GROOTVLEI Mine, near Springs, is repairing equipment that will almost double its capacity to pump out acid mine water, owners Aurora have said.
"By Friday we hope to be pumping up to full capacity," general manager for mining operations Louis Lamsley said yesterday.
"We are opening a fifth and sixth column and this will increase the pumping capabilities," he said.
If this toxic water is left to rise underground, it will flood the Witwatersrand basins with catastrophic consequences. Acid water forms when old mine shafts and tunnels fill up with water.
Aurora said last week that it cost R6,5million a month to run the water treatment plant. It also claimed that a government subsidy of R5million a month had not been received since October.
Activist Mariette Liefferink of the Federation for a Sustainable Environment said she had heard that untreated water was being pumped into the nearby Blesbokspruit.
Acid mine water is currently 600m below Johannesburg and will spill onto the streets in about 18 months, she said.
Lamsley dismissed Liefferink's claims.
Aurora mine pumps out acid water
GROOTVLEI Mine, near Springs, is repairing equipment that will almost double its capacity to pump out acid mine water, owners Aurora have said.
"By Friday we hope to be pumping up to full capacity," general manager for mining operations Louis Lamsley said yesterday.
"We are opening a fifth and sixth column and this will increase the pumping capabilities," he said.
If this toxic water is left to rise underground, it will flood the Witwatersrand basins with catastrophic consequences. Acid water forms when old mine shafts and tunnels fill up with water.
Aurora said last week that it cost R6,5million a month to run the water treatment plant. It also claimed that a government subsidy of R5million a month had not been received since October.
Activist Mariette Liefferink of the Federation for a Sustainable Environment said she had heard that untreated water was being pumped into the nearby Blesbokspruit.
Acid mine water is currently 600m below Johannesburg and will spill onto the streets in about 18 months, she said.
Lamsley dismissed Liefferink's claims.
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