HIGHVELD – The environmental justice group groundWork and Mpumalanga community organisation Vukani Environmental Justice Movement in Action (Vukani) turned to the High Court on 7 June to force government into cleaning up the air in the Mpumalanga Highveld.
The Centre for Environmental Rights (CER) represents the two groups claiming that government has violated the Constitutional right to a healthy environment for the people living and working in the Highveld Priority Area (HPA), by failing to improve the deadly levels of air pollution in the HPA.
Mpumalanga with its high concentration of coal-fired power plants and Sasol’s coal-to-liquids plant located in Secunda is said to contribute 83 per cent of South Africa’s coal production.
According to the CER, the area has been plagued with deadly air quality for decades.
In a new independent study attached to the court papers, Dr Andy Gray, an expert in air and health risk modelling, found that these 14 facilities were responsible for the lion’s share of air pollution in 2016.
He estimates that emissions from these facilities caused between 305 and 650 early deaths in and around the HPA in 2016.
Studies have proven that human exposure to toxic chemical compounds emitted by the coal plants, such as sulphur dioxide, heavy metals like mercury, and fine particulate matter, results in chronic respiratory illnesses such as asthma, bronchitis, and lung cancer, and contributes to strokes, heart attacks, birth defects, and premature death.
Mr Vusi Mabaso, chairman of Vukani, said in a press release issued by CER, that they have decided to use litigation to push government to take urgent steps to deal with the high air pollution and to protect the rights of citizens to clean air.
The Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) in 2007 acknowledged that the HPA was an air pollution hotspot of extremely poor air quality and that “there was little doubt that people living and working in these areas do not enjoy air quality that is not harmful to their health and wellbeing.”
“groundWork and the communities we represent have consistently been highlighting the issue of air pollution and its negative impacts on human health, and our lived experience is that government is not holding the big polluters to account.
This is a public health crisis that can no longer be ignored,” said Mr Bobby Peek, Director of groundWork.
The CER in collaboration with groundWork and the Highveld Environmental Justice Network, compiled a document in 2017 titled “Broken Promises: Failure of the Highveld Priority Area”, which outlined the failure of government to achieve the HPA’s goals, and the steps necessary for comprehensive clean-up of the area’s air.
The Environmental Affairs Minister is now required, by early July 2019, to make available, all the records relating to her decision not to promulgate regulations to make the HPA AQMP enforceable, and the reasons for this decision. groundWork and Vukani can then amend and supplement their application within 10 working days.
If the respondents – the Minister, the National Air Quality Officer, the President, and the two relevant MECs in Gauteng and Mpumalanga – intend to oppose this litigation, they are required to file their notice of opposition either by early July.
For more information, visit the CER’s website at www.cer.org.za.
