Laws allow state to recoup cost of acid mine clean-up - experts
Publish date: 20 September 2011
Issue Number: 230
Diary: Legalbrief Environmental
Category: Labour
Gauteng Premier Nomvula Mokonyane says the law should be 'sorted out' so that the government was not forced - as was presently the case - to find billions of rand to clean up crises such as acid mine drainage (AMD), notes a Business Day report.
However, legal experts say environmental and common law gives the authorities the tools to recoup from mines the funds they spend rectifying the Witwatersrand's AMD problem. Centre for Environmental Rights attorney Dina Townsend said a reasonable prospect of recovering costs at a later stage would make it much easier to justify the Treasury's funding of a clean-up. 'It is against the spirit of ... the Constitution, the retrospective operation of Nema (the National Environmental Management Act) and the polluter pays principle to not hold mine company polluters liable for the significant damage that their past and current operations caused to our scarce fresh water resources,' the report quotes Townsend as saying. According to the report, Mokonyane said advice was that about R6bn was needed - not the R225m set aside this year in the government's medium-term expenditure framework - to fix Gauteng's acid drainage crisis. Full Business Day report
