Aurora’s Grootvlei to be prosecuted
June 4th, 2010The Water Affairs and Environment minister told Parliament on Friday that her department has decided to begin legal proceedings against the Grootvlei mine on the East Rand, because of its inability to comply with the discharge water quality laid down in its licence.
“My department has conducted several site visits to the Grootvlei mine in order to investigate the lack of treatment of the underground mine water. The site visits revealed that chemical treatment was either not taking place or not effective to ensure compliance with the license conditions.”
“The treatment records of January, February and March 2010 were examined. The investigation indicated that chemical treatment during the last three months occurred on an irregular basis due to the mine experiencing financial constraints.”
“The quality of the final discharge water was found not to be compliant with the conditions of the license issued to the Grootvlei mine.”
The minister said that a pre-directive was issued on 14 April and a directive was issued on 28 April, to the Grootvlei Mine to put measures in place that would enable them to comply with the license conditions within a specific time frame.
“The deadline for compliance with license conditions has lapsed,” she said, “and the mine has not complied, which has triggered a decision by my department to institute legal proceedings against the Grootvlei mine.”
Environmental critics of the mine have told the South African TV programme ‘Carte Blanche’ that Grootvlei is falling apart because of top-level mismanagement and corruption in Aurora Empowerment Systems, the company in charge of the mine since October last year.
Source: I-Net Bridge
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