Acid water no one's fault - mines
MINE executives have told Parliament that acid mine drainage (AMD) is "essentially ownerless" and that they should not be forced to pay to clean it up.
The water portfolio committee heard in the second week of public hearings yesterday that mine owners were spending more than R2million a month on cleaning up AMD they were not legally liable for.
But public interest law group Centre for Environmental Rights said yesterday that mine owners should be held responsible for the high cost of cleaning up AMD.
In a written submission Tracy-Lynn Humby of the University of the Witwatersrand's School of Law and the centre's attorney, Dina Townsend, said government regulations on mines from 1937 said that contaminated water could not be released into the environment "without having been previously rendered innocuous".
But Rand Uranium chief executive officer John Munro said: "AMD is essentially ownerless and is a legacy liability. Spending all our time finding culprits may well be a waste of resources. There are new operators in the area. They simply could not have created this problem.
"Burdening these new companies with the sins of the past is unsustainable. These companies will collapse .we will lose a whole lot of jobs."
Munro called on the government to speed up their work on a long-term solution to AMD, saying it was "crazy" to create drinking water by desalinating sea water when it would be cheaper to desalinate AMD.
Committee chair Johnny de Lange of the ANC warned Munro not to be "so cavalier about the ownerlessness".
"People want to see who the culprit is. It might very well be that litigation has not succeeded against you because the litigation has been quite pathetic.
"Clearly, you would not want to come here and accept any responsibility," De Lange said.
DA MP Gareth Morgan said mines should admit they were partly responsible.
wecandobetter2011
As a South African this is an issue that I feel is not given the attention it should. It need everyday South Africans to formulate opinions on it and for those opinions to be debated and commented on as a society. WeCanDoBetter.co.za is somewhere you can do all that, go check it our submitting and commenting is easy and requires no registration.Report Abuse
Bolander
The mines are responsible for contaminating up to 75% of our natural water resources - this is very serious - they are going to drag their feet in cleaning up their mess - in a few years time the mines will not be profitable anymore, they will take their money and run and we will be left behind with no clean drinking water (it is estimated that we will have no clean drinking water in 15 years time, if dramatic measures are not taken ...)BTW it has been speculated that more than anything else, it is because of the acid water issue that nationalization wont work, it will cost billions to fix, which the government will not be able to afford.
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capewatersolutions
Well Mr John Munro since you seem to care so little about the impact of mining on our communities. You might not be the right person to hold / be involved with a mining license. Take you attitude of negligence and join an anarchy group you might be surrounded by friend.Report Abuse