AMD, which can pollute the water table and cause earth tremors, is the result of water seeping up from abandoned or closed mine shafts.

Mining companies contend that it is difficult to apportion blame due to the large number of firms having been involved in mining on the reef – as far back as the 1880s – with some of them having since closed.

Responding to presentations by mining companies to the committee, on how they would tackle the problem, De Lange said that legal action against mining firms on AMD may have failed in the past, but this did not mean it could not succeed in the future.

New mining companies should not be absolved from responsibility because they would have come to know of the problem when they bought the land or when they conducted due diligence studies, he added.

The Democratic Alliance’s Gareth Morgan agreed with De Lange, saying mines that owned properties on AMD-affected land had to accept responsibility; but he acknowledged that it would be difficult to try to apportion the responsibility for AMD that each mine should take on.

In a presentation on behalf of gold mining companies active on the Witwatersrand, John Munro, chief executive officer of Rand Uranium, said AMD was essentially an “ownerless” problem. He pointed out that all legal action against mining companies in the area in the last six years had failed because the long history of mining in the area made it difficult to say who was to blame.

It was due to the complex nature of the problem that any legal action against companies deemed responsible for AMD, was a “fruitless waste of taxpayers’ money” or resources, he argued.

Because of these legal actions, each mining company on the Witwatersrand had developed its own factual position on what it had and had not done over the last few decades when it came to the issue of AMD.

Munro said the best solution was to find an economically viable solution: to turn AMD into a scarce resource, namely potable water.

However, the solution had been rejected by the Department of Water and Environmental Affairs and the Inter-ministerial Committee report on AMD last year, which he believed diminished the opportunity for mines to contribute a solution to AMD.

Munro said that after sewage, AMD was the next best source of potable water, adding that it was cheaper to transform into drinking water than many other sources.

He said the price of potable water had increased by 25% in the last two years, which had made grey water more attractive for industries.

Munro said he recognised that the neutralisation of AMD water – which was the current method used by mining companies to treat AMD, and which involved extracting metals from the affected water – was not the perfect long-term solution, but that, at present, it was the most effective.

Rand Uranium’s plant, which pumps out underground AMD water, costs about R2.5 million a month to run.

Munro said the company – which does not mine on the Western Basin, but owns property in the area – wanted to expand pumping operations, as it is only able to extract about 50% of the AMD water at the moment.

Jaco Schoeman of the Western Utilities Corporation, a non-profit company set up by mining companies on the Western Basin to tackle AMD, said mining houses are using AMD-processed water to run operations.

He noted that of the 155 mega-litres of AMD that would be expected to be produced daily by all of the three basins, a maximum of 60 mega-litres could be used by the mines in those basins.

Schoeman added that the mining companies had looked at refineries in Germiston and Sasol in Sasolburg to gauge the interest of industries in using AMD-processed water.

Turning to the history and extent of the problem of AMD on the Witwatersrand, Munro said the Western Basin (around Krugersdorp) was the first of the three basins – western, central and eastern – where AMD problems were spotted, after mining operations ceased there in the 1990s.

But, he added, AMD was now a threat in the Central and Eastern basins as well.

The larger Central Basin is expected to overflow in about two years, and pumps had stopped extracting water from the Eastern Basin, which meant AMD could begin to cause problems there as well.

Munro said the Western Basin currently produces about 15 mega-litres of AMD water a day, which overflows onto the surface.

However, he said the problem would be worse on the Central and Eastern basins, which are expected to produce about 60 mega-litres and 100 mega-litres of AMD a day, respectively.

Munro explained that mining firms could at present not keep up with the temporary treatment of AMD water, and that the high level of summer rainfall had only worsened the rate of overflow on the Western Basin.

De Lange said that when solutions start coming on the most effective treatment of AMD, any need by community members or the government to seek legal action against mining firms would subside.

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