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Heinz Sch�tte, chairman of the Greater Pongola Catchment Protection Association, atop the eastern escarpment with the start of the Pongola River system in the valley behind him.
WHEN the rainwater tanks run dry at the Makateeskop Primary School near Utrecht, in northern KwaZulu-Natal, the children carry their own fresh water to school despite a crystal clear stream trickling musically past the back door.
The stream is devoid of life – no frogs, no fish – and grazing cattle refuse to drink the seemingly pristine water. The only evidence of something amiss is a smudgy white residue on the grey rocks on the river bank.
Above the school, behind a scraggly wattle forest, the breached wall of a coal mine sludge dam – abandoned 50 years ago – erodes deep into the earth as the blackened water seeps into the groundwater and nearby streams. Local farmer Rolf Boehmer says the Department of Water Affairs has warned users “under no circumstances can any living thing drink the water”.
Hector Sibisi, headmaster of the school, says he has being living with these abandoned mines for half of his life.
“We don’t drink the water, even fish can’t live in the stream. The rainwater is not enough and when it’s finished the children have to bring water in bottles to school. We struggle a lot.”
Further down the road there are two more abandoned coal mines and embedded in the eroded and blackened dongas are two rolls of rusted barbed wire cut cleanly in two, evidence of the high levels of acid at work. Downstream there is a wetland devoid of life, still, quiet, not a sound, only the toxic water flowing silently through the grass.
But, higher up, on top of the eastern escarpment on the border between KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga, a rare wattled crane strides across the grasslands arching his massive wingspan before gliding away.
A breathtaking scene but for the blue outline of an insignificant little hill in the distance now made significant for the black gold running beneath its earthen skin.
As Durban gears up for the 17th climate change conference later this month, an environmental time bomb has begun to tick in the northern reaches of the province.
Despite the evidence of the district’s polluted streams and boreholes, despite the massive pollution in the northern Olifant’s River from mining in its upper reaches, and despite warnings from an ecologist it employed to draw up a pre-feasibility plan, a Joburg-based coal consortium has permission to prospect for coal within the Pongola River headwaters which rise in the eastern escarpment – an extension of the Drakensberg – between Wakkerstroom and Paulpietersburg.
Heinz Schütte, chairman of the Greater Pongola River Catchment Protection Association, stands on the edge of the escarpment. Below him narrow bushed fingers start high in the krantses before widening into the grasslands below. “This is where the Pongola River starts,” he says.
He swings his arm in an arc to the south-west. “That’s where they are planning to mine. We are privileged to live here and we are going to protect it for our children and the children of our communities no matter what it takes.
“I know these mining companies have a ‘war chest’ which they use to fight off resistance to their operations. But we are standing together. We just cannot allow this to happen although it could bankrupt us individually.”
But farmers in the area are battle weary. Local landowner Walter Thiele says if they stop eDumbe Coal within weeks another prospector will come along with approval from the Department of Mineral Resources to look for coal.
“There is coal here and the department says they have to be fair to everyone who wants to prospect.
“We have already gone through three or four such exercises with the department.
“It has cost thousands and thousands of rand but within three weeks of the court denying a prospecting right, we get another one. We then have to start the whole process over with each new group that comes along. We are just little private landowners; we don’t have the money to keep on fighting this. The government should make certain areas no-go areas. They have so many coal contaminated areas already. Why must they contaminate another area?”
Professor Rosemary Falcon, founder and member of the Fossil Fuel Foundation, says that with more than 93 percent of South Africa’s electricity and 40 percent of its fuels being coal-based, the country would be in trouble without it.
“Our platinum, our gold, our tin, even our coal, all these things need coal to make them useable, particularly chrome and all the ferro-alloy industries.” But, she says, the government has no idea how much coal the country has and how “the cake is going to be divided up”.
“The Fossil Fuel Foundation was commissioned by three senior members in business six years ago to draw up a coal road map.
“It was due to be released two weeks ago, but the government has held it back pending further developments. The report has to be released, so I expect it will only be made public early next year now. The silver lining though is we are starting on the second phase of our investigations to assess the country’s coal reserves and resources which will also be released early next year.”
The vice-president of the KwaZulu-Natal Agricultural Union, Robin Barnsley, called on both the provincial and national government to act responsibly when awarding prospecting or mining rights.
“Mining is pure devastation. These decisions are being made for short-term gains rather than the long-term effects. Kwanalu is not anti-development, but the food market is in crisis. Development must be responsible without taking away from the country’s ability to produce food.”
Farmers were exhausted and worn down, he said.
“We have so many issues that we are up against – land reform, climate change, massive stock theft and then competition for natural resources.
“We may occupy vast tracts of land, but we are cash-poor, we don’t have the resources to fight these mining companies with endless resources and technical know-how.”
