Province’s farmers fear ‘another Mpumalanga’
DA says SA can’t afford to have another province like Mpumalanga, where more than 50% of the available land was being mined or prospected.SUE BLAINE
Published: 2011/06/17 06:51:42 AM
SA COULD not afford another province like Mpumalanga, where more than 50% of the available land was being mined or prospected, Democratic Alliance water and environmental affairs spokesman Gareth Morgan said this week .
The KwaZulu-Natal Agricultural Union has raised the flag about water quality and food security amid what the union says is a large number of mining applications for the province.
These include the possibility that a mining consortium would apply to use the controversial "fracking" technique for shale gas .
"We are very concerned about the whole prospecting issue generally," the union’s president, Robin Barnsley, said. KwaZulu-Natal was water-rich in comparison with SA’s other provinces, and the union was concerned about mining rights applications in general, and the consequences for water quality and food security, he said.
Planning Minister Trevor Manuel ’s newly released diagnostic report for SA notes that the delay in producing the second edition of SA’s National Water Resource Strategy is "symptomatic" of the way in which water management, or the lack thereof, is affecting economic activity in the country. Mr Morgan said: "We’re making big decisions without a holistic view."
A consortium comprising Sasol , Norway’s Statoil and the US’s Chesapeake Energy had a "technical co-operation permit" to conduct desktop studies on shale gas resources in an 88000km² area.
This is primarily in the Free State but also in areas in the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal, Sasol spokeswoman Nothemba Noruwana said.
"This is simply a permit to conduct desktop studies in the basin and does not include any surface or drilling activities," she said.
The 12-month permit was awarded last November.
Mineral Resources Minister Susan Shabangu has placed a moratorium on the processing of applications for reconnaissance, technical co-operation, exploration and production rights, from February 1.
Ms Shabangu has also imposed a hold on existing applications, including that of Sasol-Statoil-Chesapeake and another by Royal Dutch Shell to use "fracking" to explore the shale resource viability of a 90000km² section of the unique Karoo biome.
Fracking is the common term for hydraulic fracturing, which involves pumping a pressurised mixture of water, sand and chemicals down drill holes to fracture shale and release natural gas.
Department of Mineral Resources spokesman Bheki Khumalo said the department took water resources seriously, and prospecting did not mean the start of mining development.
"Impacts on water resources and many other environmental, social and economic variables (are considered) before a conclusion is arrived at," Mr Khumalo said.
The government’s New Growth Path aims for 140000 more direct mining jobs by 2020, and it appeared the Department of Water Affairs simply rubber-stamped department of mineral resources decisions, Mr Morgan said.
Department of Water Affairs spokesman Sputnik Ratau said all applications for water licences, whether they were for mining or any other activity, were accepted or refused in terms of the provisions of the law.
blaines@bdfm.co.za
http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/Content.aspx?id=146035
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