With South Africa’s water resources already under immense pressure, fuelled by water scarcity and acid mine drainage (AMD), further shortages can be expected in coming years, global management consulting firm AT Kearney tells Mining Weekly.

However, it is not all doom and gloom for the country, as the firm believes that a multistakeholder partnership of companies, which includes government and non- governmental organisations (NGOs) may be the answer.

“The western goldfields, in the Free State, and around Carltonville, near Johannesburg, where mining companies such as AngloGold Ashanti, Goldfields and Harmony Gold operate, as well as the coalfields in Mpumalanga, where companies such as Anglo American operate, are taking responsibility for AMD,” says AT Kearney principal Martin Sprott.

He adds that the area around the Witwatersrand is plagued the most by the threat of the decanting of AMD.

“In the areas where there are active mine operations, there have been proactive approaches to AMD by various mining companies that recognise that it is a probable cost to business. These companies have also included the contingent liability in their balance sheets,” he says.

Sprott notes that those companies have also taken into account the costs, which was previously not the case. This has meant they have developed projects to deal with AMD.

“Anglo American has a good partnership programme with government and local authorities in Mpumulanga, where, among other uses, they are treating AMD and converting it into drinking water,” he says.

Meanwhile, Sprott states that there are no large active mining companies in the Witwatersrand Central basin, which means there is no single actor with the scale to lead projects to stop it from decanting.

“The negative effects of AMD decanting in the Witwatersrand Central basin are that it will run off into the water system to directly affect and pollute groundwater, fields and rivers. Indirect effects are that access to clean water will be reduced, the health and wellbeing of the community will be affected and the natural environment will be damaged,” he says.

This, Sprott believes, will lead to tension within communities, owing to the scarcity of clean water. Ultimately, as systemic effects, medical costs and mortality rates may rise, and economic performance can fall.

“If nothing were done to stop AMD decanting in the Central basin, AMD water could run underneath buildings in the surrounding area and eat away at their foundations. It will go into underground water reservoirs, after which it will go into water stocks and dams, including the Vaal river system,” he says.

Sprott adds that there is already a high level of pollution in the Vaal river, which includes AMD spilling from the Western and Eastern basins.

“The effects of the Central basin decanting will put an economic strain on the country. For example, State-owned power utility Eskom, which depends on water from the Vaal river system for cooling purposes, cannot use high-sulphate water that comes from mine spillage and AMD.

“If AMD, which is sulphate heavy, raises the level of sulphur in the Vaal river system, Eskom will incur higher costs to protect its power stations,” says Sprott, adding that there have been occasions where Eskom has come close to shutting down a power station, owing to sulphate-heavy water in the past.

Sprott explains that the biggest challenge in the Witwatersrand area is the lack of large private-sector companies that are willing to take a lead in dealing with the AMD problem, adding that another challenge when taking a multistakeholder approach is finding someone to take the lead.

“There are two reasons for this. It is the complexity of putting partnerships together, owing to the expectations associated with such a task, and the time, effort and costs involved in allocating millions of dollars of investment and senior management time,” he states.

He adds that, for a mining company to take the lead in establishing a partnership, there has to be a long-term period of engage- ment with other potential partners to ensure the partnership runs smoothly – a company needs partners with which it can engage and work with on a proactive level.

“Several NGOs are involved – some are constructive, some are less constructive – it all depends on finding a group of partners that can work together,” he says.

“There are a few multistakeholder solutions to the problem. Anglo American has the biggest partnership with government in Witbank and, at national level, there are World Economic Forum-sponsored partnerships, comprising Anglo American, AngloGold Ashanti and other major water users.

Sprott notes that a critical element of a multistakeholder solution to the AMD problem in the Witwatersrand area is funding.

Sprott states that there is a tendency within government and by companies to regard the AMD challenge as an engineering problem.

“People are also focusing on finding the ideal mine water technical solution, such as removing sulphates or heavy metals from AMD. The technical solutions already exist – it is easy to treat water.

“The real issue is finding the right institutional structure and the right partnership among companies, government, local autho- rities and communities to implement [the solutions],” he concludes.