Gold is gone but radioactive hazard lingers

LIABILITY: Mariette Liefferink says old mines are dangerous rehabilitation efforts, leaving taxpayers to foot the bill.

Former employees of the gold tailings plant outside Brakpan on the East Rand, once owned by Ergo Gold and Uranium Mine, told Business Times this week the plant posed a grave danger to local communities.

Anglo American South Africa and AngloGold Ashanti, which previously owned Ergo, said they were not responsible for rehabilitating the site. AngloGold closed the business and sold it for salvage to HVH Gold, which in turn vended it to DRDGold, according to DRDGold.

DRD said: “The significance of not buying a business as a going concern is that no employees are transferred . . . and any claims that may have arisen at the time would be against the company for whom they worked — the former Ergo or AngloGold.” In light of this, DRDGold said, it was not responsible either.

Patrick Hlabathi was an Ergo driver who transported scrap to processors. “[At times] the truck I was driving will be quarantined,” he said. “I was told the metal . . . was highly radiologically toxic. I would go and dump it elsewhere.”

Tailings and other mining residues often contained elevated concentrations of uranium and radionuclides, said an expert, who did not want to be named for fear of reprisals. He added that there were 270 gold tailings storage facilities in the area, holding 600 000 tons of uranium.

Mariette Liefferink, CEO of the Federation for a Sustainable Environment, an NGO that monitors acid mine drainage in the Witwatersrand Basin, said mine sites might expose people to gamma radiation, inhalation and ingestion of radionuclides and toxic metals.

The Department of Mineral Resources said mining firms were responsible for rehabilitation and the government ensured they complied, which includes preventing exposure to radiation.

In 2010, an interministerial committee built the Florida Lake canal on the West Rand that stops surface water entering the lake, and the Department of Water and Sanitation implemented a project to pump away acid mine water in the Witwatersrand Basin.

The metal I was bringing was highly radiologically toxic

THE legacy of years of gold mining on the Witwatersrand has more than once called into question the government’s ability to hold companies accountable for the environmental degradation that accompanies mining. The area is replete with examples of failed