River polution by mining.

[JNC]

This comes from the news24 website and doesnt paint a pretty picture.


Elise Tempelhoff, Beeld


Standerton - Farmers in Mpumalanga are currently mobilising themselves to prevent government ministers from approving at least 200 new applications for coal and other mines in this water-rich area, which would effectively strike a death blow to agriculture.

By Thursday, farming organisations had been founded in five areas, namely Delmas, Ermelo, Belfast, Carolina and Standerton, in order to "do [their] utmost to prevent agriculture from disappearing from this district altogether"; to prevent the Vaal river - the economic artery of Gauteng which has its origin in Mpumalanga - from being polluted by acidic mine water; and to prevent "the end of us all".

Helgaard Rautenbach, chairperson of the Standerton Agricultural Forum, told farmers on Thursday that this is a matter of life and death, and that unprecedented pressure should now be placed on the government to turn down the new coal mines especially.

On Wednesday afternoon, Dr Koos Pretorius of the Federation for a Sustainable Environment and Terence McCarthy, a professor of geology, begged Eskom head Jacob Maroga to help them pressurise the government to turn down the new mine applications.

Water too polluted for irrigation

Pretorius, who has a farm in Belfast, said on Thursday that the water in the Witbank and Middelburg dams is already so polluted that it is useless for irrigation purposes. The Loskop Dam, the irrigation dam of the Groblersdal valley where many products for export are produced, is "teetering on the edge".

James Harris, DA councillor for Secunda, said he knows of several farmers in Mpumalanga who have already been warned by the European Union (Euro Gap) that their irrigation water is of an unacceptable quality.

It has an especially negative impact on lucerne, peanuts, grapes and citrus products. "Agricultural production has already fallen by 60% in this area," Harris said.

"These are the products we buy from supermarkets. It affects our health."

More coal mines in Mpumalanga will render the Vaal Dam and Vaal River useless.

Harris has said the biggest problem with the coal rush in Mpumalanga, is that it would take place in the catchment area of the Usuthu, Komati, Vaal and Olifants rivers. These would be primarily opencast mines.

Jan Boshoff, a farmer from Delmas and member of the governing body of the newly launched Olifants River Catchment Area Conservation Group, has said that "massive amounts of salts" from the Vaal River end up on agricultural land at the Vaalharts Scheme.

Acidic mine water

Harris said that large areas around Witbank are already so polluted due to acidic mine water that agricultural activities can't continue there. The soil becomes brackish because the salts build up in the water due to mining activities, which makes the agricultural soil sterile.

According to Harris, all the coal dust from the highveld settles in the Loskop Dam, which is already so seriously polluted by heavy metals and chemicals (from insecticides and pesticides) that "everything in there has probably died already". Dead fish were analysed and it was found that they were riddled with cancer.

"It's a tragic situation. Who's going to die next?" he asked.

Harris said it wouldn't help to try to clean the dam. Pollution must be tackled at the root cause, where industries and mines dump "garbage" in rivers at the taxpayer's expense, he said.

Pam Yako, director general of the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry, recently said that the Blue Scorpions would soon tackle unlicensed mines.

There are about 22 mines in Mpumalanga which mine coal without a water licence. Pretorius appealed to the Department of Minerals and Energy to "see the bigger picture" and not approve each mine individually.

Bheki Khumalo, spokesperson for the Department of Minerals and Energy, said it would be against the law to deal with the mines as a group. "Each mine must be approved individually, based on its own merits."

- Beeld

[chris williams]

Thanks for that, Elise is a great investigative journalist on such matters which too often get hushed up by officials with bribes...