A staggering number of South Africa’s abandoned coal mines pose a deadly risk to local communities and threaten to pollute the water of millions of South Africans, according to a new report by Human Rights Watch (HRW).
At the point where their mining operations cease to be profitable, companies in South Africa often deregister and disappear. This helps them avoid a legal requirement to rehabilitate the mined-out sites, a process whose costs can run into tens of millions of dollars. As of 2021, there were 6,100 mines designated as “derelict and ownerless”.
According to HRW, unrehabilitated mines can inflict immense environmental and social damage, with the danger being particularly notable in the case of coal mines.
“Abandoned and unsecured mines leave behind a toxic legacy of polluted land and highly-acidic water that can harm local communities in a myriad of ways,” the report notes.
The main risk arises from the fact that coal in South Africa is found predominantly in ores containing sulfur-bearing minerals, which become acidic when interacting with water.
This occurred in Carolina, a municipality in the eastern part of the country. In 2012, a rainstorm caused acidic water from abandoned coal mines to leak into an adjacent dam, a water supply source for the area. Local people interviewed by HRW complained that drinking tap water would result in stomach aches that could last for the whole day.
“The water will come out cream white and you have to leave it settle. Other times it comes out with brown or black scum and if you leave it settle at the bottom, you’ll see how dirty that water is.”
A resident
Acid leakage can also lead to the death of cattle and pollute water for irrigation, thus disrupting people’s livelihoods. Other risks posed by abandoned mines include frequent injuries and deaths from tunnel collapses, as well as drownings in flooded pits.
Gov’t Does Little to Solve Problem
The legal requirement for companies to rehabilitate the environment affected by the mining operations has been in place since 2002. However, the report notes, “government enforcement of these requirements has been grossly inadequate, making it easier for companies to evade cleanup responsibilities.”
Furthermore, the authorities were reported to ignore complaints of violations or refuse to get involved in any enforcement action. Even so, future cleanup costs required to be set aside by companies rarely cover actual costs of rehabilitation and are rarely updated annually despite a legislated requirement to do so, the report hints.
The rehabilitation process remains very slow. With just around two mining sites rehabilitated every year, thousands of abandoned mines are likely to continue endangering South African communities for a long time to come.
South Africa’s constitution recognises the right to a healthy environment. Other human rights, including the right to health, are enshrined in regional and international treaties, including the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
These rights mean little in practice to the local communities who face the lasting legacies of the government’s inaction. South Africa has an opportunity to change course by protecting the rights of people and communities living adjacent to old and unrehabilitated coal mines.
While the focus of this report is on coal, its findings are broadly applicable to South Africa’s other mineral sectors and the over 6,000 abandoned mines in South Africa.
“Now is the time to ensure the lessons learned from coal mining, especially those related to the need for the full range of costs from mining development to be borne by the mining industry and not the communities living next to the mines, are applied to future mining activities.”
Report
