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Johannesburg – The mining industry is developing a comprehensive plan to decontaminate around 250 megalitres of acid mine water in Mpumalanga for use by platinum mines both in that province and in Limpopo.
A partnership between the biggest coal producers, emerging platinum mines in the two provinces and the department of water affairs is in the final draft phase, which will be published in the first week of May.
The first announcement in this regard was made by Anglo American chair Sir John Parker on Thursday afternoon in London, at the group’s annual general meeting.
According to Parker the project will culminate in the delivery of safe drinking water to about 2 million people living in the environs of the platinum mines on the eastern limb of the Bushveld.
“If accepted, it will stave off an ecological acid mine water disaster in Mpumalanga and simultaneously solve the problem of water shortages for the mining industry and communities around Polokwane, Mokopane and Burgersfort,” says Bertus Bierman, managing engineer tasked with spatial development for Anglo American Platinum in Polokwane.
The acid mine water project is an alternative to the Olifants River water resource development plan involving 21 platinum mines and the department of water affairs.
Efforts to implement this plan for delivering water to the platinum mines from the Olifants River have been made since 2004.
The water would not have been sourced from the Olifants River alone.
The plan was to supplement it with acid mine water from eMalahleni, treated sewage from Ekhurhuleni and even with acid mine water from the Grootvlei mine.
But the volumes were insufficient to for this to be cost effective.
It was also restricted by the department of water affairs' plans to store up water in dams in the Olifants River for artificial floods to fulfil the environmental role of natural flood waters.
After years of wrangling about water volumes and prices, the plan was finally abandoned last September.
Water affairs also ditched plans to introduce artificial flooding as it became evident that the dams in the Olifants River did not have the capacity to handle artificial flows.
The current plan is to consolidate capital expenditure by the six largest coal producers in the eMalahleni environment in order to clean up and purify acid mine water in the region.
A decision is still needed as to the level of purification.
The coal mining groups will bear the cost of pipelines to carry the purified water to the Olifants River and convey it from there to the platinum projects in the north-east.
The platinum mines will pay for operating and maintaining the projects.
The plan is extremely complex.
It has to be designed and executed in such a way that the water becomes available after the closure of the respective coal mines, and has to be built into the rehabilitation requirements on the coal mines’ closure.
Various conceptual studies and risk evaluations will be processed next month.
Feasibility studies will start if the final conceptual studies for the respective mines, the department of water affairs and the department of mineral resources are accepted.
On Thursday Parker also announced that Anglo would this year double the purification capacity of the eMalahleni water plant, which is converting acid mine water from Anglo Coal and BHP Billiton mines into clean potable water.
The plant, which is currently purifying 23 megalitres of water a day through the process of reverse osmosis, will be enlarged to have a purification capacity of 50 megalitres to, among other things, make the purification process available to other smaller coal producers in the region.
A partnership between the biggest coal producers, emerging platinum mines in the two provinces and the department of water affairs is in the final draft phase, which will be published in the first week of May.
The first announcement in this regard was made by Anglo American chair Sir John Parker on Thursday afternoon in London, at the group’s annual general meeting.
According to Parker the project will culminate in the delivery of safe drinking water to about 2 million people living in the environs of the platinum mines on the eastern limb of the Bushveld.
“If accepted, it will stave off an ecological acid mine water disaster in Mpumalanga and simultaneously solve the problem of water shortages for the mining industry and communities around Polokwane, Mokopane and Burgersfort,” says Bertus Bierman, managing engineer tasked with spatial development for Anglo American Platinum in Polokwane.
The acid mine water project is an alternative to the Olifants River water resource development plan involving 21 platinum mines and the department of water affairs.
Efforts to implement this plan for delivering water to the platinum mines from the Olifants River have been made since 2004.
The water would not have been sourced from the Olifants River alone.
The plan was to supplement it with acid mine water from eMalahleni, treated sewage from Ekhurhuleni and even with acid mine water from the Grootvlei mine.
But the volumes were insufficient to for this to be cost effective.
It was also restricted by the department of water affairs' plans to store up water in dams in the Olifants River for artificial floods to fulfil the environmental role of natural flood waters.
After years of wrangling about water volumes and prices, the plan was finally abandoned last September.
Water affairs also ditched plans to introduce artificial flooding as it became evident that the dams in the Olifants River did not have the capacity to handle artificial flows.
The current plan is to consolidate capital expenditure by the six largest coal producers in the eMalahleni environment in order to clean up and purify acid mine water in the region.
A decision is still needed as to the level of purification.
The coal mining groups will bear the cost of pipelines to carry the purified water to the Olifants River and convey it from there to the platinum projects in the north-east.
The platinum mines will pay for operating and maintaining the projects.
The plan is extremely complex.
It has to be designed and executed in such a way that the water becomes available after the closure of the respective coal mines, and has to be built into the rehabilitation requirements on the coal mines’ closure.
Various conceptual studies and risk evaluations will be processed next month.
Feasibility studies will start if the final conceptual studies for the respective mines, the department of water affairs and the department of mineral resources are accepted.
On Thursday Parker also announced that Anglo would this year double the purification capacity of the eMalahleni water plant, which is converting acid mine water from Anglo Coal and BHP Billiton mines into clean potable water.
The plant, which is currently purifying 23 megalitres of water a day through the process of reverse osmosis, will be enlarged to have a purification capacity of 50 megalitres to, among other things, make the purification process available to other smaller coal producers in the region.
