The environmental group wants desalination to be included in the AMD clean up process because the TCTA’s option of neutralising AMD will “amount to pollution, degradation, and damage to the environment.”  It has criticised the TCTA for failing to involve the public in decision-making.
“The proposed neutralisation (high density sludge) of AMD as a short term and immediate address is not best practice, it is ineffective and will result in adverse impacts upon the ecology and downstream water users and uses,” said Mariette Liefferink of the federation.  “It’s simply a money issue since insufficient funds have been made available by the government for the effective treatment of AMD.”
The federation says the neutralisation process is “defective and was reached without consultation and input from experts in the field and the public…”
The TCTA have added the gypsum process, which involves using lime to neutralise the acidity of the water and remove toxic heavy metals, despite this not being recommended in the final draft report by the government appointed team of experts that investigated the AMD crisis affecting the Witwatersrand’s mining basins.
Nigel Roussouw, of the TCTA’s environment department, said it was studying the letter from the LRC.
The TCTA is upgrading an existing treatment plant at Rand Uranium / Gold 1 to pump and partially treat 36 million litres of AMD pouring daily out of the flooded Western Basin by next month, and hopes to build a new treatment plant to augment capacity later this year, but is still awaiting funding from Water Affairs.
But tempers are rising.  At a special Western Basin Void Decant meeting this week, Stephan du Toit, a senior Mogale City environmental official, said the government and the TCTA had given no thought to the rehabilitation needed after neutralisation, which had worsened conditions in the Tweelopiespruit system.
The neutralisation process causes the heavy metals in the AMD to precipitate out of the water, but does not remove the high levels of sulphates, which flow untreated into waterways.
“What we’ve seen now is the total ecological destruction of the Tweelopiespruit system.”
At the meeting, government officials said while neutralisation was not the ideal treatment, it was a “useful first step”.
Judith Taylor of Earthlife Africa, said communities were paying for pollution.
“We’re seeing children with skin lesions and brain damage, TB and they are not HIV-positive.”

However, nine out of 25 dams had now been rehabilitated, and five new water augmentation schemes were on track, he told a joint sitting of Parliament in his State of the Nation address.

“Clearly, water access is still a challenge in some areas… Water expansion has been delayed in some parts of the country due to a lack of infrastructure.”

Zuma announced that an amount of R248m would be spent on dealing with acid mine drainage in the Witwatersrand region.

He paid tribute to the organisers of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change conference, also known as COP17, held in Durban two month’s ago.

“Let me take this opportunity to congratulate the inter-ministerial committee on COP 17 for making the conference a huge success,” Zuma said.

“The final outcome of COP 17 was historic and precedent setting, ranking with the 1997 conference where the Kyoto Protocol was adopted.”

Zuma said building on this success, South Africa would participate in the Rio Plus-20 Summit in Brazil, which marks the 10th anniversary of the World Summit on Sustainable Development.

One such investment is the Kagiso Mall, which was demolished and is being redeveloped at a cost R123.5-million, with the mall due to reopen in April this year. Kagiso is a township located to the west of Johannesburg, near Krugersdorp.

Old Mutual fund manager Hein Smit in a statement this week that the new Kagiso Mall would make “a valuable enhancement to this community’s shopping and social experience.”

Kagiso Mall was originally developed in the 1980s and had become desperately outdated and run-down, with low occupancy rates. The newly developed mall will be 11 700m², with 9 200m² of new-line shops that will house a retail mix of 50 shops. Fast food tenants will be facing the main parking area to enable extended trading hours.

Project architects KMH were instructed specifically to address the sustainable aspects of the project, which include rainwater harvesting, low energy lighting and improved insulation specifications. Eco Origin has been tasked with installing the rainwater harvesting system which will cater for garden irrigation as well as supplying water for the carwash.

They also used local skills and expertise in the development phase.

Ensuring community involvement

“We will continue finding ways to contribute to social development projects that benefit the community and townships and we are proud of our contribution to the development of the Kagiso area,” said Old Mutual Property MD Peter Levett.

Community involvement in the project has been considered through each stage of the project, which is one of the distinguishing factors of the mall. The final design finishes propose to include numerous artworks and contributions from the community to depict images relevant to the local community.

“We look forward to the successful conclusion of this project and the grand opening next year,” he said.

Old Mutual Property has carried out other projects to improve retail centres in previously disadvantaged communities before.

Old Mutual acquired Phanghami Mall, situated in Thohoyandou in Limpopo province, which boasts a 7 834m² shopping centre complex with an investment amount of R75-million. It opened for business at the end of October 2009.

In addition, Phumlani Mall in Tembisa on the East Rand in Gauteng, was acquired for R175-million The modern shopping centre was completed in July 2009 and is fully operational.

Although the industry had an important role to play in the economy, it had to remain “current and relevant”, Shabangu told the SA Coal Export Conference in Cape Town.

“The industry needs to raise the level of investment in clean coal technologies research programmes. This is likely to present the country with opportunities to continue exploiting this vast resource without the risk of raising further the carbon intensity of its economy.”

Shabangu said while South Africa had made clear its commitment to reduce its carbon footprint through various programmes, including diversification of its energy mix, coal still had a vital role to play in the country’s energy generation.

She said advances in science were providing more accurate feedback on the environmental impact of fossil fuels.

This information was starting to guide international and local industries on how to “mitigate” the negative impacts resulting from exploitation of coal, which contributed 90% to South Africa’s electricity and 30% to its liquid fuel requirements.

The Council for Geosciences (CGS) was conducting research to quantify the extent of the acid mine drainage problem and was identifying possible rehabilitation measures.

This, she said, would help ameliorate the impact of acid mine drainage in the sector, which produced 316 million tons of coal and earned R37bn from export sales in 2010.

Acid mine draining is water that is rendered acidic from mining and which flows into rivers and dams.

A study by the CGS on the country’s coal resources and reserves had also been completed and a report was being finalised.

The results of the study, likely to be released in the first half of the year, would help inform the government’s long range planning on security of local supplies. The study could provide opportunities for the growth and expansion of the industry.

Mongolia has opened up its vast reserves of natural resources to foreign investors in the hope of pulling thousands out of poverty, but activist groups said herders, townspeople and the environment were paying a heavy price.

In 2009, Mongolia sealed a long-awaited multi-billion dollar deal with Canada’s Ivanhoe Mines and Anglo-Australian miner Rio Tinto to develop Oyu Tolgoi, one of the world’s richest copper deposits and a key gold source.

Ulan Bator is also selecting foreign companies to develop the prized Tavan Tolgoi coal deposit, one of the largest on the planet.

But the mines, located in the vast Gobi desert, were being developed without sufficient scientific information about the potential environmental and social impact of the operations, activist groups said.

“The future of herding in the South Gobi is under threat as the development of extensive mine infrastructure pushes herders out of traditional camps, fragments pasture land and puts pressure on water resources,” the report said.

Desertification

The report was published by CEE Bankwatch Network in the Czech Republic, urgewald in Germany, Bank Information Centre in the United States and Oyu Tolgoi Watch in Mongolia, with the financial assistance of the European Union.

Towns located near the mines lacked adequate services and infrastructure to handle their burgeoning populations, it said.

Increased dust caused by mining and trucks was exacerbating “desertification and the decreasing quality of vegetation”, as well as fuelling the number of asthma and bronchitis cases in the area.

Local residents were also missing out on promised job opportunities, according to the report, which was based on interviews with herders and people living in towns near the mines as well as mining companies and investors.

“An influx of people from outside the region increases competition for jobs, and while herding engages both men and women, mining offers more opportunities for men,” the report said.

A Global Rhino Ultimatum, organised by the International Animal Rescue Foundation, has been making its way online and through social networks, and has drawn more than 11 500 signatures in the past few weeks.

The ultimatum is leading up to a public parliamentary hearing set to take place on January 26. The Department of Water and Environmental Affairs has said this hearing will aim to find solutions to the poaching crisis.

The ultimatum requires 250 000 signatures in 60 days, stating: “Everyday of this 60 day global petition action, three rhino will be butchered in South Africa for their horns.”

At $60 000 (R478 000) a kilogram, a single rhino horn is worth around $300 000, making it more valuable than cocaine and gold on the black market.

The foundation is demanding that the government stop issuing rhino trophy hunting permits, stop the sale of state owned rhino, commission a census of the rhino population in South Africa, and destroy all stock-piled rhino horn.

The ultimatum will be delivered on February 22 to government ministers, including President Jacob Zuma, Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe, Minister of International Relations and Co-operation, Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, and Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs, Edna Molewa.

The government will then have until April 22 to meet the foundation’s requirements, or face a boycott of agricultural and service exports.

According to the foundation, two rhino sub-species – the Western African black rhino and the Northern white rhino – were declared extinct in November by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. The Javan rhino of Southeast Asia may also be extinct.

However, banning rhino hunting altogether could actually increase the poaching rate. According to Siegfried Kuhm, CEO of the KZN Hunting and Conservation Association, as long as hunting is done on a sustainable, ethical, and legal basis, it has a rightful place in society. “Stop hunting and you stop wildlife. Very few people will travel large distances to view a single or a few animals. Hunters will travel thousands of kilometres to hunt a single animal.”

People wanting to sign the ultimatum can go to www.international-animalrescue-foundation.org

In addition, winter will begin earlier than usual.

The only regions that will receive much less rain over these three months are the central and northwestern parts of Limpopo, the northwestern parts of Mpumalanga and the Southern Cape, said Cobus Olivier, scientist and long-term forecaster at the SA Weather Service.

He said it was possible that all the rain forecast for the three months from February to April could actually fall in February.

Heavy flooding would then occur in February and the other two months would then be drier than usual.

Weather models

Olivier’s weather models also show that winter would start in April.

“We will therefore begin feeling the cold early in winter.”

Between 75mm and 150mm rain was measured between midnight on Monday evening to 20:00 on Tuesday in the Lowveld in Mpumalanga and a flood warning was issued in the area, reported Buks Viljoen.

A low water bridge over the Komati River near Tenbosch (Hectorspruit) was flooded, as was another on the Driekoppies road at One Tree Hill near the Jeppes Reef border post.

At Matsulu near Kaapmuiden, a shack collapsed due to the rain.

Heavy rain which has fallen in Mozambique since Monday led to flooding in low-lying regions in Maputo, reported Erika Gibson.

Weather forecasters at the SA Weather Office said normal weather conditions would return to the country on Wednesday.

There was only a 60% chance of heavy rain in northern KwaZulu-Natal.

Heavy rain

The weather models furthermore indicate that heavy rain will continue to fall in large parts of the country up until June, except in a stretch running from north to south in Mpumalanga (the Highveld), the Northern and Southern Cape.

The KwaZulu-Natal Midlands could expect heavy rain in especially May and June while less rain was expected over the rest of the country.

“We are dealing with strange weather systems here,” said Olivier.

Dr Linda Makuleni, executive head of the SA Weather Service said at COP 17 in December that floods in South Africa at the beginning of 2011 could definitely be attributed to climate change.

Rainwater harvesting is a good way to make the most of the higher that normal rainfall. With our Grand Opus, you could be independant of municipal supply.

Besides Eskom’s massive Medupi power station, near the existing Matimba power station, there are several other mega-projects in the pipeline. The question is whether these are sustainable or in some cases, even viable.

Other developments in the area include expanding the massive Exxaro Grootgeluk mine, which supplies Matimba and Medupi, as well as Sasol’s plans for the Mafutha coal to oil mega-project, presently shelved because of its massive carbon emissions. Further to the northeast of this massive energy complex lie other coal mining projects like the controversial Coal of Africa Limited (CoAL) Makhado and Vele projects.

Against the background chatter about nationalisation and environmental sustainability, South Africa needs to carefully consider the continued development of its vast mineral resources. While our national wealth has historically been underpinned by mineral extraction, the question is not only how we can continue to extract this wealth with the broadest social benefit, but perhaps more importantly, how we can do so without destroying the very systems we rely on to sustain us.

Nowhere in South Africa are these issues more apparent than in western Limpopo, a region mired in poverty and plagued by water scarcity. The biggest single constraint to the exploitation of these coal resources is the lack of water in the region.

West Limpopo is the most water stressed region of the country if this is measured using the globally accepted method of ‘water crowding’, which considers the number of people against the available water supply. A water-crowding index in excess of 2000 is considered environmentally and socially unstable. The index in Limpopo was already at 4219 a decade ago. The problem has worsened since then.

Against this reality there are massive pressures to develop the huge coal resource in western Limpopo, estimated to contain nearly half our national coal reserve. On the one hand the state wishes to pursue their neo-liberal job creation model. On the other, mining investors see massive opportunities in the region.

The reality is that coal mining produces very few direct or indirect jobs because of its mechanised nature. It also displaces other more sustainable work and livelihood opportunities, as it is a highly mechanised process. Coal extraction can place future economic activity in the area at permanent risk.

To place the precarious water supply situation in perspective it is worth considering that the existing water supply is insufficient to meet the demands of Medupi when it is fully commissioned.

In order to meet future demand, water will be transferred from the already stressed and seriously polluted Crocodile River, downstream of the Hartebeespoort dam, to the Mokolo catchment, which feeds Matimba and Medupi power stations.

This has serious implications for the comparatively pristine Mokolo. Recent CSIR-led research found a rare colonial protozoan, never before recorded either in Africa or in a river, during 2008. This organism is extremely sensitive to heavy metals and other contamination. An un-described fish species was also found. Should the water transfer scheme go ahead, these and other novel organisms may disappear forever, before they are understood or studied.

But more importantly, what is to be the fate of Limpopo residents already burdened by water stress? How are they to exist, let alone thrive, if these massive energy projects are permitted to abstract and pollute the little available water in the area?

The implications are dire and water resource experts have noted this could create conditions ripe for mass social unrest and even genocide, as frustrations are redirected at those projected as responsible for their situation.

Local residents are becoming increasingly aware of the implications of large-scale mineral extraction and its long-term consequences for the region. The CoAL project to mine valuable coking coal at its Makhado project has run into powerful local resistance from a broad coalition of opponents.

Even if sufficient water were to be found, there remains a strong and united opposition from divergent backgrounds. The real questions revolve around the sustainability of the project.

Moses Madau, of Dzomo la Mupo, a local environmental group, summed up the general feeling when he said that there was deep resentment and concern at the alleged statement by CoAL at a recent meeting that the scarcity of water would not affect this generation, but only the coming generations. This is the very definition of unsustainable.

This concern was echoed by the Chair of the Soutpansberg Agricultural Union, Stephan Hoffman, who said the impact of Makhado on this fragile environment, would undermine the ability of his children to survive in this barren and harsh land.

There are also profound concerns around the impact of this project on the sacred sites and traditional culture of this area. Given that the Venda comprise some of the most ancient of settled communities in the region, who have lived here for at least a millennium and possibly far longer, there are innumerable graves, shrines and other sacred artefacts which stand to be disturbed.

These concerns are summarised in a critique of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) by the London based NGO Gaia, which notes the consistent use of the description of the impacts as “long term but temporary,” indicating an intrinsic failure to recognise the real consequences of this project on this fragile environment.

Underlying these collective concerns on the impacts of the Makhado coal mine, Liz Hosken of Gaia states that the cumulative impact of this project, should it be permitted, would amount to ecocide – the deliberate destruction of the natural environment. The implications are serious for both investors and local stakeholders.

CoAL investors have been quite jittery about the prospects for the company, indicated by the decline to a fifth of its share value of two years ago. Its meetings in London have been picketed and shareholders have been made aware of the inherent risks associated with the Makahdo project and its future prospects.

A major shortcoming of the EIA process is that it does not consider the cumulative impacts of a project – it only examines each impact in isolation. Yet the cumulative impacts of this mine, on water, land, farming and the ability of humans and wildlife to survive in this area could in fact amount to ecocide.

The perceptions of those involved in interrogating the EIA are divergent. Some groups appear fairly satisfied; others feel that the process has been exclusive and insufficient. This is another major shortcomings of existing environmental regulation, where local communities, which stand to be most affected, have neither the means nor the expertise to deal with expert inputs in what is a demanding bureaucratic process.

CoAL has previously attracted controversy for its Vele mine near the Mapungubwe UNESCO heritage site, which has recently been granted permission to proceed. The major stumbling block for Vele was access to water, which has now been granted from the already stressed Limpopo River. Water availability is a far greater impediment to the Makhado mine’s development.

The reality is that there is insufficient water in the area to enable mining on the scale demanded by CoAL and that would also ensure all social and ecological needs are met. Even transferring water from other river basins is not a suitable long-term solution; it is simply borrowing from Peter to pay Paul.

Emerging understanding of water recirculation within water basins such as the Limpopo further emphasises the scale of the problem. The old thinking was that moisture was introduced into rainfall regions mainly from adjacent oceanic evaporation. This has been revised and studies by experts like R.J. van der Ent and others show that much of the rainfall within certain basins emanates instead from within that basin or from adjacent areas. This natural recycling, driven by evaporation and plant transpiration is thought to provide a significant amount of the moisture to the arid Limpopo region.

If the hydrological cycle is impacted in the area – as is inevitable should large-scale coal extraction be permitted – there is real potential for serious negative repercussions on the long-term sustainability of the area.

Energy companies are focused on boosting production and lowering costs associated with so-called fracking, a technique that uses high-pressure injections of water, sand and chemicals to break apart petroleum-saturated rock. The more thoroughly the rock is cracked, the more oil and gas will flow from each well.

The world’s largest oilfield service providers are leading the search for new technologies, with some companies focused on splintering the rock into a web of tiny fissures, and others seeking to create larger crevices in the richest zones.

“I want to crack the rock across as much of the reservoir as I can,” said David Pursell, a former fracking engineer who’s now an analyst at Tudor Pickering Holt & Co. in Houston. “That’s the Holy Grail.”

More aggressive fracking may heighten concerns about the risks associated with shale development, said Kirk Sherr, president of Regester Larkin Energy North America, an industry consultant.

“If critics already think fracking is bad, theoretically, super fracking would be super bad,” Sherr said.

Wider ‘HiWays’

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is studying whether fracking can contaminate water resources. The technique also has raised concerns about excessive water consumption because of the millions of gallons needed to frack each well.

Baker Hughes Inc. (BHI) has set its sights on “super cracks,” a method of blasting deeper into dense rock to create wider channels in order to funnel more oil and gas. The aim for the technology, branded “DirectConnect,” is to concentrate fracking power to target oil or gas buried deeper in the formation. The new product is being field tested by select customers, Rustom Mody, vice president of technology at Baker Hughes, said in a telephone interview.

Schlumberger Ltd. (SLB) has developed its own version of a super crack after six years of research. Called HiWay, it injects material to prop open wider pathways for the oil and gas to flow. The number of companies using HiWay in North America has grown from two a year ago to more than 20, the company said in October. Initial production at a well in the Barnett Shale was “significantly higher” with the technology, Chief Executive Officer Paal Kibsgaard told investors Aug. 30 at a Gleneagles, Scotland, energy conference.

No Seismic Impacts

Local officials in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Ohio are concerned about outbreaks of small earthquakes that have been occurring in areas where drilling has been accelerating. Seismologists have concluded it’s not the fracking causing the quakes. Rather, they found evidence it’s the injection underground of waste water from the wells that may change subterranean pressures in the rock, triggering tremors.

Jon Olson, an associate professor at the University of Texas in Austin who studies fracking, said he’s not aware of it causing any sizable earthquakes in the U.S.

Wider or deeper fractures won’t create bigger environmental problems, David Burnett, director of technology at Texas A&M University’s Energy Institute, said in an interview.

“The fracturing process is not causing the problems that are perceived by the public,” Burnett said. “No change in fracturing technology would change that.”

Concern in ‘Unknowns’

Most of the concern lies in the unknowns about the effects of fracking, Sherr said.

“How do you test a frack fluid that in and of itself is changing per well, per application, in terms of the various chemicals and other components,” he said. “This is a ferociously competitive business,” raising the possibility that some technology from smaller service providers “might not have been fully thought-through or tested prior to application in the field.”

New fracking techniques may not be any riskier than existing methods, said Amy Mall, senior policy analyst at the National Resources Defense Council.

“Just like any other type of fracking, we need a lot more independent scientific data and research to understand the risks and how best to prevent them,” she said in a telephone interview.

Schlumberger has said its HiWay technology provides environmental benefits by reducing water and sand use and the corresponding number of trucks delivering the materials.

More Finesse

Fracking, which has been around commercially since the 1950’s, hadn’t advanced much beyond “brute force and ignorance,” former Schlumberger Chief Executive Officer Andrew Gould said when the company acquired Smith International in February 2010. That’s now starting to change, he told investors on an Oct. 21 conference call.

The ability to tap into vast new oil and gas resources in shale formations is driving a wave of innovation to hone the technique and provide companies with a competitive advantage.

Halliburton Co. (HAL) is developing a plan it calls “frack of the future” that offers better technology to reduce the need for materials and labor for each well in addition to speeding up and increasing production, the company says.

To speed up the fracking process and reduce costs, Baker Hughes has developed disintegrating frack balls. Wells are fracked in stages, and companies drop down plastic balls to plug the well bore at various stages and isolate different zones for fracking. It can take several days to get a rig out to the site and fish out conventional frack balls used over the course of 20 or 30 stages in a typical well before production can begin.

Alka-Seltzer-like

Baker Hughes’s invention disintegrates, turning the balls into powder “like an Alka-Seltzer” tablet after about half a day, Mody said.

Halliburton’s contribution is called RapidFrac, a series of sliding sleeves that open throughout the horizontal well bore to isolate zones for fracking. Sliding sleeves are different from the other main type of fracking technique, which sends an explosive charge down the well bore to blast a hole in the casing. In both techniques, fracking fluid is then injected at high pressure through the hole, cracking the rock.

Sliding sleeves, which all three service companies offer, can cut costs in the Bakken from as much as $2.5 million per well to $750,000, according to a Sept. 19 investor note from JPMorgan Chase & Co. The Bakken is a geological formation that stretches from Alberta to the Northern U.S. Great Plains.

“We aren’t quite ready to call it a game changer considering its applications are limited to only a handful of basins,” according to the note written by a team led by analyst J. David Anderson. “But it clearly is one more tool that separates the big three service companies from everyone else.”

This appeal was made on Thursday by Sembcorp Siza Water and Umgeni Water in the wake of an unprecedented increase in demand on the Avondale reservoir.

The appeal was aimed at encouraging households and businesses in Ballito to conserve water to prevent the imposition of mandatory restrictions in future if the situation did not improve.

Umgeni Water spokesman, Shami Harichunder, said residents in certain parts of Ballito had been experiencing water shortages or low pressure, caused by increased water demand, since December 20.

Harichunder said the increased consumption from the previous day – estimated at 300 percent over the same period last year – had resulted in a sharp decrease in the level of the Avondale Reservoir.

Umgeni Water planned to upgrade the infrastructure by increasing the capacity of the treatment works and pipelines.

Work would begin in 2012.

“Water tankers will be deployed to provide households with supply during the affected periods,” said Harichunder.

He said it was likely that shortages would continue over the next two to three weeks until the demand reduced.

In October this year, Umgeni Water warned that massive industrial and residential development north of Durban and around King Shaka International Airport were putting pressure on the provision of water to these and other nearby areas.

Tabling Umgeni Water’s 2010/11 annual report in October, acting CEO Nica Gevers noted that demand was exceeding yield in the Umgeni system. This situation would prevail until 2013, when the Spring Grove Dam on the Mooi River would be commissioned.

Gevers said immediate action to alleviate possible water shortages included construction of the Spring Grove Dam and raising the wall of Hazelmere Dam.

To deal with the increasing demand in areas north of Durban, the utility was expediting completion of the Lower uThukela Bulk Water Supply System.