A South African firm is dumping the sludgy byproduct of mining into a historical diamond pit after the tailings dam that had saved the waste partially collapsed, killing one and leaving scores injured.
The authorities company overseeing cultural preservation mentioned on Thursday it permitted plans to fill the historic Jagersfontein diamond mining pit with waste from a second compartment of the tailings dam so as to stop a secondary breach after one compartment of the dam failed.
Public paperwork present Jagersfontein Developments, the corporate reprocessing previous tailings across the disused pit to get better diamonds, has lodged 5 purposes over the previous decade with the South African Heritage Resources Agency (SAHRA) searching for permission to retailer liquid mine waste that could be a byproduct of that reprocessing within the pit quite than the dam.
The newest request was made on August 17, simply 4 weeks earlier than the tailings dam catastrophe.
An earlier determination to transfer the waste into the pit may have relieved stress on the tailings dam which burst on Sunday morning, unleashing a flood of grey sludge that swept away homes and vehicles in Jagersfontein, a small city in South Africa’s Free State province.
But the pit, the oldest and largest hand-dug diamond mine on the planet, is classed as a historical web site and filling it up requires approval by SAHRA.
The Department of Water and Sanitation authorised the “immediate” pumping of slime from the second compartment of the tailings dam into the pit on Monday, the day after the dam burst, prompting SAHRA to approve the backfilling on Thursday.
“As the town of Jagersfontein is in a state of disaster because of the collapsed tailings dam (…) no further assessment of the impact to heritage resources are required,” SAHRA mentioned, including it had no objections to the plan submitted on Aug. 17.
Jagersfontein Developments first utilized to backfill the historical pit in September 2012, and SAHRA granted it permission in June 2013, however the Jagersfontein Community Trust appealed the choice and the corporate withdrew its software in January 2014.
SAHRA mentioned the next purposes made by Jagersfontein Developments in 2018, 2019 and 2020 had been incomplete.
Fortune seekers drawn by South Africa’s diamond rush began digging at Jagersfontein in 1870. By 1907 the pit was greater even than the extra well-known “Big Hole” in Kimberley, and reached a depth of 250 metres (820 ft).
Since then it has modified arms a number of instances.
De Beers, the diamond mining unit of Anglo American Plc AAL.L, was the final firm to mine Jagersfontein till 1971, promoting the mine and surrounding dry tailings dumps in 2010 to Superkolong Consortium.
Dubai-based Stargems Group bought the property from the Luxembourg-based funding fund Reinet in April 2022. Reuters couldn’t instantly set up when Reinet purchased Jagersfontein from Superkolong, and Reinet didn’t reply to requests for remark.
Neither Stargems nor Jagersfontein Development, a Stargems subsidiary, replied to questions on their plans to backfill the pit.
Sunday’s catastrophe has raised questions on oversight of a whole lot of tailings dams littered throughout South Africa.
In 2007 South Africa’s High Court dominated that the Jagersfontein tailings dumps don’t fall underneath the purview of the mines ministry, that means corporations processing the dumps don’t require a mining licence.
Visiting Jagersfontein on Tuesday, minerals and power minister Gwede Mantashe criticised that ruling, saying it ought to be “revisited” in order that the ministry can examine tailings dams.
“A (tailings) dam, you can’t trust it, it can break anytime,” he mentioned in a video posted on his Twitter account.
