Illegal Coal Mine Water Use Imperils Food Production

A study of water regulatory compliance by Delmas coal mines reveals widespread failures.

Mines have released polluted water into maize fields, roads and streams from which people from informal settlements as well as cattle drink. Picture: JAMES OATWAY

A recent study of water regulatory compliance by Mpumalanga’s Delmas coal mines raises alarm bells. Delmas is a rich farming area, but also a new mining frontier. Abandoned coal mines already litter the landscape, raising the spectre of acid mine drainage.

Problems with postapartheid mine-water licensing and regulations have long existed. Under the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act, the state became the custodian of SA’s minerals. The act also governs mining’s environmental effects, unlike the rest of industry in the country, which falls under the National Environmental Management Act.

Mining was brought under a new industrial regime with the compromise One Environmental System in 2014. Under this co-operative governance system, the Department of Environmental Affairs develops policy, the Department of Mineral Resources issues mine licences and is the compliance, monitoring and enforcement authority, while the Department of Water and Sanitation approves a water licence before mining can begin.

A combined decision on mining and water licences must be made within 300 days. This aims to end long water licensing delays (often years) during which mining continues in defiance of water laws.

It was difficult for researchers to get access to Delmas’s mines to assess compliance with water regulations and licences. Coal extractives’ transparency was generally weak. Thus interviews of stakeholders including mine and government officials, farmers and community members, as well as observing mines’ external effects on water were the main research tools.

The research investigated the cumulative effects of non-adherence to water laws by looking at a number of mines.

The research findings showed widespread regulatory failure with negative effects on water resources.

Many mines were, or had in the recent past, extracted without water licences. They had also illegally mined through wetlands, problematic as half of SA’s marshlands have been destroyed.

The mines had released polluted water into maize fields, roads and streams from which people from informal settlements as well as cattle took their water. Coal dust had also stunted maize growth and leached into ground water.

Mine-blasting had fractured the water chambers of SA’s major Botleng Aquifer, resulting in the pollution and impediment of water flow into municipal and farm boreholes.

Read more: Business Live

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Taxonomy

• Water Pollution
• Policy
• Contaminant Removal
• Pollution
• Mine Water Management
• Clean Coal
• Waste Management