Living between big business and the average man

Small mining communities admire her courage; some government departments fear her; a few oil companies and big mining houses reacted with disdain to her persistence – but, ultimately, even the most animated opponents have to salute the steely resolve of one of South Africa’s most celebrated environmental activists, Mariette Liefferink.

Chief executive officer of the Federation for a Sustainable Environment (FSE) and chairperson for the Public Environmental Arbiters (PEA), Liefferink is the atypical activist.

She has earned the T-shirt for her persistence, and several awards for her excellence as an environmental whistle-blower, but she does not boast a six-figure annual salary, a luxury car nor a headline on the social pages of a newspaper.

Liefferink was nominated for the SAB Environmentalist of the Year Award in 2008, and the Goldman Prize in 2009.

Furthermore, she received the coveted Chancellor’s Medal of the North-West University in 2009. This was in recognition for her passionate and unselfish service to communities and for her work with regard to injustices concerning the environment.

She played a major part in creating public awareness of the environmental crisis in the western parts of Gauteng through which the Wonderfonteinspruit flows.

Liefferink was appointed a member of the board of the National Nuclear Regulator in November 2009.

Recently, she was also welcomed as member of the steering committee of the national environmental impact management strategy process.

Fighting the heavyweights, and tasting success

Liefferink is small in physical stature, but a giant in every other way. And she is prepared to go the distance – the full 15 rounds, or seven years – against heavyweights.

For seven years, she fulminated against Shell’s proposed flagship highway petrol stations in the residential areas of Sandton and the establishment of precedent, namely the erection of highway petrol stations in residential areas.

Shell announced its abandonment of the proposed development on the eve of the World Summit on Sustainable Development.

Liefferink also disclosed environmental infractions by the Goldfields mining group in terms of approved environmental management plans to organs of state and to the news media. She called for damages on behalf of affected parties.

Through her persistent work, Goldfields was forced to submit biannual reports and to clean up tailing spillages.

By exposing spillages and acid mine drainage (AMD) caused by Harmony Gold in the Randfontein area, monthly meetings by the communities were called with Harmony, resulting in improved management of AMD as well as payment of damages to affected landowners.

A new form of activism

Proactive oppositional environmental activism regarding mined land in South Africa is a fairly new phenomenon.

For many years, the gold mines of the Witwatersrand had been the cornerstone on which the wealth of the country was built.

Until the 1990s, environmental activism in the mining industry, particularly gold mining, was driven by self-interest. It was motivated, for example, by damages suffered by farmers, landowners and occupiers of land affected by pollution caused by local mining operations.

As a rule, they sought relief or damages for their affected properties. The result was usually that the disgruntled parties were bought out, and mining companies would typically continue with their operations.

Liefferink’s style of activism essentially answers to the call of environmental and social justice, morality and equity. It is not motivated by narrow self-interest, but instead pursues objectives to protect the rights of indigent and sometimes ill-informed members of urban mining communities. It is built on the real voices and engagement of ordinary people.

With the backing of the FSE, she follows a grassroots movement to build capacity, to empower; to inform the disempowered, the marginalised, the disadvantaged and vulnerable members of communities, mostly resident in urban environments that originally had been developed by the mining companies. It is centred on the development of broad-based community involvement and participation.

Whistle-blowing – honest and truthful disclosure of environmental incidents and emergencies to the news media – forms an important and highly successful component of Liefferink’s activism.

Proper remediation is called for to prevent the further escalation of environmental disasters such as sinkholes, water pollution and dust fallouts.

An unselfish environmental advocate

Initially, Liefferink’s environmental campaigns were self-funded. It imposed significant hardship upon her, a mother of four.

Poor mining communities are in need of financial assistance and do not have the capacity or means to reimburse her for costs incurred on their behalf. It was necessary for Liefferink to make funds available for them to be able to make telephone calls, hire halls, print pamphlets and brochures, fax or e-mail letters and travel to public venues to participate in environmental decision-making processes.

“The sponsorships I receive are very modest,” she says.

“I have neither vanity, nor ambition, nor any desire except that I hope to make a difference.

“The successes that I have achieved thus far exceed my modest expectations and give me the satisfaction of thinking that I have contributed something to the defeat of unsustainable mining practices. That is the reward I desire,” she adds.

A history of abuse

The Witwatersrand has been mined for more than a century.

The Witwatersrand mining basin is composed of the Far East Basin, Central Rand Basin, Western Basin, Far Western Basin, KOSH (Klerksdorp, Orkey, Stilfontein and Hartbeestfontein) and the Free State gold mines. It is the world’s largest gold and uranium mining basin with the extraction – from more than 120 mines – of 43 500 tonnes of gold in one century and 73 000 tonnes of uranium between 1953 and 1995, explains Liefferink.

The basin covers an area of 1 600 square kilometres, and led to a legacy of some 400km2 of mine tailings dams and six billion tonnes of pyrite tailings containing low-grade uranium.

The mineral pyrite and other sulphur-containing minerals are common. Mining gold inevitably involves exposing these pyritic materials to oxygen and water. In the deep gold mines, these materials are exposed in the voids created by the mining process.

Furthermore, they are brought to the surface as an unwanted waste product along with the gold, where they and other unwanted materials are separated from the gold, and historically were put in huge refuge piles known as tailings dams. Here, too, the pyritic materials are exposed to oxygen and water.

During mining, the mining companies de-water the mining basins, but when mining stops, the pre-mining flow patterns and volumes of water are restored. When the water, in combination with oxygen, comes into contact with the pyrite, it causes AMD.

AMD will continue for centuries. The potential volume of AMD for the Witwatersrand Goldfield alone amounts to an estimated 350ML/day (1ML = 1 000m3 or one million litres). This represents 10% of the portable water supplied daily by Rand Water to municipal authorities for urban distribution in Gauteng province and surrounding areas, at a cost of R3 000/ML.

The gold mining industry in South Africa (principally the Witwatersrand goldfield) is in decline, but the post-closure decant of AMD is an enormous threat, and could worsen if remedial activities are delayed or not implemented.

The Western Basin, the smallest of the mining basins, was the first to flood with AMD (in 2002) and to decant (flow) on surface. It had irreversible and devastating ecological implications.

The volumes of AMD that are decanting on surface are between 18 and 36 million litres per day, but during heavy rainfall the volume is 60 million litres.

The mining companies can only partially treat between 12.5 and 18 million litres per day. The rest is discharged untreated into the receiving environment.

The Central Basin is flooding between 0.6 and 0.9 metres per day, and it is 580m from decant (flow) on surface.

The decant will take place from a number of decant points within the central business district of Johannesburg. The decant volumes will be 60 million litres per day.

The decant of AMD charged with toxic and radioactive heavy metals and extremely high sulphate content will not only have a devastating impact on the environment and water sources, but will also affect surface stability and the structural integrity of the buildings in the Johannesburg CBD, says Liefferink.

The Eastern Basin is flooding. The beleaguered Aurora Mine can no longer pay the salaries of the miners who are pumping the mine
void water.

In all, 108 million litres of untreated mine void water is currently being discharged per day into the Blesbokspruit, which forms part of the highly compromised Vaal Barrage System.

If the pumps stop, the entire Eastern Basin will flood with significant impacts, including surface instability or earthquakes, she says.

The Far Western Basin is the largest basin, but there is still active gold mining taking place within it.

AMD is responsible for the most costly environmental and socio-economic impacts. This water has a low pH and a high acidity, and is associated with surface and groundwater pollution, degradation of soil quality, harming aquatic sediments and fauna, and allowing heavy metals to seep into the environment.

Government’s response

Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs Buleywa Sonjica visited one affected area in March this year and invested R6.9 million to partially treat 12.5 million litres of AMD, which costs Rand Uranium R2.5m per month.

This partial treatment of the AMD does not remove the sulphates or manganese from the water, with the result that the partially treated water deposits 100 tonnes of salt (from heavy metals) every day into the Tweelopiespruit – the first receptor of the partially treated AMD. (The Tweelopiespruit is a classified Class V River, or a high acute toxic hazard.)

From the aforementioned, it can be inferred that the R6.9m is a trivial amount. It has been used to purchase lime, which was added where the untreated AMD was flowing into the Krugersdorp Game Reserve. This resulted in toxic and radioactive heavy metals, including uranium, precipitating into the Hippo Dam.

Currently, untreated AMD is again flowing uncontrolled into the Tweelopiespruit, since the R6.9m has now been depleted.

Minister Sonjica acknowledged in March that AMD was “a triple-A priority” and “a ticking time bomb”.

Deputy Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs Rejoice Mabhudafhasi, in her speech on the Environment budget vote, acknowledged the gravity of the problem. “There is a big problem of acid mine drainage in the Witwatersrand area, which threatens our groundwater resources and the very integrity of the environment and human survival. Even the famous Cradle of Humankind, a World Heritage Site, is under threat.

“We are currently engaged with short-term interventions to alleviate the worst effects, but the time has come for those responsible to account for their actions.”

The parliamentary portfolio committee requested Liefferink to address it in parliament on the issue of AMD on 21 July.

Liefferink forces the government to back down

Liefferink says that Minister Sonjica announced a public-private partnership on 18 March 2010 in order to address the issue of AMD.

Liefferink requested a copy of the document at the Department of Water Affairs Western Basin Void Technical Working Group Meeting on 26 May. Then government admitted that this partnership did not exist.

Furthermore, the deputy director-general, during a meeting on 14 June, admitted there were no short-, medium- or long-term plans, neither any definite time frames to address the AMD crisis.

“This causes grave concern. Water is necessary for economic growth. It’s not merely a basic human right but a need,” says Liefferink.

Parliament invites Liefferink

The invitation by parliament for Liefferink to address the parliamentary portfolio committee in July has caused the FSE to suspend court action temporarily. This action will proceed if there is no further intervention by the government, warns Liefferink.

The director-general and the deputy director-general have invited her to meet with them. “We shall have to exhaust these remedies first before we embark on legal action,” she says.

The ultimate honour

Liefferink has been invited as a speaker to the 2010 symposium hosted by the International Mine Water Association (IMWA) in Canada.

The IMWA is a pre-eminent international forum for discussion on mine water management and boasts 480 individual members from all continents as well as 30 corporate members.

Liefferink’s paper on proactive environmental activism as a way to promote the remediation of mined land and AMD has been elected from more than 100 presentations from all over the globe – another testimony to the fact that South Africa possesses in her a rare environmental jewel. ▲

Fanie Heyns