Speaker 1:

The old miners. Hard rock Miners. To the shaft house we must go. Oil bottles.

Robin Smith:

[inaudible], once vibrant and productive, it closed four years ago. All that is left of it now is this rubbish dump where retrenched miners come to scavenge for scrap metal.

Speaker 1:

On the line boys. Drill your holes and stand in line. Can't you feel the rock dust in your lungs? It'll cut down a miner when he is still young. Two years and the silicone cysts take home and I feel like I'm dying from mining for gold. Yes I feel like I'm dying for mining ...

Speaker 3:

[foreign language]

Robin Smith:

These old miners are part of the legacy of mining. But when the gold mines on the [inaudible] closed down they also left something else. A multitude of old mine dumps. And when the wind blows so does the fine yellow dust.

Ururu:

If you living next to the mine dump and during the wind season, it's just hell. Most of the resident in [inaudible] does not have a problem with the mine dumps. It settle in their houses. If it's really windy everybody closes the windows. They cannot do their washing, right? So it's almost similar like a war situation.

Speaker 5:

And you can't go into town because when you are from town you are facing the dust.

Speaker 3:

The small particles go through the ceiling and it's invisible. But the reality of the metal is that you actually eating it and inhaling it every second.

Speaker 5:

It feels like something was just fine going in your face, and on every inch of your body. You will just see your bodies itching after it, if you allergic you will see with a small rash ...

Speaker 3:

The dust has accumulated on the ceilings over years, if we can take you up there you can actually see what you understand it to be. The late mining magnot, mister Oppenheimer, when he left his position as chairmen of Angolo American he said and I quote, "There is no doubt that when leave this part of the earth, we will have left a great civilization but at the same time we agree that we have left deep and dangerous old [inaudible], and huge mountains of mine towns, that are not really [inaudible]...

Speaker 6:

Without mining, South Africa would be a really different place to where it is now, and yet I hate to think what it would be like, because mining is everything to this country. The gold that you'd extract, on average, amounts to about eight or so grammes per tonne.

Robin Smith:

Everything that you see in this rock ends up in a tailing dam, including all the pyrites and minerals.

Speaker 6:

You can see very clearly the heavy mineral concentrations. Mainly pyrite, but also with nickel, cobalt and zinc bearing minerals.

Robin Smith:

There are many other minerals in the rock. Arsenic. Lead. Uranium. Barium. Promium and Milanium. When it rains, they dissolve into the water and wash down into the streams and rivers, finally ending up in the drinking water. Even though this water looks clean, it's heavily polluted.

Speaker 6:

And if mines are breaking the law or not doing this properly then they got to give it time to sort it out, and if they can't then they're gonna be closed down.

Robin Smith:

Closing them down might not be the answer. The law says that mine dumps must be rehabilitated, but when this isn't done properly there's nothing to stop the dust blowing on them. Much like water, this dust contains many pollutants. Clinging to the tiny particles, they enter the lungs where they dissolve almost immediately into the bloodstream. Sometimes the dust particles are so small they go straight into the lungs, causing them to harden.

This can lead to shortness of breath, asthma, chronic bronchitis and increase the risk of TB.

Ururu:

For years we've been knowing this dumps as cyanide. Even when the kids go and play on top there, the parents say "Don't go and play on the cyanide, it's poisonous." So we grew up with this kind of awareness.

Robin Smith:

This is Kharisu Township, near Creullers Dawn. Here the community begin fighting for the rehabilitation of their mine dump in the early eighties.

Ururu:

It took us about four, five years to go about owning one.

Robin Smith:

Ownership of mine dumps is a complex issue. When the community finally tracked down the owners, the discovered that the dump had just been sold. Frustrated and disillusioned, they decided to get help, which came in the form of Ellen Nickles, and advocate from the legal resources centre.

Ellen Rickles:

That's why they came to us in the first place, I think. When they just hit dead ends everywhere, where they couldn't get information, when they kept getting told that, "No. Hang on, hang on, the company's being sold."

Okay. I wonder if I shouldn't take this file. I think so. So we investigated the matter. We found that the mine dump was completely rehabilitated, uncovered. It was a just a heap of sand which was very susceptible to wind. And we also found that the law was actually fairly straightforwards on the point. The Minerals Act expects mines to rehabilitate the surfaces of their works, and that would include the slime stands or tailing stands.

Funky Music:

Funky Music.

Ellen Rickles:

Hi Itza!

Itza:

Hi Ellen.

Ellen Rickles:

(Foreign Language)

Itza:

(Foreign Language)

Ellen Rickles:

Thanks.

Robin Smith:

Ellen's involvement with environmental law came about by accident.

Ellen Rickles:

I think, the passion was obviously there, that's what I figure out. If only I knew how to combine these things and these things that I know I like and enjoy, then I would have the ultimate job. And the ultimate job just fell in my lap! I'm very grateful for that.

Ururu:

We cannot say as the [inaudible] that mining is going to do anything positive for the wellbeing of the community around here. It has just left us with a legacy of environmental degradation, that's all that we can say about mining. It really is, really. Really.

It's only when we became aware that there is law, which we can use as a tool to enforce the mine dumps to address our problems. That we then starting really acting on that part of the issue.

Robin Smith:

And act they did. Once they discovered that the dump was owned by African consolidated mines, they took legal action. But, before the case could get to court, they reached a settlement. With great fanfare, the owners agreed to rehabilitate the dump.

Speaker 10:

I think it's a very important day for us to sign this agreement because we are committed to environmental management and the rehabilitation of the mining activities itself. But our main view is to give this tailing facility over to the community at the stage once it's rehabilitated as a recreation facility.

Robin Smith:

Now, more than a year and half later, there is little evidence that anything lasting has been done.

Ellen Rickles:

The topsoil layer is really a very thin layer. 200 millilitres of topsoil will erode over a fairly short period of time and would start allowing dust to come through that again, so for a very short term measure it did help. Medium to long term, it's not going to work. Much more is necessary.

Ururu:

We are absolutely not happy.

Speaker 5:

Since that time, and even now we don't know anything. We don't know, are they coming or not coming? We're still waiting.

Robin Smith:

When special assignment approached African Consolidated mines, they declined to comment. For the Kharisu community, it was back to square one.

Ururu:

So the mine owners are busy getting away this thing.

Robin Smith:

Kharisu isn't the only place where mining has left behind a trail of pollution. Several other communities in Hau Ting face similar problems. Large, rehabilitate mine dumps with little or nothing done to stop the dust or the polluted water running off them. Mining has caused a huge problem all along the [inaudible].

Ellen Rickles:

The mining belt runs from west to east, comes through the centre of the greater Johannesburg area. To the northern area you've got residential areas, which traditionally have mostly been white areas. And then to the south of the mining belt, you've got residential areas, including the large [inaudible] area, which have traditionally been black areas.

And the predominant wind comes from the northwest, so the wind direction is something like that.

Robin Smith:

This means that the dust only effects the poorer communities to the south. When Ellen realised this she decided to put together one giant court case. She wanted to take all of these mining companies to court for not rehabilitating their dumps. She'd used the same laws she tried with the Kharisu community, but this time it would be different. This time, there'd be no quick settlement. This time she was going to take the matter, all the way to court.

Ellen Rickles:

The consequences for them is that they would get a court order, ordering them to comply with the law, and if they still choose not to comply with the court order they would face contempt of court preceding that could culminate In managing directors ending up in jail.

In Kharisu we realised that even though some measures have been taken to resolve the immediate problem on the [inaudible] tailings dam, they still sat with a huge dust problem. We couldn't figure out where it came from. And then we realised there's another dam a few kilometres further which is even bigger and is also upwind. That particular dam is very bad. It's huge, it's high, it's big. It's completely unrehabilitated. There are no measures on that thing to curb dust pollution.

And it just blows over that Kharisu area, like a cloud of dust on windy days.

Robin Smith:

This particular dump is owned by a company called Derbin Rudiper Deep, or DRD. We asked them about rehabilitation.

Speaker 11:

If you're interpretation of rehabilitation is vegetation, of putting vegetation on it and vegetating it, no, it has not been done.

Ellen Rickles:

The mine has an obligation to rehabilitate and they've got to do the rehabilitation in such a way that the dust problem is sorted out.

I mean, I'm asking you for specific details here, because from what I can see, come August. Come the winds, there's gonna be dust.

Speaker 11:

There will be dust and we recognise the fact there's going to be dust. I mean, we're not resolving ourselves of our responsibility. We own those dumps, we have a responsibility to rehabilitate them.

Robin Smith:

This responsibility is entrenched in law, but it costs a lot so some mines try to avoid it. The law also says that all mining companies must submit an environmental management plan to the government. This gives specific details of their plans to rehabilitate tailings dams, or mine dumps, like this one in Stillfontein.

When it's approved by the Department of Minerals and Energy it becomes legally binding. The mines then must stick to what they've said they'll do.

Speaker 11:

These dams are fairly distanced from the Vaal River, the other complex, the buttles complex, is much closer to the Vaal River.

Speaker 12:

Yeah we also take that into consideration in our assessment. Are there any monitoring burrows at this complex?

Speaker 11:

Yes there are a number of monitoring burrows all across [crosstalk].

Robin Smith:

As it's supposed to, DRD has submitted it's environmental plan, which has been approved by government. This makes it legal, and binding.

Speaker 11:

We will continue with our rehabilitation programme as we've planned, as we've scheduled. Irrespective of if a court case takes place or not. We're not going to be forced by a court case to rehabilitate.

Robin Smith:

They say they're sticking to their plan, but are they?

Speaker 11:

Look, that is where our ordered approach comes in, in terms of legation 518 of the Minerals Act and Regulation published in the terms of the Minerals Act. EMP, monitoring and performance assessments have to be done.

Robin Smith:

The mines are monitored to see if they're sticking to the agreements. The findings of these assessments are then presented at meetings, like this one at the DRD head office in Stillfontein. One the one side, government officials. And on the other, mine management.

Speaker 13:

Also pick up the different sources of [inaudible] and we can go out and about and we can show it. We see it as a priority one story that needs to be looked at.

Speaker 11:

We know that some of the bellows are problematic and we need to do something about it. And we will look at what we can do.

Speaker 13:

No, I think your other issue is going off the prevention of seepage.

Speaker 11:

No, I think we have to ignore this effect that there is seepage. We've got away from the fact that there is seepage, given the geology of the area as well.

Robin Smith:

Despite these assessments there are still problems. The government just doesn't have the capacity to police the agreements properly, or the will to punish infringements. Fines as small as a thousand rand do little to help the communities living near these dumps.

Ellen Rickles:

The one solution for the community is to have full time lawyers on the case, to follow up and each and every settlement agreement or other agreement reached.

Robin Smith:

The other solution is to force the Department the Minerals and Energy Affairs to do their job of enforcing the law. The only way to do this is to take them to court as well.

Ururu:

Definitely. It's the responsibility to, of the Department of Mineral and Energy Affairs, to enforce the laws that parliament have passed. It is their responsibility, otherwise that law, it's useless.

Speaker 14:

I mean, the Minerals are always quotes the Aesop story, of killing the goose that lays the golden egg. Mining companies in this country, first in the past, and even currently are still laying the golden egg. They're the goose! So you need to maintain a balance between trying to get them to try and act responsibly but at the same time, not pushing them and squeezing them like Aesop did, because killing them is not going to do us any good.

Speaker 11:

At the moment we're looking at dust suppression methodologies. Just to displace the dust, but what option do you take? What do you believe? What do you use? Some areas we are delaying because we're looking at technology options, but in other areas you can't because of your rehabilitation. You've got to control the dust, you've got to go manage the water seepage. You're liable.

And I'm liable because I'm the manager of those mines. So, I hardly ever have a night where I can sleep without worrying about what's going to happen.

Robin Smith:

In some places DRD is involved in some innovative programmes, like this one at Stillfontein mine. This project is called Golden Village. It employs some of the miners retrained four years ago and youth from the surrounding townships. The plan is to rehabilitate what's left of this once bustling mine.

Ururu:

At this point in time we are not basically saying they should compensate for the health hazard that they've caused, to the [inaudible] people. We're saying, prevent further damage to our community!

Robin Smith:

It's just about impossible to prove a direct link to a particular mine dump and a specific persons illness. Because of this, Ellen is taking another route.

Ellen Rickles:

It's the common man, and if there's a problem found but I don't want problems today. I want those people to be in my office as soon as possible. Okay.

Robin Smith:

Sick of endless delays and excuses, this court case is aimed at getting the dust problem addressed immediately.

Ellen Rickles:

Thanks Bittle, I owe you. Okay.

Robin Smith:

After months of laborious preparations the court case is finally coming together. Affidavits have been prepared and the applicants from Kharisu have come to Pretoria to sign them.

Ellen Rickles:

Hi. Thanks Ururu, for coming.

Ururu:

Hi, How are you?

Ellen Rickles:

Good to see you. Well, thanks.

Ururu:

Good. Great.

Ellen Rickles:

And you guys.

Ururu:

Great.

Ellen Rickles:

Finally, your Affidavits are ready. Yes? Hi, how are you? Come, let's go and look with me.

Funky Music:

Funky Music.

Ururu:

We've just now returned our Affidavits. We've had several meetings and are coming to have collected signatures of support, and I must say that not a single resident has expressed something negative in regard to this [inaudible] campaign. Everyone's saying we should go on with the [inaudible] as the supported fleet.

Ellen Rickles:

It's not as if we're killing the elephants and the lions, we're killing the people. Because we're polluting the air, it's polluting the ground water, it's polluting the rivers. And I don't think that cost is really quantifiable. You could probably work out what the profit was. That was made. And what kind of boost it gave the economy. But the cost we now have to pay is huge.

Robin Smith:

Now that the Affidavits are signed it's a matter of compiling the final documents and adding the finishing touches, then the court case will be ready.

Ellen Rickles:

Well, I hope that the papers will be ready and the case will be able to go out and be launched before my baby arrives.