SA making progress rehabilitating derelict mines
Abandoned asbestos mines pose grave environmental and human danger, writes Sue Blaine
SA IS getting closer to having rehabilitated all of its commercial-sized asbestos mines that have no owners and have been abandoned), says Mintek economics and sustainability researcher Herman Cornelissen.
Mintek is a statutory minerals research and development organisation, which has a threeyear R90m contract with the Department of Mineral Resources to clean up mines that have no owners, with a focus on asbestos mines because of the danger to human health. The contract expires at the end of the financial year.
SA has been the world’s thirdlargest asbestos exporter for more than a century, but has joined about 50 other countries in banning the use, manufacture and processing of all asbestos.
The asbestos market crashed in the mid-1980s when it became widely accepted that the silicate mineral caused serious illnesses including lung cancers such as mesothelioma, and asbestosis.
“As far as I know almost all the big commercial (asbestos mines) have been rehabilitated. I could probably count the ones that are not on my hand. I know of one in Limpopo and one in the Northern Cape and they are so remote only a goat will get there,” says Mr Cornelissen.
The National Health Laboratory Service says about 200 mesothelioma cases are reported every year. This is most likely an underestimate as some diagnoses might be “missed” due to the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and because asbestos was mined mostly in the very rural Northern Cape where access to health services is not optimal.
According to a report by the Council for Geoscience there were 5,906 officially listed abandoned mines in SA at the end of May 2008. The council estimated that the cost of rehabilitating the mines at R30bn. Of the 5,906 abandoned mines identified by the council, 1,730 were classified as high-risk mines that would require about R28.5bn of the R30bn to rehabilitate.
Mr Cornelissen says Mintek’s contract was for the rehabilitation of 10 mines between April 2010 and March 31 next year, but the organisation will complete the rehabilitation of 15 old asbestos mines by the end of the financial year.
It has fully committed its R90m funding, with tenders being advertised and awarded for the final stages of the rehabilitation of the 15 mines.
The Department of Mineral Resources’ annual performance plan for 2012-13 commits it to the rehabilitation of 12 “derelict and ownerless” mines by the end of this financial year.
Department spokeswoman Zingaphi Jakuja says the rehabilitation of two asbestos mines is already complete, and R54.4m has been set aside for this year’s 12. There is a focus on asbestos mines because of the health implications.
Five asbestos mines were rehabilitated in 2010-11 in Kuruman, Prieska and Danielskuil in the Northern Cape, she says. The sites earmarked for 2012-13 are lead and zinc mines.
A state entity official who asked not to be named, says it is likely no one knows with certainty how many abandoned asbestos mines still need rehabilitation, mainly because asbestos mining at the turn of last century was often conducted as “hand-operated diggings” with the miners — often families — selling the raw asbestos for processing. “We are still finding new ones as we do our fieldwork,” the official says.
Human rights attorney Richard Spoor, who secured two legal settlements for former asbestos miners in 2003-04, says the rehabilitation of asbestos mines is pointless without regular maintenance. The settlements were worth about R620m, combined.
“If the rehabilitated mine is not maintained afterwards then the ground that has been used to cover it, and the grass, can erode off and 10 years down the line we are back to where we started.
“I know for a fact that the Tenge dumps (at Limpopo’s Tenge asbestos mine) have been rehabilitated twice,” says Mr Spoor. There are plans to ensure that at Tenge this situation does not recur.
Abandoned asbestos mines constituted 3.84% (144 mines) of the total “population” of abandoned mines in April 2008, the auditor-general said in a 2009 report on the rehabilitation of abandoned mines.
Of the total number of abandoned mines, 45.83% had been rehabilitated, 8.33% had been partially rehabilitated and 45.83% had not been rehabilitated by April 2008, the auditorgeneral said in the report.
The department did not provide requested information on how many asbestos mines had been rehabilitated since then, or how many were still to be rehabilitated.
Ms Jakuja says the department is not responsible for the rehabilitation of mines where owners can be located, but is responsible for those that are “derelict and ownerless”. There were 5,858 derelict and ownerless mines in SA, she said.
Ms Jakuja says eight mines were rehabilitated between 2010 and the start of this financial year. Two mines had been fully rehabilitated. The 2010-12 mines were around Prieska, Heuningvlei, Danielskuil and Kuruman in the Northern Cape and near Cullinan in Gauteng.