Coal mine will blast peace for thousands near game park – report

Direct effects will be there 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for the next 32 years

DURBAN: Life will never be quite the same for several thousand people next to Africa’s oldest game reserve and wilderness area if a massive new coal mine is blasted open underneath or next to their homes.

A new environmental scoping report on the controversial Ibutho coal mining venture on the southern borderline of the Hluhluwe-iMfolozi game reserve does not say exactly how many people will have to be relocated from their homes.

But from maps of the proposed mine, village settlements and other data, it seems likely several hundred people may have to abandon either their houses, businesses, farming plots or ancestral graveyards if the project goes ahead.

The daily lives of more than 7 000 other people are also set to change dramatically virtually on the doorstep of gigantic pits filled with the dust, noise and floodlights of a busy coal mining operation.

The direct effects will be there 24 hours a day, seven days a week for 32 years, according to an environmental scoping report published this month.

Apart from the blasting operations used to shatter and loosen anthracite coal from the bedrock, the scoping report by the Jacana environmental consultancy suggests that noise from up to 200 coal trucks a day will radiate out to distances of about 1.5km during the day and about 3.5km at night.

These noise impacts are also set to shatter the tranquillity of the Imfolozi wilderness area, a specially protected 32 000ha zone of wilderness that the late wildlife conservationist Ian Player helped establish to ensure preservation of some ancient wild spaces.

The mine is just 100m from the wilderness boundary, with statistics from Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife showing that less than 1 percent of the country’s surface is protected as wilderness areas. The Jacana report acknowledges that drilling and blasting could be a “significant” source of noise pollution within a radius of 3.5km, but suggests some of these effects could be reduced through modern blasting techniques.

The resulting air blasts could rattle windows and large roofs of nearby homes, while there was also a risk of flying rocks hitting various structures such as schools and other community meeting places within 500m of the coal pit boundaries. Some residents told consultants they were worried that blasting could crack their homes.

The report is silent on exact numbers of who would have to move out, but by examining maps of the proposed mining fence line and the current layout of four neighbouring communities, it appears that the villagers of Ocilwane will be hardest hit as scores of homes lie directly in the mining path.

Ocilwane has about 230 households, which could translate into about 1 900 people.

The village also has two schools, a clinic, some smallscale businesses, several worship sites, grazing land for cattle and crop fields next to the iMfolozi River.

Nearby are another 1 640 people in the Nthuthunga 1 village, some of whom could also be affected. This village has two schools, Shembe worship sites, small businesses, three community graveyards, a water storage dam, livestock grazing land and crop fields.

Ntuthunga 2 settlement has about 1 503 residents, a primary school, two community graveyards and vegetable gardens next to the river.

Another potentially affected community is Novunala, with 1 245 residents, one school, several small businesses, a community graveyard and livestock grazing land.

On the issue of relocation, the report says this should be avoided if possible, but if people had to be moved, they should be resettled in areas with fertile soils for growing crops.