An urgent application by a rural Limpopo community to stop the Mogalakwena platinum mine from dumping further waste into a tailings dam was postponed indefinitely on Friday.
The application was made in the North Gauteng High Court by the Sekuruwe community against Anglo Platinum’s Potgietersrust Platinum mine. The firm operated the mine on properties adjacent to the farm Blinkwater. The matter was postponed to allow the community to file more papers.
The community is seeking an interim interdict to stop the mine from continuing with further construction of the tailings dam on their land and from pumping more waste into the dam unless it has obtained the required authorisations.
It has also launched a review application to set aside the minister of rural development and land reform’s decision to grant the firm a lease over a substantial portion of the community’s land on Blinkwater.
The community maintained the dumping of waste in the dam would cause irreversible consequences.
It said the land would be buried under millions of tons of mine waste that would render it sterile and totally unusable for agriculture, grazing or any other purpose.
It would make it impossible forever for the community to reclaim its ancestral lands and provide for the subsistence of their families from the land.
The community insists that the mine did not obtain environmental authorisation for the construction of the tailings dam on the banks of the Blinkwater wetland and is dumping the waste illegally – claims the company denies.
Anglo Platinum’s programme manager, Etienne Espag, said in an affidavit it was wholly improper for an application seeking urgent interdictory relief to speculate whether the mine had complied with its statutory obligations. Facts were needed to establish if the community had a case or not.
The mine contended it did not require any environmental authorisation in terms of the National Environmental Management Act for its activities.
The mine argued the tailings dam was not situated on the edge of a wetland, was not a barrier dam and was not used to store water, but was used to ensure that water in the tailings evaporated off or drained through the dam. It said environmental impact assessment regulations were not applicable to the construction of the dam.
The mine insisted that the dam’s location had been approved by both the Department of Mineral Resources and the Department of Water Affairs through the granting of mining rights and a water use licence.
According to papers filed on behalf of the applicants, the Sekuruwe community and their neighbours have often been in the news in the past few years, with Anglo Platinum being compelled to apologise to the community for removing their graves without due regard to traditional custom.
The relocation of about 10 000 residents of the villages of Ga-Puka and Ga-Sekhaolel was also criticised by the SA Human Rights Commission. - Business Report