Illegal sand mining a grave concern
The Crocodile, Sabie and Sand rivers are greatly affected around the Ntsikazi, Nkomazi, Hazyview and Bushbuckridge areas.
The illegal removal of massive quantities of river sand is giving the Inkomati-Usuthu Catchment Management Agency (IUCMA) serious headaches.
The IUCMA, tasked with managing the water in the catchment area, an internationally shared watercourse, says that mining the sand negatively impacts groundwater pollution as well as river hydraulics, or water flow.
The effects can be devastating. According to IUCMA’s control environmental officer, Busisiwe Mahlangu, stockpiles left in a river or flood plain can alter the hydraulics, resulting in turbid water impossible to use in homes. It also creates deep pools, which slow the flow and prevent downstream users having access.
Operating heavy equipment in a channel bed can also cause hydrocarbon pollution, which can spread downstream and into groundwater.
Even the adventurous are not spared. According to Mahlangu, mining river sand changes the riparian habitat, or flood plains, which affect hiking, canoeing, boating and fishing as well as visiting places of religion and culture.
According to Mahlangu, the Crocodile, Sabie and Sand rivers are greatly affected around the Ntsikazi, Nkomazi, Hazyview and Bushbuckridge areas.
On the other hand, extracting sand from a riverbed for use in construction and mining is of great importance to the South African economy. Since prospecting, extracting, concentrating, refining, and transporting minerals can potentially disrupt the natural environment greatly, it is crucial that authorisation or a licence for any activities are obtained. “The environmental effects caused by the mining of sand from a river is no exception, often causing adverse impacts to biota and their habitats,” Mahlangu said. “No person may extract sand, alluvial minerals or other materials from the channel of a watercourse or estuary, unless reasonable precautions are taken to ensure that the watercourse’s stability is not affected, erosion prevented and damage to the habitat prevented (through erosion, sedimentation, alteration of vegetation or structure of the watercourse),” she said.
To ensure this, every person mining sand, alluvial minerals or other materials from the bed of a watercourse or estuary must construct treatment facilities to treat the water to the prescribed standard, limit the height and proximity of stockpiles or sand dumps to the watercourse, and implement control measures to prevent the pollution of any water resource by oil, grease, fuel or chemicals.
