On a collision course

The recent controversy stirred up by Atha Africa Ventures’ successful bid to mine coal in a protected environment has once again raised questions about whether mining and conservation are on a collision course, writes Leon Louw, editor of the magazines African Mining and Mining Mirror 

The recent decision by the Minister of Mineral Resources and the Minister of Environmental Affairs to award Atha Africa Ventures permission to mine coal in a protected environment from the Yzermyn in the Wakkerstroom area in Mpumalanga, was met with stern resistance by environmental groups. Atha plans to develop an underground mine to access two coal seams before the end of this year.

Although the pressure groups have drawn a clear line in the sand, Praveer Tripathi, senior vice-president at Atha Africa Ventures, is adamant that construction of the mine will start as early as June this year. Tripathi says that the first coal is expected to be delivered to surface by the end of October. And by the looks of it, it’s all systems go. Although there have been complications along the way, the Department of Mineral Resources (DMR) issued a mining right in April 2015, the environmental authorisation was awarded in August 2016, and the water use license was issued towards the end of last year. So why all the controversy?

Mining in a sensitive area

Yzermyn is located in a sensitive and critical water catchment area in South Africa. It is also a biodiversity priority area. Although it is the source of three major South African rivers (the Tugela, the Vaal, and the Pongola), Tripathi says the proposed mine does not impact on the source of these rivers. “It was found that the mitigation measures were adequate to ensure that downstream users will not be negatively affected.”

The area has been classified as a Strategic Water Source Area, a National Freshwater Ecosystem Priority Area, and an Aquatic Critical Biodiversity Area. According to the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, the difference between a legally protected area and a protected environment — such as Mabola — is: “A legally protected area includes nature reserves, national parks, and special nature reserves, where mining in any form is prohibited. On the other hand, mining is allowed in a protected environment, but with the necessary permission from the Minister of Environmental Affairs and the Minister of Mineral Resources.” 

Eight months before Atha was awarded the mining right and 10 months after Atha submitted its application for Yzermyn in 2014, Pinky Phosa, the MEC of the Mpumalanga Department of Environment and Tourism (M:DEDET), declared the Mabola region a protected environment. Mabola covers a substantial area of hydrological importance, although, according to Tripathi, the portion of it affected by mining is not classified as a high water yield area.

The irony of the Atha debacle is that mining has been taking place in this region for ages. Several historical mining sites in the area date back to the 1950s and 1960s. One such a site, in fact, is located within one kilometre from Atha’s Yzermyn. Before the minister declared Mabola a protected environment, as many as three coal mining companies were (and still are today) actively mining coal and anthracite in the same general region where Atha now intends operating. One of these, the Loskop Mine, which is a small anthracite mine, is located on the farm Loskop, which is declared in the Mabola Protected Environment. The owner of the farm has, according to Tripathi, permitted the mine to be in operation despite falling within a protected environment and at the same time, opposed Atha’s mine for the reason that it is in a protected environment. “This is very ironic,” says Tripathi.

“We acknowledge that there are three other mining companies operating close to or in the protected environment,” says DMR spokesperson, Ayanda Shezi. “However, it should be noted that these mining rights are old order rights that were issued in terms of the Mineral Act of 1991, well before the area was declared a protected environment,” says Shezi.

This issue is a hot potato. The question is, if an area is declared protected, a heritage site, or a national park, what happens with the mining and prospecting rights dished out to exploration companies before it became protected? In the case of those rights in Mabola, the answer is ‘nothing’ — mining continued as before. 

Long road to compliance

Yzermyn had a prospecting right on it before the area became protected. Before Atha purchased the asset in 2011, it belonged to a group of private shareholders who in turn bought it from Ingwe Collieries, a BHP Billiton subsidiary. The Anglo-Australian multinational acquired the prospecting right in 2006. “We thus had a lot of data and information available,” says Tripathi. The company began drilling the area in earnest in January 2011, while the scoping and environmental studies were initiated in 2012 and the mining right submitted in February 2013. “It has been a long process to become fully compliant, and we encountered a lot of challenges along the way,” says Tripathi.

According to Shezi, Atha has complied with all the necessary requirements to be given permission to mine. “We cannot grant permission for mining-related activities to take place until the applicant has received authorisation from the relevant organs of state that have jurisdiction in respect of the activity, including a water use license, a mining right, and an approved environmental management plan (EMP), as well as an environmental authorisation.” 

“The company has submitted all the necessary documentation and reports, including the EMP, Mining Works Programme, and Social Labour Plan,” says Shezi. These reports provide full details of the potential effects and the mitigation measures that have been undertaken by the holder to be implemented throughout the life of the mine. “Atha has demonstrated that they have access to financial resources and the technical ability to conduct the mining activities and implement the proposed mitigation measures. In addition, the economic situation in the Wakkerstroom area will be improved through job creation in the area. Supplementary mitigation measures have been considered by the Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) through the authorisation to mine in a protected environment,” says Shezi.

Lessons learnt

In hindsight, Tripathi says several lessons have been learnt during the process. The road to compliance was a lot longer than what the company initially envisaged. “However, we always worked on finding a peaceful and co-existing model with the different stakeholders,” says Tripathi. Yzermyn is expected to produce about 2.2 million tonnes of coal per year from its underground mine, and will have a mine life of more than 17 years. Although the resource is about 121 million tonnes, only 40 million tonnes of coal will be mined over the life of mine. Most of this coal will be exported. “We will leave more than 60% of the coal in pillars underground to prevent subsidence,” says Tripathi.

The biggest environmental concern is damage to the wetlands, but according to Shezi, the mine does not pose any serious threat to the wetland ecology. “Because mining will take place underground, the damage to the surface environment is limited. Unlike opencast mining, it doesn’t require regular blasting,” says Shezi. However, he points out that there are a number of risks associated with underground mining methods. “Underground mining has the potential for tunnel collapses and land subsidence. There is also the danger that the mine can release toxic compounds into the air and water,” says Shezi. As water takes on harmful concentrations of minerals and heavy metals, it becomes a contaminant. This contaminated water can pollute the region surrounding the mine and beyond most underground mining operations. It can also increase sedimentation in nearby rivers through their use of hydraulic pumps and suction dredges,” he adds.

All the measures to protect the Mabola environment have been put in place. According to the DEA, the EMP makes provision for a plant rescue and protection plan. This plan must be submitted to the DEA. Furthermore, any activities that may encroach on a water resource are not allowed without authorisation from the Department of Water and Sanitation. “We also require that appropriate dust-suppression measures and measures to mitigate and manage acid mine drainage must be applied,” says Shezi. Atha must also submit quarterly reports to the department on the status of permit conditions, as well as on the progress in meeting the targets of the draft Mabola EMP. According to Tripathi, the company has made provision for R83.5-million for environmental mitigation. 

Operational issues 

Although the two coal seams — Alfred and Dundas — that Atha is targeting are only about 1.60m high, Tripathi says the coal qualities are ‘fantastic’. The raw coal qualities are 23 megajoules (MJ) on average with sulphur below one; however, the volatile values are not as great. Although Tripathi emphasises that the coal will be saleable, he says that “We are accessing the seam through one adit. Branching from the adit will be two declines, one targeting the Alfred seam and the other accessing the Dundas seam. Each decline will have four sections, so in total there will be eight sections.” The mining methodology at Yzermyn will be a combination of drill and blast and using continuous miners. There will be four sections on drill and blast and four sections being mined with four continuous miners. The coal will be sent to surface via a conveyor belt.

“We had to do away with the washing facility on site because of the environmental concerns,” says Tripathi. He explains that the biggest concern for the DEA was the discard dump, as it had to be constructed within the protected area, which was a major problem. Fortunately, the coal markets changed drastically over the past five or six years, and that helped to find a solution. There was sufficient demand for a product that didn’t need to be washed, and Atha could do away with the wash plant and discard dump. “We decided to crush and screen the coal and sell it raw. Because it is an underground mine, we will be able to have good quality control with the continuous miners so we can limit the contamination of our coal,” says Tripathi. The 23MJ unwashed raw product will be trucked to the siding in Piet Retief about 58km from the mine. After that, Transnet will haul it on rail to the Richards Bay Coal Terminal, where Atha has secured an allocation.

A thorny issue

The issue of mining in or next to protected areas is not a new one. Mining Mirror probed this thorny issue in the past when we reported on several companies applying for mining licenses in areas bordering national parks, heritage sites, or other protected areas.

The two projects that spring to mind first is Ibutho Coal’s Fuleni Project bordering Hluhluwe Imfolozi Park in KwaZulu-Natal. Fuleni died a slow death — or did the mainstream media just loose interest in reporting on the operation?

Coal of Africa’s Vele Project next to the Mapungubwe National Park in Limpopo was another controversial undertaking. The company had to negotiate its way through a minefield of opposition, legislation, and environmental liabilities, but eventually Vele produced its first coal in April 2012. Since then it has been an on–off affair. The mine, which has been plagued by operational issues and hampered by changing legislation and unpredictable weather conditions, has not had a smooth run. After lying idle for a few years now, Vele was recently resuscitated when the DMR granted it an environmental authorisation in terms of the National Environmental Management Act, 1998 (Act No. 107 of 1998) (NEMA) and the Environmental Impact Assessment Regulations of 2014 for stream diversion and associated infrastructural activities. The mine is currently awaiting approval of an integrated water use licence (IWUL) from the Department of Water and Sanitation. The mine had to apply for these regulatory approvals to be able to modify the processing plant, which was one of the operational bottlenecks the company experienced when it first started unearthing coal five years ago.

Another mining story worth following is the Elandsfontein Phosphate Project in a highly sensitive area next to the Langebaan lagoon in the Western Cape. The project, owned by a private fertilizer company called Kropz, has conjured up a chorus of opposition voices from environmental groups. Despite the voices of concern, the company has received all the necessary environmental licences and is currently awaiting its water use license before it will start strip-mining later this year.

According to Warren Beech, partner and head of mining at Hogan Lovells (SA) it is possible for mining operations to be conducted in a socially and economically sustainable way, and for mining and conservation to co-exist. Beech does point out, though, that for this to be achieved, there must be compliance with the legislative framework. “It has become critical for stakeholders to work together to break down the barriers created by the distrust that this brings, and a commitment to a level of maturity where stakeholders can acknowledge that there will be circumstances when a mining project should not proceed because of the significant and possible irretrievable impacts to ecologically sensitive areas, which include rich biodiversity and access to critical sources of clean water,” says Beech.

“There is, of course, always the challenge of interpretation and application of the legislative framework, which is aimed at balancing the interests of stakeholders with diverse views on what it means to carry out socially and environmentally sustainable mining operations, while at the same time addressing key issues, such as unemployment and poverty,” says Beech.

Stakeholders often express a spectrum of views from the ‘not in my backyard’ approach, which has as its fundamental premise that no mining should take place in certain areas, to the other side of the continuum, where proponents of mining operations hold the view that the mining operations should proceed because of the positive benefits to employment, skills development, community upliftment through programmes in the Social and Labour Plan, infrastructure development, and broad-based black economic empowerment.

“It is extremely difficult to argue against these strongly held views, because mining and its impact are often very personal and very real. They are often extremely polarising and in many instances, the actual and perceived benefits, such as employment and community upliftment, promise immediate gains, and environment and related aspects become overshadowed by what is immediately promised,” Beech concludes.

As the global population grows and demand for resources increase, more land will be needed for mining these resources. This puts mining and conservation on a collision course and it is an issue that demands serious attention.