South Africa Water Action

South African Environmental Law is based on international principles known as the Polluter Pays. This means that any legal individual, either a natural person or a company, that pollutes the environment, must pay for the full cost of the rehabilitation of that damage. In addition to this, the South African Constitution has two specific principles that are relevant. The first is that everyone has the right to an environment that is not harmful to their well-being. The second is a principle that future generations (in this case you and I) will not pay for benefits that past generations enjoyed.

The threat:

There are currently a number of threats to the water resources of South Africa, of which three generic types exist:

1) Radiological threats arising from radionuclide contamination. In layman terms, this means radioactivity, mostly associated with the geology of gold, which in the South African case, is also related to uranium as well.

2) Biological threats arising mostly from dysfunctional sewage treatment works. In layman terms, this refers to bacteria, fungi and viruses that enter the rivers as a result of waste treatment works that are overloaded, or generally dysfunctional. Of these the most urgent is that of cyanobacteria, which are a primitive form of blue green algae that is also one of the oldest life forms on Earth. These produce a toxic chemical known as microcystine.

3) Chemical threats arising from a range of chemicals used in industry, in agriculture or in society at large. The most immediate of these is a family of chemicals known as Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals (EDC's). Closely associated with this is the female hormone oestrogen, which enters the river systems from being party metabolized and then introduced through sewage systems. A distinct sub-set of EDC's relates to birth defects, sometimes of the urogenital system where both male and female organs occur simultaneously, or impaired human fertility.


[edit] Priorities of Threat
The immediate issue is that of the gold mining industry. South Africa is a mature gold mining economy, with many of the mines either approaching a point of closure, or having already closed. The problem arising from this relates to the fact that the old mine voids flood with water after pumping ceases. This water then rises inside the void and through a complex chemical and biological process, pyrite found in the rock is converted into sulphates. These sulphates then combine with the water to form acid and this acid starts to attack the rock, leaching out the mineral content in a chemical reaction that becomes self-propelling, known as mine drainage(AMD), which reports to the surface via springs and then floods into rivers cascading the problem downstream.

While the current threat that is getting the most headline attention in the national media is gold-driven AMD, there is also an emerging threat from coal-based AMD, which is starting to enter the public domain as an area of concern. In this regard the chemistry is similar in that sulphates are produced, but given the different geology associated with coal, there is no radioactivity component. The down side is that the geographic area is very much larger than gold-driven AMD, so in many ways this is a more serious threat over time. Different treatment techniques are being considered for coal-based AMD.

Some authors describe this process as being one of the largest current threats to our national ecosystems, second only to that of global climate change.

The gold mines of the Witwatersrand area are located in a geological structure that can be thought of as a three-layered cake. The top layer consists of rock and soil in which vegetation grows. The second layer consists of a porous rocky layer known as dolomite, which can be thought of as a sponge that has holes in it that in turn fill up with water. The lower layer consists of deep strata of rock, some of which contain gold-bearing reef known as conglomerate. When this is mined out it can be thought of as Swiss cheese with large holes in it. These mine workings are all interconnected deep underground for safety reasons. This three layered cake is then divided into four vertical sections by dolerite dykes, resulting from earlier volcanic activity, that serve to effectively separate the four sections into vertical slices. These are called basins because they contain massive volumes of water, mostly found in the upper spongy layer of dolomites, but all connected via vertical shafts between the surface and the deep underground workings.

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These four basins have gold mines of different ages in them, each with a slightly different geochemistry. The basins are as follows:

1) The Far Western Basin is centred on Carletonville and Randfontein, with surface drainage via the Wonderfontein Spruit, which flows into the Mooi River and then on to the Vaal River system downstream of Potchefstroom.

2) The Western Basin is centred on Krugersdorp. All mining has stopped in this basin and the mine void has filled up with water, which started to flow out at the surface in August 2002 in a process known as decant. This water flows into the Tweeloop Spruit, via the Cradle of Humankind and then into the Limpopo River System upstream of the Hartebeestpoort Dam.

3) The Central Basin is located under Johannesburg with surface water drainage taking place via the Klip River, through Soweto and then into the Vaal River system. Mining has stopped and the void is filling at a rate that will reach surface by January 2012 at South East Vertical Shaft in Boksburg. Water will start flowing from various springs associated with the dolomites by October 2011.

4) The Eastern Basin is centred on the Springs area with surface water drainage taking place via the Blesbokspruit, which flows into the Vaal River system. This basin is still being mined in places and the water levels are being maintained well below surface. The mine water is neutralized to a reasonable pH and it is currently being discharged into the Blesbokspruit, which sustains a large RAMSAR wetland. [44]


[edit] The Proposed Solution
The current situation is that the thinking about managing AMD is based on one idea, which is to create a central treatment plant where the water will be cleaned up and then sold on to a bulk water provider at a profit. This is where the problem arises. A company has been created to raise the capital needed to pay for the engineering (around 1.5 Billion Rand). That company is currently engaged in an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), which is about to be completed[45]. The outcome of this process will be a final decision that will affect the consumers of water along the entire Witwatersrand area (11 million people), in which they would be expected to buy this as drinking water after 2012. The treated mine effluent will be diluted out with the current water supply coming from the Lesotho Highlands Water Scheme and the Thukela Water Project.

Herein lies the dilemma. It is known that the AMD has a range of heavy metals (including uranium and arsenic) dissolved in it, as well as radionuclides (radioactivity associated with the decay of uranium into a range of daughter products)

This poses the question, is the treatment process that is being considered for the conversion of AMD into drinking water, 100% guaranteed to remove all of the radioactivity and all of the heavy metals and therefore safe for human consumption?

The simple truth is that a high confidence toxicology test has never been done, so we simply do not know.

Now, with the EIA process in its final legal stages, does the public along the Witwatersrand know what is about to happen to their drinking water? Legally the process has been followed to the letter of the law. But has each potential impacted person been made aware of the issues that will affect them in a very intimate way in the near future? Once the final decision has been made and the engineering started, there will be no chance to make any changes.

If the public remains silent while the EIA process is underway, the conclusion will be that a legal EIA was launched and nobody lodged any significant complaints. That will result in a fait accompli and the planned treatment plant will simply go ahead.

The challenge then is to inform the public about this process and give them the opportunity to participate in a meaningful way. The Witwatersrand public is therefore encouraged to join the South Africa Water Action (SAWA) group on Twitter and Facebook, in order to be kept abreast of developments. In this process links will be provided to the consulting company conducting the EIA and where appropriate to other key actors.

Remember, this is not a sensationalized issue driven by raw emotion. It is a complex technical subject that is being debated behind closed doors at the highest levels of scientific institutions and political power. The emerging result of these mostly elite-driven talks will impact on 11 million people. In the spirit of democracy, those 11 million citizens have a right to know about the essence of these decisions that will become part of their daily lives in the very near future.