Water from plant may not be safe

The water, treated at the new acid main drainage (AMD) plant currently built at Grootvlei number 3 shaft, is not as safe as it seems.

This treatment plant, already four months in construction, will pump treated AMD water into Blesbokspruit and eventually into the Vaal River system from sometime next year.

Bashan Govender of the Department of Water and Sanitation: Gauteng Provincial Office says the Department of Environmental Affairs, due to the urgency of dealing with the decanting of acid mine drainage, granted an exemption to erect this treatment works.

This exemption included that no environmental impact study was to be done for the building of the plant, upon which the Federation for a Sustainable Environment (FSE) differs of opinion.

The only environmental impact study currently done is to determine the place where the sludge dam will be erected after the water is treated.

Govender says the neutralised water flowing from the treatment works into the Blesbokspruit will not be different from the water discharged into the spruit when the Grootvlei Mine was still active.

The improved technology to be used at the plant and the predicted quality of the discharged water will be an improvement to that which came from the Grootvlei Mine.

He says this neutralised water is considered safe for the environment.

The neutralisation brings all toxic metals and the pH-balance into regulatory limits.

He admitted that whilst achieving up to a minus 40% improvement in salinity (sulfate), the treated water still has an elevated salt content.

The impact of the residual salinity in the Vaal River System will be managed by the department to prevent the compromisation of downstream water users.

He assured that the long-term solution, when implemented in 2017, will resolve the water’s salinity impact on the Vaal River system.

Mariette Liefferink, CEO of the FSE warns against the high sulfate content of the water in the Vaal River system.

The FSE is a federation of community based civil society organisations focused on addressing the adverse impacts of mining and industrial activities on the lives of vulnerable and disadvantaged communities living near mines and industries.

The FSE raised serious concerns on the exemption that the treatment works received as there are, besides the high salt content of the Vaal River system, several factors to consider that will negatively impact the environment and nearby residents.

She says the people of Springs will not feel or see the immediate effect of the water being pumped into the Blesbokspruit, but will feel it when water will be getting more expensive to use.

Studies of when treated water was previously pumped into Blesbokspruit, according to Liefferink, shows that the Vaal Barrage will, in the long run, have a poor quality of water, because of the sulfate (salt) content.

She warns that if the acid mine drainage is not treated to a level where these sulfates are removed, it will cause a drought in the upper Vaal, with the consequence of severe water restrictions.

Water will be then have to be purchased at a high price, with a huge influence on each water consumer in Gauteng and several other provinces in the country.

She says the water in the Vaal River system may eventually not be safe to be consumed by people and animals upstream and will have a major impact on farming.

In the meantime, while the treatment works is built without the studies it will have on the environment, it is still unclear where the sludge coming from the plant will be dumped.

There is currently an environmental impact process underway, where residents already said no to dumping sites at Grootvlei and at Largo, which is currently agricultural ground.

Liefferink says the water discharged from the treatment works into Blesbokspruit flows away, but the residents are stuck with a sludge dam on their doorsteps for the rest of their lives.

She is also worried that this sludge, known to be toxic and radio-active, will have a detrimental effect on the Blesbokspruit ecosystem, as well as on the residents living in that area.

Steve Horak of DigbyWells, the environmentalist company doing the environmental impact assessment (EIA) on the suitable sludge disposal site, says the final scoping document on where the sludge will be disposed will be available soon on the company’s website www.digbywells.co.za

All the concerns of residents, already raised at the public meetings, were taken into consideration in drafting the scoping document.

After the scoping document is approved, specialist studies will be done, which will also be made available to the interested and affected parties for comment.