Wasting the Nation.indd - Groundwork

Chapter 4: The toxic cradle of productionAbandoned minesGlobally, active mines have massive impacts on water. A text book on coal miningexplains that water used for mining processes “is often seriously polluted and cannotbe returned directly to the hydrological cycle without prior treatment”. In addition “alarge volume of water … is casually affected” by surface run-off, acid mine drainage,pumped mine water and groundwater flows. “It is not possible to apportion thedamage among the ‘process’ and ‘casual’ categories, but the latter is probably the moreimportant” [Down and Stocks 1977: 91].Mining corporations arrive brazenly, but leave furtively. In North and South alike,they have left a toxic legacy of “abandoned and ownerless mines”. In the US, thereare half a million such mines [Moody 2007: 129ff]. In South Africa, the list is notcomplete but is estimated at 6,000. It seems outrageous that mine owners can abscondbut, as noted below (under Aluminium), the asbestos case shows that miners can slipout of one corporate skin into another, taking their wealth with them but leaving theirliabilities for others to clean up.The Transvaal and Delagoa Bay coal mine near Emalahleni (formerly Witbank)tops the list of abandoned mines in South Africa. It operated from 1896 to 1953but, more than half a century later, its waste is still producing an ongoing ecologicalcatastrophe. Underground fires still smoulder, releasing sulphur dioxide, methane andcarbon dioxide. The exposed rocks underground produce acid mine drainage (AMD)which seeps out from various cracks and covers the area with sulphate salts that kill allvegetation it touches.A warm pool of water attracts local children. It is just two kilometres from theirhomes in Maguqa, one of Emalahleni’s townships. It is AMD water heated by theunderground fires. It is highly likely to contain carcinogens like benzene and toluenethat have been detected in the gases from the fires by Pone et al [2007]. However, nohealth official has ever tested the water the children swim in.The pond was constructed to deal with the AMD when the DWAF took responsibilityfor the abandoned mine. It is one of a series of ponds that collect AMD water whichis then supposed to be pumped to a DWAF treatment works built ten years ago. Theworks, however, has been out of commission for more than a year and the AMD justruns into the Brugspruit which flows passed Maguqa. The sulphate salts are so thickon the water that the stream looks like it has been snowed over. The toxic water then- 90 - groundWork - Wasting the Nation