South Africa: Paying the price for mining

WONDERFONTEINSPRUIT , 15 February 2008 (IRIN) – One legacy of South Africa’s extensive mineral deposits is the infrastructure and wealth of the country. But another more troubling legacy is emerging as an increasingly urgent problem: environmental contamination – heavy metals and radioactive elements – from over 100 years of mining that could severely pollute the country’s water, affecting the food chain and citizens’ health.

The epicentre of the problem lies southwest of Johannesburg in a valley ringed by mines – both active and closed – where a small river called the Wonderfonteinspruit runs southwest from the mining town of Randfontein to Carletonville and Khutsong, and into the Mooi River, which provides water for Potchefstroom, a large university town.

Read more: IRIN, 15 Feb 2008