Every drop counts

Exxaro Resources Limited (Exxaro) is the only mining group that responded to the Centre for Environmental Rights (CER)’s damning report recently.

The CER’s report fingered mining companies as it highlighted that water resources are being polluted and wasted by coal companies which have been found to be largely non-compliant with the conditions of their water use licences, which licence is required in order for them to commence mining and is supposed to ensure the sustainability of our resources.

“We recognise that South Africa is a water-scarce country and that water usage and quality management initiatives are crucial to sustainable operations, particularly under the prevailing drought conditions. Exxaro is, furthermore, committed to the sustainable development of South Africa,” said Mzila Mthenjane, executive head: stakeholder affairs at Exxaro.

Mthenjane said everything they do today is geared toward ensuring a safer and more productive tomorrow.

“Our sustainability is founded on creative, mutually constructive relationships and common values with our stakeholders. We strive to conduct our business activities in a way that creates success not only for Exxaro, but for society too. From how we mine to what we mine, we are constantly stewarding our natural assets and social capital with the objectives of building happy, healthy communities and better lives.”

Mthenjane broke their response down in four segments.

How we approach environmental management?

“Exxaro is a responsible corporate citizen and plays an active role in protecting and preserving the environment by continuously reducing our carbon emission footprint and our water usage among other initiatives. Exxaro complies fully with all authorisations and licensing requirements for its current operations and projects. It is for this reason that we cooperated and provided all the documentation requested by the CER in 2018 in relation to our Leeuwpan mining operations.”

He said while we do meet all the current regulatory requirements, like the CER they want more as well, and they are working with several external partners in the environmental space to achieve global best practice standards and continuous improvements towards our goal of achieving zero harm.

How we approached issues raised in the CER report

“In responding to the many concerns raised in the CER report, we have collated our comments into the three broad categories highlighted in the report being: the roles of the regulator, independent auditors and licence holders.
“We are unwilling to comment on concerns related to other parties and have therefore confined our response only to those concerns where our Leeuwpan Mine is specifically mentioned.”

Role of the regulator

In this aspect, the CER concern is that, as of June 2018, the acid mine drainage was predicted for Leeuwpan mine (post closure) but no financial provision to mitigate this risk was provided. Exxaro has since concluded the geohydrological studies for this mine.

As from June 2019 financial provisioning was made for a UF/RO Water Treatment Plant (WTP).

Role of independent auditors

With respect to this aspect, the CER concern is that the Leeuwpan mine audit reveals that the mine is compliant, but the auditors do not provide any background information to confirm compliance. According to the CER the auditor should identify/reference the information underpinning each of the audit findings properly, including the document title and paragraph number (if finding is based on documentary evidence).

Exxaro notes this as a positive recommendation to the audit function and will incorporate it for future audit processes.

Exxaro will engage the CER further on this concern and provide the documentary evidence that was lacking in the audit report.

The other concern is that the mine water quality data does not support the absence of potential water pollution incidents and auditors should have noted this.

To ensure continuous improvement of water quality management, Exxaro will – on a continuous basis – review and optimise its ground and surface water monitoring networks to ensure consistent functionality and availability of current information.

Role of license holders

In this aspect, the CER concern is that a relaxation of water quality standards has been granted by DWS to Leeuwpan.

CER notes that DWS should have insisted on higher water quality standards.

It is important to note that the relaxation was only applicable to the dirty water holding facilities and not to the natural aquatic system.

Exxaro commits to conduct further toxicity testing in the natural aquatic systems around the dirty water holding facilities to identify any impacts associated with the mining activities.

As indicated above, Exxaro is committed to achieve global best practice standards and continuous improvements in all its operations towards our goal of achieving zero harm.

“We look forward to engaging directly with the CER and other stakeholders to improve governance of this critical national asset. We will also continue to strive towards reducing the impact of our operations on the environment,” Mthenjane said.

Although Anglo American and South 32 acknowledge receipt of the report there were no further comments.