an de Lange | Sat, 22 Jan 2011 23:20

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[miningmx.com] -- ACID mine water under the central Witwatersrand Basin has
been rising at an alarming rate as a result of the past two weeks heavy rains in the
catchment area.

Before the rains started the toxic water was rising 31cm per day, but scientists
monitoring the rate of its current rise said that for the past two weeks it had steadily
increased to 47cm a day.

It would probably continue to rise before the ingress of rain water tapers off.

By February 2012, in less than 13 months, the critical environmental level of 150m
will be reached under ERPMs south-western vertical shaft (SWV-shaft) in Boksburg.
This is less than 1km from the Cinderella shaft, an old ventilation shaft and the most
likely point at which the acid water will emerge.

Despite this impending danger, at its annual lekgotla cabinet last week failed to
consider the report by an inter-ministerial committee containing recommendations
for warding off the impending environmental disaster.

Western Utilities Corporation (WUC), as far as is known the only company that has
done a comprehensive proposal with proper costings for a project to pump the
water to the surface and purify it, would need at least 14 months to execute the
project.

Last month Trevor Manuel, minister of planning in the presidency who also serves on
the interministerial committee, said that WUCs proposal was one of many and
also the most expensive on the table.

Harry Singleton, general manager for environmental services at E+PC, a division of

the Aveng Group which built a pioneering plant at Emalahleni two years ago to
purify acid water from coal mines and which supplies this as potable water to the

town's municipality, said his company had made submissions in this regard to
government.

But these were preliminary proposals without costings, and at least 18 months
would be needed to build such a plant, Singleton told Sake24 on Friday.

An environmental disaster in this area therefore seems inevitable because of

governments procrastination.

The government was monitoring the acid mine water issue, Sputnik Ratau,
spokesperson for the minister of water affairs, said on Friday.

The acid mine water report would probably be considered at cabinet's first weekly
meeting of the year on Wednesday, but Ratau did not know what was on the
agenda.

The discharge of 57 megalitres a day (57m litres) will begin shortly after the critical
environmental level has been reached, when the water will for the first time reach
dolomitic structures that extend to the surface, causing sinkholes.

- Sake24.com

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