Saldanha sees red over ore
Rust-coloured dust regularly blankets west coast town
● Marilyn Matroos thought she’d found her dream home, in a quiet street just 100m from the beach.
Then her new house started turning pink. Seven years later, Matroos is still fighting a losing battle against an airborne cloud of red dust settling over much of the west coast town of Saldanha, once known for its quaint, whitewashed fishing cottages.
Now, almost 500 houses in Saldanha and two nearby towns have been repainted or their owners have been awarded compensation from Transnet Port Terminals for pollution damage caused by dust billowing out of the massive iron-ore export facility on the outskirts of town.
“I didn’t know about this when we moved in here,” said Matroos, who had not believed Saldanha could be dustier than her previous home in Mitchells Plain on the Cape Flats. “My new house was a nice peachy colour before. Now look at it.”
It’s the same story next door, where Danie and Marian Malan have been cleaning up dust since 2005. “You hang your washing out for a day and it’s red,” said Marian. “We’re not doing anything [about the dust] any more — it doesn’t work.”
But it’s not just dust hanging over Saldanha. Even as Transnet prepares to finalise cash payments to affected residents, the state freight company is expanding its Saldanha operation to export millions more tons of iron ore and manganese.
The company wants to increase annual iron-ore exports by 7-million tons a year and recently obtained a licence to export 4.4million tons of manganese annually from the same terminal area.
The company faces mounting opposition from residents, who say export growth should not happen at the expense of their constitutional rights to good health and a clean environment.
Fears about poor air quality were confirmed late last year by the west coast district municipality, which rejected Transnet’s iron-ore expansion application after council measurements showed excessive dust. The municipality also found the Transnet port terminals in contravention of its air emissions licence conditions. Transnet is reportedly appealing.
Some residents this week queried how Transnet obtained its manganese export licence, which carries near-identical air quality conditions, just months after it was found to be in breach of its iron-ore licence conditions.
Transnet’s licence documents show its manganese application was submitted to, and approved by, the department of environmental affairs just two weeks after the ironore application was rejected by the municipality.
Transnet did not respond to queries this week, but documents in the possession of Sunday Times include a set of terms and conditions for affected homeowners: in order to get compensation, they have to agree to neither contact the company nor lodge any further compensation claim for five years.
News in town this week wasn’t all bad; residents have welcomed the establishment of a permanent Saldanha Clean Air Association to monitor dust pollution.
Some residents complimented Transnet’s positive community engagement. Said Danie Malan: “We’ve got e-mails twice a month and they’ve always kept us up to date.”
Guest lodge and restaurant owner Andre Wicht said air quality control was a national problem made possible by legal loopholes that needed to be plugged.
“We are supposed to have the best environmental legislation in the world but if you look at Saldanha it is testimony to how much is lacking because the whole place is red. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to see there is a problem,” he said.
Sinah Phochana, spokesperson for Anglo American, whose Kumba Iron Ore division is SA’s largest producer, said Kumba practised dust suppression on site.
“Transnet assumes responsibility on the railway and at port as they are the holders of the air emissions licence,” she said.