Article: Acid water plan due in December

[jes]

Water affairs will tell Cabinet in mid-December how it plans to resolve the acid mine drainage threat and how much this will cost, the deputy head of government communications said on Thursday.

You can view the page at http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/content.php/1305-Acid-water-plan-due-in-December

 

[killadoob]

I bet those plans involve lucrative deals for the BEE partners

1 billion for pocket stuffers and maybe a little something on the side for the actual work to commence

 

[McGuywer]

And the BEE partners got us in this mess...

 

[dlk001]

The problem has been there since 50's. Time to act and glad government has succumbed to the pressure to act.

 

[HavocXphere]

You restart all the pumps that were switched off. Then you find the people who profited & then made for the border and sue them to finance this whole shyte storm limitation exercise. That'll keep things financed for a few years. After that the taxpayer will have to carry the burden ad infinitum.

interministerial committee... should actually extend its mandate and look into this issue as well.

Miners have been screaming bloody murder about this for years. The powers that be chose to ignore until it reaches breaking point...and then they start with committee, mandates and reports instead of *acting*. All thats missing is a few memorandums of understanding and some grassroots level involvement....then we could play some bullshit bingo. (grr stupid lang filter ate the URL)

They act like this is a sudden crisis that caught them off-guard. The truth is that this has been common knowledge since 2002. And what has been done to prevent the rising water level during those 8 years....more pumps were switched off.

According to Stellenbosch University epidemiologist Dr Jo Barnes, 80 percent of existing sewage treatment works in South Africa were overloaded, and about 40 percent of those in towns were on the brink of collapse.

Actually a decent number of them have already collapsed years ago and have been pumping raw sewerage into rivers for years. To actually say so publicly is frowned upon...but try asking a sanitation expert in confidence.

 

[dlk001]

They act like this is a sudden crisis that caught them off-guard. The truth is that this has been common knowledge since 2002.

Actually, it was evident as early as mid 50’s that run-off mine water problem would rest ultimately with the mining companies. It was decided then that E.R.P.M could not prevent water flooding its workings once other mining companies in the central wits had ceased operations. A possible solution at the time would have been for government to force operating mines to bear the long-term costs and responsibility of pumping water from E.R.P.M. Another solution would have been to plug the water through boundary pillars between the mines and force individual mines to pump the water.

Its going to be hard to quantify groundwater flow patterns from abandoned mines but ultimately, the draw-down can be reached by pumping from E.R.P.M.