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Dangerous radioactivity in mine dumps in South Africa

Reef Chernobyl ‘will cost billions’  – Mail & Guardian Online, Fiona Macleod, 4 March 2011, Dangerous levels of radio­activity in Gauteng’s mine dumps will take decades and billions of rands to clear, say the scientists who blew the whistle on the province’s acid mine drainage problem.In the wake of the government’s decision last week to set aside R225-million to treat toxic water in underground mine voids, the focus fell on cleaning up hundreds of tailings dumps and slimes dams across the Reef.

According to the government report on acid mine drainage toxic residues in mine dumps are seeping into underground water and exacerbating the problem.
Anthony Turton, a scientist who raised the alarm about acid mine drainage a decade ago, said this week that sorting out the dumps would be difficult. “The sheer scale and complexity of dealing with radioactive dumps is far worse than the water problem,” he said.

Families were already being moved and legal action was being threatened over the best way to deal with this legacy of the gold rush more than a century ago. Mariette Liefferink, the chief executive of the Federation for a Sustainable Environment, said the tailings dumps and dams were historically sited on unlined dolomite, resulting in heavy metals and uranium ­seeping into groundwater.

“There are at least 270 tailings dams on the Witwatersrand that will continue causing acid mine drainage for hundreds of years,” she said. Liefferink pointed to the recent relocation of families from a tailings dump at the Tudor Shaft informal settlement on the West Rand after radiation levels were found to be 15 times higher than normal……..

Reef Chernobyl ‘will cost billions’ – Newspaper – Mail & Guardian Online

March 7, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | general