South African gold mine shut down for pumping polluted water into wetlands

June 1996

U.S. Water News Online

CAPE TOWN, South Africa -- The South African government has ordered a mining firm to switch off pumps draining a gold mine following the company's refusal to stop pumping polluted water into a sensitive wetland. The order has put about 6,000 jobs in jeopardy.

Kader Asmal, Minister of Water Affairs, said he ordered Randgold and Exploration Co. Ltd., the company which manages the Grootvlei mine, to switch off pumps draining the mine. Asmal said Randgold had consistently refused to install filters to remove iron dioxide from the water. "The pollution has caused fish and crab deaths, large-scale visual pollution and has driven the birds away from the Blesbokspruit wetland," Asmal said.

Ian MacDonald, director of Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF), welcomed the decision as a rare indication of government commitment to the environment. "Blesbokspruit is a wetland of international significance and the minister's decision is unquestionably the right one," MacDonald said.

Asmal first indicated the mine would have about a month to formulate a plan to end pollution before the rising water table overtakes the idled pumps and makes it impossible to reopen the mine. But after recent talks with Randgold chairman Peter Flack, Asmal said he would make contingency recommendations to the cabinet before flooding of the first shaft is expected in early June.

Randgold said if the mine were forced to stop pumping the contaminated water it would be flooded within months, forcing closure and the loss of 6,000 jobs.

Asmal said Randgold is spending 10 million rand to have sediment settling ponds installed by the end of August at the Grootvlei pumping station, which would remove some of the iron oxide pollutant from the water.

Asmal added the cabinet would be asked to assess an interim report on "the efficacy of such settling ponds" as a short-term measure. He said his ministry would also begin to assess whether or not the jobs the mine created were worth sustaining, balanced against environmental pollution and the high costs of a desalination plant. Without the plant, Asmal said, "there are no long-term prospects for the mine."

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