Persistent rumours that the KROPZ/Elandsfontein mine finally DID get its long-awaited integrated water use licence (WUL) could not be confirmed yet. IF the rumour is in fact TRUE, one cannot help wondering WHEN the licence was granted . . . because as recently as 10 April 2017 the underneath was published on Mining Online:
” Another mining story worth following is the Elandsfontein Phosphate Project in a highly sensitive area next to the Langebaan lagoon in the Western Cape. The project, owned by a private fertilizer company called Kropz, has conjured up a chorus of opposition voices from environmental groups. Despite the voices of concern, the company has received all the necessary environmental licences and is currently awaiting its water use license before it will start strip-mining later this year. “
Local West Coast people who seem to believe the rumour, said they heard it first-hand from “trustworthy sources at KROPZ” although nobody has seen any official document as proof. If the licence was not granted by 10 April when the article appeared, it means it must have been granted in the following three days before Easter Weekend . . . or even during Easter Weekend?
This comes amidst the critical drought in the region that necessitated stringent Level 3 water restrictions, and a renewed public outcry from opposition parties to protect the region’s unique eco-system and water resources. KROPZ has been using potable water from the Saldanha Bay Municipality for the construction phase and will also use same water during the first three years of operation. This has residents up in arms as they are not even allowed to water their vegetable gardens due to the severe water restrictions, but “there is somehow enough water to supply a mine?”
It also follows in the wake of the controversy around Atha Africa Venture’s plans to mine coal in a protected environment from the Yzermyn in the Wakkerstroom area in Mpumalanga.
Read the article here:
Some background about the notorious KROPZ phosphate mine:
ON A COLLISION COURSE
- Category: Mining in AFRICA Features
- Published on 10 April 2017
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The recent controversy stirred up by Atha Africa Ventures’ successful bid to mine coal in a protected environment has once again raised questions about whether mining and conservation are on a collision course, writes Leon Louw.
The recent decision by the Minister of Mineral Resources and the Minister of Environmental Affairs to award Atha Africa Ventures permission to mine coal in a protected environment from the Yzermyn in the Wakkerstroom area in Mpumalanga, was met with stern resistance by environmental groups. Atha plans to develop an underground mine to access two coal seams before the end of this year.
Although the pressure groups have drawn a clear line in the sand, Praveer Tripathi, senior vice-president at Atha Africa Ventures, is adamant that construction of the mine will start as early as June this year. Tripathi says that the first coal is expected to be delivered to surface by the end of October. And by the looks of it, it’s all systems go. Although there have been complications along the way, the Department of Mineral Resources (DMR) issued a mining right in April 2015, the environmental authorisation was awarded in August 2016, and the water use license was issued towards the end of last year. So why all the controversy?
| Mining license application procedure |
| The company must lodge an application in terms of section 22 of the Mineral and Petroleum Development Act, 2002 (Act No. 28 of 2002), which must contain the following: a plan contemplated in regulation 2(2), showing the land and mining area to which the application relates; a mining works programme; and a social and labour plan. Upon being lodged, the regional manager must accept or reject the application. Within 14 days of acceptance, the regional manager must notify the applicant in writing to conduct an environmental impact assessment (EIA) and submit an EMP for approval in terms of section 39, as well as notify and consult interested and affected parties within 180 days from the date of notice. Subsequent to the acceptance of the application, the minister must grant a mining right if:
Source: Department of Environmental Affairs. |
Mining in a sensitive area
Yzermyn is located in a sensitive and critical water catchment area in South Africa. It is also a biodiversity priority area. Although it is the source of three major South African rivers (the Tugela, the Vaal, and the Pongola), Tripathi says the proposed mine does not impact on the source of these rivers. “It was found that the mitigation measures were adequate to ensure that downstream users will not be negatively affected.”
The area has been classified as a Strategic Water Source Area, a National Freshwater Ecosystem Priority Area, and an Aquatic Critical Biodiversity Area. According to the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, the difference between a legally protected area and a protected environment — such as Mabola — is: “A legally protected area includes nature reserves, national parks, and special nature reserves, where mining in any form is prohibited. On the other hand, mining is allowed in a protected environment, but with the necessary permission from the Minister of Environmental Affairs and the Minister of Mineral Resources.”
Eight months before Atha was awarded the mining right and 10 months after Atha submitted its application for Yzermyn in 2014, Pinky Phosa, the MEC of the Mpumalanga Department of Environment and Tourism (M:DEDET), declared the Mabola region a protected environment. Mabola covers a substantial area of hydrological importance, although, according to Tripathi, the portion of it affected by mining is not classified as a high water yield area.
The irony of the Atha debacle is that mining has been taking place in this region for ages. Several historical mining sites in the area date back to the 1950s and 1960s. One such a site, in fact, is located within one kilometre from Atha’s Yzermyn. Before the minister declared Mabola a protected environment, as many as three coal mining companies were (and still are today) actively mining coal and anthracite in the same general region where Atha now intends operating. One of these, the Loskop Mine, which is a small anthracite mine, is located on the farm Loskop, which is declared in the Mabola Protected Environment. The owner of the farm has, according to Tripathi, permitted the mine to be in operation despite falling within a protected environment and at the same time, opposed Atha’s mine for the reason that it is in a protected environment. “This is very ironic,” says Tripathi.
“We acknowledge that there are three other mining companies operating close to or in the protected environment,” says DMR spokesperson, Ayanda Shezi. “However, it should be noted that these mining rights are old order rights that were issued in terms of the Mineral Act of 1991, well before the area was declared a protected environment,” says Shezi.
This issue is a hot potato. The question is, if an area is declared protected, a heritage site, or a national park, what happens with the mining and prospecting rights dished out to exploration companies before it became protected? In the case of those rights in Mabola, the answer is ‘nothing’ — mining continued as before.
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Long road to compliance
Yzermyn had a prospecting right on it before the area became protected. Before Atha purchased the asset in 2011, it belonged to a group of private shareholders who in turn bought it from Ingwe Collieries, a BHP Billiton subsidiary. The Anglo-Australian multinational acquired the prospecting right in 2006. “We thus had a lot of data and information available,” says Tripathi. The company began drilling the area in earnest in January 2011, while the scoping and environmental studies were initiated in 2012 and the mining right submitted in February 2013. “It has been a long process to become fully compliant, and we encountered a lot of challenges along the way,” says Tripathi.
According to Shezi, Atha has complied with all the necessary requirements to be given permission to mine. “We cannot grant permission for mining-related activities to take place until the applicant has received authorisation from the relevant organs of state that have jurisdiction in respect of the activity, including a water use license, a mining right, and an approved environmental management plan (EMP), as well as an environmental authorisation.”
“The company has submitted all the necessary documentation and reports, including the EMP, Mining Works Programme, and Social Labour Plan,” says Shezi. These reports provide full details of the potential effects and the mitigation measures that have been undertaken by the holder to be implemented throughout the life of the mine. “Atha has demonstrated that they have access to financial resources and the technical ability to conduct the mining activities and implement the proposed mitigation measures. In addition, the economic situation in the Wakkerstroom area will be improved through job creation in the area. Supplementary mitigation measures have been considered by the Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) through the authorisation to mine in a protected environment,” says Shezi.
Lessons learnt
In hindsight, Tripathi says several lessons have been learnt during the process. The road to compliance was a lot longer than what the company initially envisaged. “However, we always worked on finding a peaceful and co-existing model with the different stakeholders,” says Tripathi. Yzermyn is expected to produce about 2.2 million tonnes of coal per year from its underground mine, and will have a mine life of more than 17 years. Although the resource is about 121 million tonnes, only 40 million tonnes of coal will be mined over the life of mine. Most of this coal will be exported. “We will leave more than 60% of the coal in pillars underground to prevent subsidence,” says Tripathi.
The biggest environmental concern is damage to the wetlands, but according to Shezi, the mine does not pose any serious threat to the wetland ecology. “Because mining will take place underground, the damage to the surface environment is limited. Unlike opencast mining, it doesn’t require regular blasting,” says Shezi. However, he points out that there are a number of risks associated with underground mining methods. “Underground mining has the potential for tunnel collapses and land subsidence. There is also the danger that the mine can release toxic compounds into the air and water,” says Shezi. As water takes on harmful concentrations of minerals and heavy metals, it becomes a contaminant. This contaminated water can pollute the region surrounding the mine and beyond most underground mining operations. It can also increase sedimentation in nearby rivers through their use of hydraulic pumps and suction dredges,” he adds.
All the measures to protect the Mabola environment have been put in place. According to Molewa, the EMP makes provision for a plant rescue and protection plan. This plan must be submitted to the DEA. Furthermore, any activities that may encroach on a water resource are not allowed without authorisation from the Department of Water and Sanitation. “We also require that appropriate dust-suppression measures and measures to mitigate and manage acid mine drainage must be applied,” says Molewa. Atha must also submit quarterly reports to the department on the status of permit conditions, as well as on the progress in meeting the targets of the draft Mabola EMP. According to Tripathi, the company has made provision for R83.5-million for environmental mitigation.
Operational issues
Although the two coal seams — Alfred and Dundas — that Atha is targeting are only about 1.60m high, Tripathi says the coal qualities are ‘fantastic’. The raw coal qualities are 23 megajoules (MJ) on average with sulphur below one; however, the volatile values are not as great. Although Tripathi emphasises that the coal will be saleable, he says that “We are accessing the seam through one adit. Branching from the adit will be two declines, one targeting the Alfred seam and the other accessing the Dundas seam. Each decline will have four sections, so in total there will be eight sections.” The mining methodology at Yzermyn will be a combination of drill and blast and using continuous miners. There will be four sections on drill and blast and four sections being mined with four continuous miners. The coal will be sent to surface via a conveyor belt.
“We had to do away with the washing facility on site because of the environmental concerns,” says Tripathi. He explains that the biggest concern for the DEA was the discard dump, as it had to be constructed within the protected area, which was a major problem. Fortunately, the coal markets changed drastically over the past five or six years, and that helped to find a solution. There was sufficient demand for a product that didn’t need to be washed, and Atha could do away with the wash plant and discard dump. “We decided to crush and screen the coal and sell it raw. Because it is an underground mine, we will be able to have good quality control with the continuous miners so we can limit the contamination of our coal,” says Tripathi. The 23MJ unwashed raw product will be trucked to the siding in Piet Retief about 58km from the mine. After that, Transnet will haul it on rail to the Richards Bay Coal Terminal, where Atha has secured an allocation.
A thorny issue
The issue of mining in or next to protected areas is not a new one. Mining Mirror probed this thorny issue in the past when we reported on several companies applying for mining licenses in areas bordering national parks, heritage sites, or other protected areas.
The two projects that spring to mind first is Ibutho Coal’s Fuleni Project bordering Hluhluwe Imfolozi Park in KwaZulu-Natal. Fuleni died a slow death — or did the mainstream media just loose interest in reporting on the operation?
Coal of Africa’s Vele Project next to the Mapungubwe National Park in Limpopo was another controversial undertaking. The company had to negotiate its way through a minefield of opposition, legislation, and environmental liabilities, but eventually Vele produced its first coal in April 2012. Since then it has been an on–off affair. The mine, which has been plagued by operational issues and hampered by changing legislation and unpredictable weather conditions, has not had a smooth run. After lying idle for a few years now, Vele was recently resuscitated when the DMR granted it an environmental authorisation in terms of the National Environmental Management Act, 1998 (Act No. 107 of 1998) (NEMA) and the Environmental Impact Assessment Regulations of 2014 for stream diversion and associated infrastructural activities. The mine is currently awaiting approval of an integrated water use licence (IWUL) from the Department of Water and Sanitation. The mine had to apply for these regulatory approvals to be able to modify the processing plant, which was one of the operational bottlenecks the company experienced when it first started unearthing coal five years ago.
Another mining story worth following is the Elandsfontein Phosphate Project in a highly sensitive area next to the Langebaan lagoon in the Western Cape. The project, owned by a private fertilizer company called Kropz, has conjured up a chorus of opposition voices from environmental groups. Despite the voices of concern, the company has received all the necessary environmental licences and is currently awaiting its water use license before it will start strip-mining later this year.
According to Warren Beech, partner and head of mining at Hogan Lovells (SA) it is possible for mining operations to be conducted in a socially and economically sustainable way, and for mining and conservation to co-exist. Beech does point out, though, that for this to be achieved, there must be compliance with the legislative framework. “It has become critical for stakeholders to work together to break down the barriers created by the distrust that this brings, and a commitment to a level of maturity where stakeholders can acknowledge that there will be circumstances when a mining project should not proceed because of the significant and possible irretrievable impacts to ecologically sensitive areas, which include rich biodiversity and access to critical sources of clean water,” says Beech.
“There is, of course, always the challenge of interpretation and application of the legislative framework, which is aimed at balancing the interests of stakeholders with diverse views on what it means to carry out socially and environmentally sustainable mining operations, while at the same time addressing key issues, such as unemployment and poverty,” says Beech.
Stakeholders often express a spectrum of views from the ‘not in my backyard’ approach, which has as its fundamental premise that no mining should take place in certain areas, to the other side of the continuum, where proponents of mining operations hold the view that the mining operations should proceed because of the positive benefits to employment, skills development, community upliftment through programmes in the Social and Labour Plan, infrastructure development, and broad-based black economic empowerment.
“It is extremely difficult to argue against these strongly held views, because mining and its impact are often very personal and very real. They are often extremely polarising and in many instances, the actual and perceived benefits, such as employment and community upliftment, promise immediate gains, and environment and related aspects become overshadowed by what is immediately promised,” Beech concludes.
As the global population grows and demand for resources increase, more land will be needed for mining these resources. This puts mining and conservation on a collision course and it is an issue that demands serious attention.
| Legislation governing mining and environmental matters in SA |
| The primary legislation governing mining and environmental matters in South Africa is the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act, 2002 (Act No. 28 of 2002) (MPRDA) and the National Environmental Management Act, 1998 (Act No. 107 of 1998) (NEMA).
The objectives of the MPRDA include recognition of the right of the state to exercise sovereignty over all the mineral and petroleum resources within the country and to give effect to the principle of the state’s custodianship of the nation’s mineral and petroleum resources; promoting equitable access to the mineral and petroleum resources to all people of South Africa; substantially and meaningfully expanding opportunities for historically disadvantaged persons; promoting economic growth as well as mineral and petroleum resources development in the Republic; promoting employment and advancing social and economic welfare of all South Africans; giving effect to section 24 of the Constitution by ensuring that the nation’s mineral and petroleum resources are developed in an orderly and ecologically sustainable manner while promoting justifiable social and economic development; and ensuring that holders of mining and production rights contribute towards the socio-economic development of the areas in which they are operating. The stated objectives of NEMA include providing for cooperative environmental governance by establishing principles for decision-making on matters affecting the environment, institutions that will promote cooperative governance, and procedures for coordinating environmental functions (exercised by organs of state), and to provide for certain aspects associated with this, including recognition that everyone has a right to an environment that is not harmful to his or her health or well-being, and sustainable development, which requires the integration of social, economic, and environmental factors in the planning, implementation, and evaluation of decisions to ensure that development serves present and future generations. These objectives, on the face of it, appear to be complementary and seem to promote decision-making, which promotes ecologically sustainable mining operations. It is implied, in these objectives, and acknowledged that mining can have a potential detrimental impact on the environment and communities in and around mining operations. As a result, a complex legislative framework has been implemented that applies to mining and which has, as its purpose, proper consideration of mining operations in the licencing and authorisation process, aimed at ensuring compliance with the overall objectives of achieving socially and economically sustainable mining operations. In addition to the MPRDA and NEMA, the legislative framework includes important legislation such as the National Environmental Management: Protected Areas Act, 2003 (Act No. 57 of 2003) (NEM:PAA); the National Environmental Management: Waste Act, 2008 (Act No. 59 of 2008) (NEM:WA); the National Water Act, 1998 (Act No. 36 of 1998) (NWA); and the National Environmental Management: Biodiversity Act, 2004 (Act No. 10 of 2004) (NEM:BA). The implementation of the One Environmental System following various amendments to the MPRDA and NEMA, is further intended to support objective, transparent, administratively fair, and proper decision-making regarding socially and environmentally sustainable mining operations. Proper compliance with the various pieces of legislation, both from the perspective of issuing prospecting or mining rights and the perspective of the environmental authorisations (including water use licences), should result in the correct decision being made regarding whether mining operations should proceed or not. With regard to mining in sensitive or protected areas, NEM:PAA plays a significant role. Section 48 provides that despite any other legislation (including the MPRDA and others), no person may conduct commercial prospecting, mining, exploration, production, or relevant activities in (a) a special nature reserve, (b) national park or nature reserve, (c) in a protected environment without the written permission of the minister and the cabinet member responsible for mineral and energy affairs, or (d) in a protected area referred to in section 9(b), (c), or (d) of NEM:PAA. It continues and provides that when applying the provisions of this section, the minister is required to consider the interests of local communities and environmental principles referred to in section 2 of NEMA. Source: Warren Beech, partner and head of mining at Hogan Lovells (SA). |
Click below to read the May 2017 issue of Mining Mirror.
