’ve got to continually pump these mines to keep them dry so you can mine.’

Gold mining began on the East Rand in the late 1800s. At the industry’s peak in the 1950s there were 24 active mines in the so-called Eastern Basin.

Jude: ‘Those areas where the rocks are sufficiently thick and the gold content sufficiently high to mine, we call them ‘basins’, mining basins, and they cover huge areas.’

There are four major mining basins around Johannesburg. With the decline in gold reserves, many East Rand mines have closed in recent decades. Grootvlei’s 3 Shaft is the last pump station left in the entire Eastern Basin. In the early days of mining, the water pumped up was pure – nowadays, it’s contaminated.

Jude: ‘Essentially the gold bearing rocks, the Witwatersrand rocks, are rich in sulphide minerals, and when those minerals come into contact with water and oxygen they dissolve to produce a lot of acidity so the water becomes very acidic and that acidic water in turn can dissolve more minerals in the rock, some of which can be harmful to people’s health.’

Old, flooded mine tunnels are ideal places for these acid-producing chemical reactions to start. With so many abandoned mines in the Eastern Basin, its deep underground water has become contaminated with iron, sulphur compounds, manganese, and other toxins, including uranium. 3 Shaft pumps about 40 Olympic swimming pools-full of this every day – and Grootvlei is legally obliged to partially clean it before it enters the Blesbokspruit.

Jock: ‘The problem is the iron in the water that needs to be taken out.’

3 Shaft has a purification plant to do this. It can add lime to the mine water to make it less acidic. The water can be aerated and passed through settling tanks where, with the right treatment chemicals, the contaminants settle out as a reddish brown sludge. When Carte Blanche first visited 3 Shaft on the 16th of March the treatment plant seemed to be working well. But on subsequent visits, things didn’t look so good. Rumours circulated that mine water was often going right through the plant without being cleaned because top management was not buying the chemicals. Government was not stepping in because of Aurora’s political connections.

Jock: ‘Well, unfortunately I wouldn’t really like to comment on that but yes it was very very difficult to get water treatment, especially lime.’

Aurora’s top brass admitted not treating the water for two days due to strikers supposedly blocking the lime truck. Buta Carte Blanche cameraman was on the mine for most of the strike, and can confirm this never happened. We asked Aurora’s spokesperson, commercial director Thulane Ngubane, about the mine’s pollution.

Thulani Ngubane (Commercial Director: Aurora Empowerment Systems): ‘It comes to me as a shock that there are such allegations. We are spending money buying all the chemicals, iron, and we also we’ve been buying a um, the uh, the uh, what is the other chemical…?’

Ngubane seemed confused. Iron is not a water treatment chemical, but is the main pollutant that needs to be removed from the mine water.

Thulani: ‘…but the chemicals, the water is being treated. The Blue Scorpions obviously they’ve been out there, even they could even go there tomorrow, they will come back to you smiling and say, ‘Aurora board or Aurora Empowerment Systems, have done the best-ever project on that water.”

Carte Blanche went out to Grootvlei the next day to see if visitors would in fact find the water being cleaned. We were stopped from entering after Thulani Ngubane told security we could only photograph the treatment plant from outside. This made us suspicious. A suspense-filled walk around the back of the plant revealed millions of litres of sulphurous, stinking, untreated mine water pouring out towards the Blesbokspruit. A senior administrator leaked this document to us showing that Grootvlei has in fact failed to consistently treat its water for months: for 14 days in January, 18 days in February, 25 days in March, and for the whole of April no lime was used.

Stan: ‘Government departments are loathe to act. I can see problems that I haven’t seen before. We can’t hear frogs at night anymore, I don’t see the crabs that I’ve seen before. We may not have a wetland left here in another couple of year’s time.’

And a bigger crisis is looming. Senior mine employees told us off-camera that 3 Shaft’s system is at imminent risk of breakdown because staff are not paid and the pipes bringing water up the shaft under extreme pressure are corroding rapidly. They’re developing cracks and holes almost on a daily basis, and sometimes burst explosively.

Jock: ‘Well if your pipes are in a state like it is now, it is always dangerous to go down. We were just fortunate so far that no pipe has burst with somebody in the shaft.’

Unpaid men have to weld breakages closed because there’s no money from Aurora for new pipes.

Jock: ‘You should actually not weld on these pipes, because any time you weld on a pipe you damage your coating, and if you damage your coating you’ve got a place that the water can start eating your pipe.’

A large pipe explosion could stop the last underground pump station in the Eastern Basin. As the underground water rises, the pumps will be destroyed, then mines will flood, and, scientists predict, within five years contaminated water could spill out uncontrollably on the surface. This is already happening in the West Rand after the last underground pump station there was shut down in 1998. Extremely acidic, radioactive water is now polluting aquifers and pouring out of old mine shafts near Randfontein.

Mariette: ‘The Eastern Basin is much larger than the Western Basin so the ramifications for the Eastern Basin will be far larger than what is happening in the Western Basin.’

A report published by the Department of Mineral Resources says that if the Eastern Basin re-waters there is serious risk of land subsidence, earthquakes and sinkholes. Shallow aquifers will fill with toxic water, poisoning boreholes. Several experts refused to comment on these politically sensitive predictions.

Mariette: ‘Many of these scientists and academics are funded by the mines or by government.’

The Department of Water Affairs discovered Grootvlei’s pollution on the 2nd of February, but only served a directive demanding it clean the water on the 28th of April. Aurora still hasn’t complied, despite its directors being liable for up to five years jail under the Water Act. Jock Botha is still, like his men, not receiving a regular salary.

Jock: ‘Are they really worried about us or are they really worried about all the people staying in the area that can sit with contaminated water, that can have effect after effect after effect, that nobody knows how big it can really be, but I can just imagine by myself that this could be a disaster.’

Source: Carte Blanche, MNET

by Patrick Laurence  (politicsweb.co.za)

South Africa faces a far more disruptive threat than Eskom power failures, one that is potentially calamitous and may even be seen by religiously-minded citizens as the coming of the biblically predicted apocalypse.

It will be characterised by the failure of wastewater purification systems, the pollution of rivers and damns and even the poisoning of waters in reservoirs or damns serving as reservoirs if the purification process is inadequate at that level.

The first signs of the disaster are already visible in remote rural areas where the municipalities – which are responsible for wastewater purification – are too poor to attract appropriately qualified personnel to operate purification systems and ensure that they ae s properly maintained.

Though water and environment affairs minister Buyelwa Sonjica denies that there is a water crisis at present, she implicitly admits that one is inevitable unless strenuous action is taken to prevent it when she warns that South Africa will have to spend R23-billion to prevent the collapse of the wastewater treatment system.

An excellent synopsis of the main dimensions of the impending crisis if appropriate and urgent measures are not taken is contained in a publication by the Centre for Development and Enterprise and Business Leadership SA.

The publication summarised the contents of a round table discussion by representatives of government, business and academia on the genesis of the problem and the threatened crisis.

The scene-setting introduction makes two broad points:

Firstly, South Africa is an extremely dry country and its main industrial centres are far from the chief sources of water. The problem was initially successfully countered by high competency in the storage and transfer of water.

Secondly, the incoming ANC government after the watershed election in 1994 started well by extending modern sanitation to historically disadvantaged black people. In recent years, however, problems have developed, including deterioration in the infrastructure related to the storage and purification of wastewater.

“We are facing increases in well known water pollutants as wells as some new ones, both of which have major consequences for human health,” Jenny Day, director of the fresh water unit at the University of Cape Town, notes in her contribution to the round table discussion.

“More than 90 % of municipalities are unable to meet the water quality standard for discharges from their waste water plants, causing pollution hot spots and wide spread health risks.”

Day identifies the “ultimate reason” as the erosion of water quality management, though there are contributing causes, including an over-concentration on increasing the water supply at the expense of the maintenance needs waste water treatment plants, as well as, of course, the severe shortage of skill labour.

It might be noted in the context of Day’s reference to mew or emerging pollutants of which one is mineral acid, the drainage of which into rivers and damns she rates as the “biggest water quality issue in South Africa.”

Cognisance should be taken too, of an investigation by the department of water affairs in response to concern by the Federation for a Sustainable Environment about the leakage of acid contaminated water from disused mines into Johannesburg’s water supplies.

It warns that as the acid pollutant contains metal it is a potential threat to the health of Johannesburg residents.

According to The Times, Mariette Lieffierink the chief executive of the federation, warns that prolonged drinking of acid and metal contaminated water leads to “increased rates of cancer, decreased brain function and skin lesions.”

The “Green Drop” report of sewage treatment in South Africa – which was released to the late last month – more than four months after it was presented to the minister of water affairs – might be described as a tale of neglect or the sounding of alarm bells.

Of the 852 waste water plants across the length and breadth of South Africa, nearly half have been judged to be too dysfunctional to merit proper assessed, the equivalent – to put it differently – of a government department whose records are too inadequate to be audited by members of the auditor-general’s office.

As the Mail & Guardian notes, of the remaining nearly 450 waste water plants hardly more than 200 have been  judged to scored more than 50 %, while a mere 32 (or less than 4 %) have been reported to have merited green drop status (or to have met the international standards of waste water plants.

Sonjica, however, refused to concede that South Africa faces a crisis because of the growing problem of faecal pollution of its waterways, compounded, of course, by the new and old pollutants referred by Day in her contribution to the round table discussion quoted earlier.

“I would rather say we have reason to be concerned,” Sonjica states. “I would only think (that there is a crisis) if we faced an outbreak of many water-borne diseases,” she adds before concluding: “We and we are not there.”

Her comments are reminiscent of those of former president Thabo Mbeki, who refused to concede that the level of crime in South Africa constituted crisis proportions, preferring, instead, to label it a “manageable problem.”

They are reminiscent, too, of Alec Erwin, who while serving in Mbeki’s cabinet described the power outages as a sign of the government’s success to extending electricity to millions of black citizens rather than a failure to plan ahead.

In fairness to Sonjica it should be noted that she has only been the minister of water affairs and the environment for a year.

In conclusion it is appropriate to recall the words of Anthony Turton, a former senior member of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, who was suspended for talking to the media about a discussion paper he had prepared for presentation to his colleagues but which was withdrawn from the agenda by the council’s management.

After his suspension from the council, Turton prophesised that problem of power outages would be miniscule compared with the pending crisis of water shortages and intensifying pollution of the rivers and dams.

Reading the Green Drop Report in the context of Turton’s paper – which was available on the internet at the end of 2008 – is to experience a sense of déjà vu.

Source: politicsweb.co.za

- Sapa (polity.org.za)

Criminal charges over the pollution of the country’s water supply were laid against three Cabinet ministers at the Brooklyn police station in Pretoria on Friday.

After laying the charges, TauSA chairperson Louis Meintjes said that the organisation had been forced to approach the police after Minister of Agriculture Tina Joemat-Pettersson, Mining Minister Susan Shabangu and Water Affairs Minister Buyelwa Sonjica, had repeatedly failed to address the problem.

“We want them to act and get the water clean… a snowball that gets too big is a runaway snowball,” he said.

Meintjes said that mines which used 7% of the country’s water supply were responsible for 75% of water pollution.

He said that Sonjica should have acted in line with the National Water Act and that Shabangu should have known that mining, water supply and food security were directly linked.

He said the act provided that it was criminal for ministers to knowingly or unintentionally allow for natural resources to be jeopardised.

“If it’s not the ministers, who is responsible?”

A massive study is under way to investigate the impact of toxic acid mine water and other dangerous sources of pollution to the world-famous Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site.

It is here where the nearly two million-year-old hominid skeleton, Australopithecus sediba, was discovered two years ago, and unveiled to global wonder last week. 

But in recent years, several scientists have slammed authorities for failing to protect ancient hominid fossils, including the Sterkfontein Caves. These are made of dolomite rock and vulnerable to acidic water from historic mining operations on the West Rand. 

Peter Mills, the acting director of research and planning at the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site, told the Saturday Star the management authority had commissioned the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research and the Council for Geosciences “to understand the flow of water through the Cradle”.

As gold mines on the West Rand have ceased operating, the water table has returned to pre-mining levels, bringing with it a rising tide of toxic water, characterised by heavy metals and radioactive uranium, as well as high levels of sulphates.

Since 2002, more than 15 million litres of this acidic water has been decanting daily and flowing into the Tweelopie- spruit, through the Krugersdorp Game Reserve, into the Blaauwbankspruit which feeds into the Cradle of Humankind.

Some of it has been pumped and partially treated by the local mines, but large amounts continue to flow untreated into the system. And since another decant started in January, millions more litres pour out every day and pass through underground dolomite.

This week, the DA’s shadow minister of environmental affairs, Gareth Morgan, called on environment minister Buyelwa Sonjica to commit to addressing the unqualified volume of “untreated acid mine drainage (AMD) flowing in the Zwartkrans Compartment, which threatens the Cradle of Humankind and the drinking water of 11 000 people”.

Mills said the study, which will also probe pollution from farming, sewage and development, would be wrapped up by August.

“We know there is an impact of acid mine drainage

“The whole idea is to have a monitoring system in place… to understand the flow of water through the area.

“We can see what the surface water is doing but we have no clue what is happening underground. People say we aren’t doing anything but we never said AMD wasn’t a problem. We don’t know whether caves in the system are getting acid water where there are fossils.”

There is scant evidence that the existing set-up is threatening the fossils on the site.

“The World Heritage Site as 52 000ha of real estate is under threat from AMD but the actual fossil sites in that boundary, apart from Bolts farm, the AMD doesn’t appear to be reaching them.

We know AMD is reaching there (Bolts Farm). Again, we don’t know at what levels.

”What we don’t know and what the specialists don’t agree on is what the impact is. You have some specialists that say the acid water eats away at the dolomite but you get other just as reputable scientists who believe the deposits from the AMD actually seal the cavities and prevent cave genesis.

”When the water leaves the mine the pH is 3 (highly acidic). By the time it passes through the Krugersdorp Game Reserve, the condition is slightly improved and it gets diluted under heavy rains. A lot disappears into the aquifer. That is what everyone is concerned about because no one knows where it goes to. Some say it’s to the west of the site and some say it filters through.”
Garfield Krige, a water scientist who has led studies on the mine decant into the Tweelopiespruit, said the discovery of Australopithecus sediba will refocus attention on the AMD threat to the Cradle.

“The fossil find is the best thing that could have happened. It’s got everybody’s attention. Now maybe somebody will start to take notice of the plight of the Cradle of Humankind. The place is riddled with fossils in direct line of the AMD.

“A lot of plans have been made and money spent but nothing has happened… Don’t forget this was predicted in 1996. We’ve proved a tremendous amount of the acid mine water finds its way into the groundwater. We’ve proved the water has corrosive properties and eats away at the dolomite.”

He added the volumes of water flowing from the latest decant are so huge that the formerly-dry Rietspruit is now flowing constantly into the Blaauwbankspruit.

Ecologist Mike Buchanan believes the mines should stop pumping the water to allow the groundwater table to restore itself.

The AMD should then be laundered to drinking water standards before being sent back into the deep aquifer.

Source: Saturday Star