Wetland plan a choice between disaster and deep danger
the Blesbokspruit.
“My only hope is it will be done ethically and with due concern for the environment.”
Last year, Madden and more than 1 000 other residents, citing fears of water and agricultural pollution, signed a petition opposing the sludge disposal facility being located at a shaft of the Grootvlei mine as part of the government’s Eastern Basin AMD project.
But the final environmental impact assessment report has recommended the Grootvlei site be selected “for final sludge deposition” – but only if the proposed measures to prevent further harm to the wetlands are rigorously implemented.
Environmentalists are worried that contaminants from the nearly 2-million metre² heap of sludge, which contains toxic and potentially radioactive heavy metals, including uranium, cadmium, iron and cobalt, could seep into the Blesbokspruit, Gauteng’s only inter nationally protected wetland, and underground water.
The report, by Digby Wells Environmental, says Grootvlei is suitable as it is an established tailings storage facility.
“The primary concern is the potential further decline of the Blesbokspruit’s health.
“The expected groundwater impacts would likely be associated with seepage of the elements of concer n from the sludge, regardless of the site selected… Increased salt loads may (cause) the… contamination plume footprint to extend and include… previously unaffected groundwater users.”
There is a “large risk” to aquatic organisms because of the lack of a buffer zone.
“The Grootvlei site option appears to have higher negative impacts (on wetlands), compared with the Largo site option. To avoid creating a sec- ond pollution source… the Grootvlei site is recommended, on condition the disposal point… (is) at least 100m from the edge of the Blesbokspruit.”
The gover nment-commissioned facility for the eastern mining basin, which spans Springs, Boksburg and Benoni, includes an AMD neutralising plant, pump station, and pipelines.
Although the Blesbokspruit is a Ramsar wetland and Important Bird Area – Marievale attracts up to 20 000 birds – it has been listed on the Montreux record for nearly 20 years because of mining, sewage and industrial pollution.
Madden says the previous owners of Grootvlei, the controversial Aurora Empowerment Systems, also dumped untreated mine water into a part of the blighted wetland system he calls the “sacrificial zone”.
“Since the collapse of Aurora, no mine water has been pumped into the system for three years and its health is greatly improved. We’re seeing more birdlife, frogs, fish and invertebrates.”
Digby Wells’s final assessment says if the project does not go ahead, “there will be severe implications for the envi- ronment, agriculture and human quality of life”.
Ernst Retief, the regional BirdLife SA conservation manager for Gauteng, Mpumalanga and the Free State, says if the government does not proceed with its AMD plan for the Eastern Basin, there will be an ecological disaster.
“If the… water is treated well, it won’t be an issue.”
Mariette Liefferink, chief executive of the Federation for a Sustainable Environment, worries that local crops could be contaminated through water sources from the sludge facility.
The partially treated AMD pumped into the Blesbokspruit would have high salt loads, threatening the Vaal, she adds.
Sputnik Ratau, the spokesman for the Department of Water and Sanitation, says: “The department will continue to implement the project as the cornerstone of water resource management.”
Philip de Jager, an attorney who lives alongside the Blesbokspruit, fears blasting at a new coal mine opposite Grootvlei could trigger a “disaster” for Springs.
“The sludge facility is here in Strubenvale – imagine a disaster like Merriespruit, where 17 people drowned in tailings sludge in 1994, because of blasting impacts.”
Madden wants an independent body to ensure compliance.