Cape Town - Cabinet has approved the recommendations made by a team of experts on how South Africa should respond to the impending threats of acid mine drainage (AMD) in Gauteng and Mpumalanga.
Government appointed the team after warnings emerged last year that South Africa faced a potential water pollution crisis that could lead to health problems due to the AMD spillage.
Speaking at a media briefing on Tuesday, National Planning Minister Trevor Manuel said Cabinet had agreed that work on addressing the problem should start immediately, adding that Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan was expected to elaborate on his budget the amount of money to be set aside to deal with AMD.
Initial estimations were that government may need up to R218 million for a new pump station and pipeline, and to upgrade existing waterworks. But on Tuesday, Manuel said it was premature to determine exactly how much it would cost to address the crisis considering that a lot of work needed to be done in the next three years across the affected areas.
AMD occurs when old shafts and tunnels fill up, leading to underground water oxidising with the sulphide mineral iron pyrite, better known as fool's gold. The acid water is believed to be currently about 600m below the city's surface, but was rising at a rate of between 0.6m and 0.9m a day.
Acid mine water is said to have been overflowing from the western basin, located below the Krugersdorp-Randfontein area, since 2002.
Pump stations would need to be built to pump the water across the basins situated in Gauteng.
Manuel said the experts, drawn from the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, Water Research Commission, the Council for Geoscience, and the Departments of Science and Technology and Water and Environmental Affair, among others, had already started working on finding a permanent solution to the problem.
"We need to ensure that we have immediate water pumping across the three basins and we will be working continuously to ensure that we have a permanent solution to the problem. We want to assure South Africa that there is no need to panic at the moment as it remains our responsibility to ensure the safety of our water systems in the country," he said.
Government is also considering imposing an environmental levy, but Manual said a thorough investigation still needed to be done to determine which mines were still operating in the affected areas.
"It requires a lot from our side to investigate who is operating and who is not, so that we know who we are dealing with," he said.
The task team, chaired by Mineral Resources Department Director General Sandile Nogcina, has, among other things, recommended that:
* the state implement control measures to reduce the rate of flooding and the eventual decanting and pumping volume
* improve water quality management, including neutralisation and metal removal in the short term
* improving monitoring and undertaking research to inform decision making and managing and monitoring other AMD sources within the Witwatersrand basin.
Nogcina said the first pump stations would have been established to begin the process of pumping the water out by no later than March next year. "Work started a long time ago and we believe that our deadlines and timeframes are realistic," he said.
