Environmental activists who have been fighing acid mine drainage in the Witwatersrand for years are pleading for action.

They have been prompted by North West University researcher Frank Winde’s call for an in depth investigation to quantify the radon risk, especially in informal settlements, due to acid mine drainage, and of flooding-induced subsidence in some parts of the Witwatersrand.

While the activists – the Federation for a Sustainable Environment (without whom we would probably not have sat up and taken notice of the acid mine drainage threat until much later, perhaps too late) – agree an in depth investigation is needed, they are concerned.

“We express concern that hundreds of investigations have been conducted and official and peer reviewed academic reports have been published, yet there has been no implementation of the recommendations of the investigations. What is urgently called for are not more investigations, but (the) implementation of the findings and recommendations of the reports, which were paid for by taxpayers,” they say. (My emphasis).

On the one hand they have a point. I experienced similar investigation-induced inertia when I was covering education. We knew kids weren’t able to read and write and do maths at the levels they should, we knew too many teachers were coming in late and leaving early, that kids played truant, that boys were stabbed in the playground and girls sexually assaulted in the loos. We knew there were not enough libraries and that kids doing matric science didn’t have labs to experiment in. We knew all that, and yet academics and politicians all too often called for further investigations.

An investigation is easier than making the changes necessary to save the day.

On the other hand, it is unfair to say that the government has done nothing but investigate acid mine drainage. Whatever flaws there may be, it set up a ministerial task team that has looked at the looming crisis (and it’s already a crisis on the West Rand, where acid mine water has already poisoned water sources) and has made recommendations. They did so remarkably quickly. The Trans Caledon Tunnel Authority has been given the task of a first clean up. They’ve already told Parliament the R225m set aside for the clean up is way, way too little and that more like R750m is needed. (I heard Chamber of Mines chairman Bheki Sibiya on radio last night saying the chamber has a R1bn plan - are we looking at that? What is it?)

This has all happened since the start of the year. Also, fair or not – and in some ways it is not fair – former Aurora owners Khulubuse Zuma and Mandla Mandela face prosecution for running out of money and stopping pumping at the defunct Grootvlei mine on the East Rand.

For government this is all quick work.

Tags: acid mine drainage, Bheki Sibiya, Chamber of Mines, investigation, Khulubuse Zuma, Mandla Mandela, research, Trans Caledon Tunnel Authority, Witwatersrand