Environmental justice group groundWork and community organisation Vukani Environment Justice Movement in Action have launched “landmark litigation”, demanding that government clean up the air in the Mpumalanga Highveld.

GroundWork and Vukani served papers to the High Court on June 7, asking that President Cyril Ramaphosa, the National Air Quality Officer and Environment, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Barbara Creecy declare the levels of air pollution on the Highveld a violation of people’s Constitutional rights.

The move is aimed at forcing government to take meaningful action to implement and enforce the 2012 Highveld Priority Area (HPA) air quality management plan (AQMP).

GoundWork and Vukani, represented by the Centre for Environmental Rights (CER), allege that government has violated the Constitutional right of the people living and working in the HPA to a healthy environment by failing to deal with “deadly levels” of air pollution in the area.

The CER said Mpumalanga accounted for about 83% of South Africa’s coal production, with Eskom owning 12 coal-fired power plants in and around the HPA.

environmental organisation Greenpeace Africa reported on satellite data, which revealed that Mpumalanga had the highest nitrogen dioxide emissions of any area across six continents.

In 2007, then Environmental Affairs and Tourism Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk designated the HPA because of the poor air quality in the province.

Nearly five years later, in 2012, then Environmental Affairs Minister Edna Molewa published an AQMP to clean up air pollution in the HPA.

However, little had changed since then, groundWork said in a statement published this month.

The organisation alleged that human exposure to toxic chemical compounds emitted by the coal-fired power plants, such as sulphur dioxide, heavy metals such mercury, and fine particulate matter, had resulted in chronic respiratory illnesses such as asthma, bronchitis and lung cancer, and contributed to strokes, heart attacks, birth defects and premature death.

In a health risk modelling study done and submitted to the courts by independent expert and Gray Sky Solutions founder Dr Andrew Gray, it is estimated that emissions from the nearby facilities – Eskom’s 12 power plants and two major fuel refineries within the HPA – had resulted in between 305 and 650 early deaths in 2016.

“Expert analysis included in the court papers had shown that thousands of school children and the elderly were acutely affected by the area’s air pollution, and supporting affidavits in this case painted a devastating picture of how this poor air quality impacts on residents’ daily lives.

“It was high time that the South African government prioritised the human rights of the families residing in this pollution hot spot,” said CER attorney Tim Lloyd.

The Environment, Forestry and Fisheries Minister is now required, by early July, to make available all the records relating to her predecessors’ decision not to promulgate regulations to make the HPA AQMP enforceable, as well as the reasons for this decision.

Creecy said in a separate statement that she noted the application lodged by Groundwork and Vukani.

She agreed that there were air quality challenges in the Mpumalanga Highveld area and said she would prefer further engagement outside of a court process to find ways to satisfy the needs of citizens living in the area.