amazon s3 · 1 william berry from: alex pheiffer sent: 27 march 2015 10:20 am to: angus burns cc:...

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William Berry

From: Alex Pheiffer

Sent: 27 March 2015 10:20 AM

To: Angus Burns

Cc: [email protected]; 'Mnguni, Sam'; 'Nzimande, Ayanda'; William Berry

Subject: RE: Commiesiekraal Coal Project: Notification of EIA Process & Public scoping

meeting

Thank you Angus.

Look forward to hearing further from you.

Kind regards

Alex

Alex Pheiffer Director and Technical Discipline Manager: EIA SLR Consulting (Africa) (Pty) Ltd

Email: [email protected]

Mobile: +27 83 269 7545 Tel: +27 11 467 0945 Ext: 2036 Fax: +27 11 467 0978

From: Angus Burns [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: 25 March 2015 09:46 PM

To: Alex Pheiffer

Cc: [email protected]; 'Mnguni, Sam'; 'Nzimande, Ayanda' Subject: RE: Commiesiekraal Coal Project: Notification of EIA Process & Public scoping meeting

Hi Alex – please would you register us as an IAP for the proposed mine. We have a long association with this

proposed project due to our presence in the area and Biodiversity Stewardship initiatives that share the same locale.

I am going to attempt to attend tomorrows’ afternoon meeting but may be unable to do so due to previous

commitments later that afternoon. If this happens, I will liaise with you at a later date with our concerns and sustain

engagement around this as the EIA process unfolds. Ayanda Nzimande will be attending the morning meeting on

our behalf in any event.

Kind regards

Angus Burns :: Manager: WWF-SA Grasslands Programme :: P O Box 21106, Newcastle, 2940 Tel: +27 034 318 6158 Mobile: +27 084 400 1234 Fax: +27 086 517 4073 Skype: decarabia1 Email: [email protected] / [email protected] Web: www.wwf.org.za

WWF for a living planet®

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Click here to view our online disclaimer and legal notice. If you are unable to access the link please call +27 21 657 6600 for a copy.

From: Alex Pheiffer [mailto:[email protected]]

Sent: 07 March 2015 12:41 PM To: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected];

[email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected];

[email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected];



[email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected];


[email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected] Cc: William Berry

Subject: Commiesiekraal Coal Project: Notification of EIA Process & Public scoping meeting

THOLIE LOGISTICS (PTY) LTD

COMMISSIEKRAAL COAL PROJECT

Departmental reference numbers for this project: DMR reference number (KZN 30/5/1/2/2/10061 MR) and DEDTEA

reference number (DC25/0010/2014: KZN/EIA/00001763/2014)

Dear Interested and/or Affected Party,

Tholie Logistics (Pty) Ltd, a junior South African coal exploration and mining company, is proposing to establish a

new underground coal mine on the farm Commissiekraal 90HT, located approximately 28 km north of Utrecht in the

eMadlangeni Local Municipality, KwaZulu-Natal.

SLR Consulting (Africa) (Pty) Ltd (SLR), an independent firm of environmental consultants, has been appointed by

Tholie Logistics (Pty) Ltd to manage the environmental assessment process. In this regard, SLR has prepared a

background information document providing a general overview of the proposed project and environmental

assessment process (see attached).

This email serves to invite you to one or both public scoping meetings (see meeting details below). The purpose of

the scoping meetings is to provide you with an overview of the project and environmental assessment process,

obtain input on existing environmental, cultural and socio-economic conditions of the area, obtain input on the

project plan and potential impacts, and to record any comments raised which will be used to inform the

environmental assessment process.

English and Zulu English and Afrikaans

Date: Thursday, 26 March 2015 Date: Thursday, 26 March 2015

Time: 09h00 Time: 14h00

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Venue: Luthilunye Local School Venue: Kemps Lust Hall

Should you have any further questions please do not hesitate to contact:

Alex Pheiffer (EAP and Project Manager) or William Berry (Project assistant) on

(011) 467 0945 (Tel) or (011) 467 0978 (Fax) or

[email protected] or [email protected]

Kind regards

Alex Pheiffer



Mobile: +27 83 269 7545 Tel: +27 11 467 0945 Ext: 2036 Fax: +27 11 467 0978 SLR Africa (Block 7) Fourways Manor Office Park Cnr Roos and Macbeth Streets Fourways, Johannesburg, 2060 South Africa

Confidentiality Notice and Disclaimer

This communication and any attachment(s) contains information which is confidential and may also be legally privileged. It is intended for the exclusive use of the recipient(s) to whom it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient, any disclosure, copying, distribution or any action taken or omitted to be taken in reliance on it, is prohibited and may be unlawful. If you have received this communication in error please email us by return mail and then delete the email from your system together with any copies of it. Please note that you are not permitted to print, copy, disclose or use part or all of the content in any way.

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William Berry

From: William Berry

Sent: 20 May 2015 09:40 AM

To: [email protected]

Cc: [email protected]; Alex Pheiffer

Subject: Tourism Business Database

Dear Mr. van Aswegan,

I trust you are well?

By way of introduction, my name is William and I am a consultant from SLR (and independent environmental

consulting company). I am assisting Alex Pheiffer (EAP and Project Manager) in the environmental impact

assessment process for proposed Commissiekraal Coal Project.

I tried to contact you on your cellphone however I had no luck.

During the public scoping meeting held on the 26 March 2015 at the Kemplust Hall, Afriforum advised SLR to consult

with the tourism businesses in the area. With regards to this comment, would you kindly advise whether you are

aware of a tourism business directory or database for the surrounding area that we could access in order to consult

and involved the tourism businesses in the stakeholder engagement process of the environmental impact

assessment for the proposed Commissiekraal Coal Project.

Your assistance will be appreciated.

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William Berry

From: Stone, Vanessa <[email protected]>

Sent: 26 August 2015 09:17 AM

To: Mnguni, Sam; William Berry

Cc: Alex Pheiffer

Subject: RE: Tourism Business Database

Hi All, The new details for the Whistling Duck: Johann Schütte 083 676 0500 Other establishments relying on tourism in the area:

� Wandersheim accommodation – Nicola Niebuhr 034 995 0027 / 082 797 5035 � Lüneburg butchery – 034 995 0062 � River Hunter fishing safaris – Horst Filter 082 628 7702 � THE NCHAGA HIKING TRAIL – this is a daylong hike and not for the faint hearted. The trail is

overgrown and some “bundu bashing” may be required. The spectacular view from the top and the fauna and flora along the way do however make up for the hard work. The trail takes you through the Pongola bush a KZN Wildlife Reserve where the rare Samango Monkey is occasionally spotted. (Not sure through whom to book this trail?)

� THE XHOSA CLIMB – this trail is a short steep climb to the top of Xhosa Hill, you are rewarded with a lovely view of the Entombe Mission farm and Station from the top. The amble down can be enjoyed by taking the road down past pine plantations at a leisurely pace. This walk should take about 3 hours. (Not sure through whom to book this trail?)

� Tourist attractions in the area: Natal spa - hot mineral springs. Also visit: Filter Larsen Monument, Lüneburg Pirmary School - oldest German school in Northern Natal which has a small museum which can be viewed by arrangement , Lüneburg Cash store - a unique general dealer where close to anything can be bought, Lüneburg Church, Monument at Lüneburg Cemetry for orignal missionary settlers, Braunschweig Church

Kind regards, Vanessa Vanessa Stone :: Biodiversity Stewardship Coordinator :: :: WWF South Africa, Enkangala Grassland Project ::

From: Mnguni, Sam

Sent: 25 August 2015 09:47 PM

To: William Berry

Cc: Alex Pheiffer; Stone, Vanessa Subject: RE: Tourism Business Database

My apologies for the extremely late response, this emailed slipped my mind.

Here are a few establishments that I am aware off and I have copied my colleague Vanessa just so she can help us if I

missed anything.

1) Whistling Duck Lodge (Heinz Schutte- 0823882824). Heinz has since passed away, Vanessa can you please

give us updated contact details if you have them

2) Basangoma Game Ranch

Carlo Engelbrecht Safaris cc PO Box 858 Paulpietersburg 3180

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Tel : 034 8150015

Cell: 0826397498 (Carlo)

Cell: 0718512973 (Sonet)

Fax: 0866179184

3) Luiperdkloof (In new ownership: Eckart Beneke- I only have the email address [email protected]_)

but he responds readily to email

4) Balele Mountain Farms (Estelle Tromp- Tel: 017-7300418 e-mail: [email protected]

Web: www.balelemountainlodge.co.za ).

I really hope this is useful, please shout if there’s any other information we can assist with.

Sam.

From: William Berry [mailto:[email protected]]

Sent: 07 August 2015 09:03 AM To: Mnguni, Sam

Cc: Alex Pheiffer

Subject: Tourism Business Database

Hi Sam,

Thank you for taking my call this morning.

As discussed, part of the EIA specialist studies (in particular land-use and social studies) is to consult and engage with

surrounding game farms and tourism businesses.

Therefore, as you confirmed that there are a number of tourism business surrounding the farm Commissiekraal.

Would you kindly share the contact details of these tourism businesses with us?

Your assistance will be appreciated.

William Berry Environmental Assessment Practitioner SLR Consulting (Africa) (Pty) Ltd





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Impala Watergebruikersvereniging

Impala Water Users Association

Navrae/Enquiries J. H. Boonzaaier P.Sak/P.Bag X0012 – PONGOLA, 3170

Verw./Ref ______________________

� (034) 4131314 / 5

� (034) 4131639

E-Mail Address: [email protected]

For attention: Me. Alex Pheiffer

Director and Technical Discipline Manager: EIA

SLR Consulting

Cnr. Roos and Macbeth Streets

Fourways

Johannesburg

2060 22 May 2015

By e-mail: [email protected]

Dear Alex,

OUR COMMENTS - SCOPING REPORT

APPLICANT: THOLIE LOGISTICS (Pty) Ltd FOR DEVELOPMENT OF COMMISSIEKRAAL

COAL MINING, SUPPORT SERVICES AND INFRASTRUCTURE

DMR REFERENCE NUMBER: KZN 30/5/1/2/2/10061 MR

We submit herewith our comments on the scoping report regarding the mining right application number

KZN 30/5/1/2/2/10061 MR of Tholie Logistics (Pty) LtD), the “Applicant”.

We confirm, the Impala Water Users Association, hereafter called “Impala”, herein represents jointly

the views of the following registered interested and affected parties (IAP’s), namely;

� The Impala Water Users Association (Impala),

� The Greater Pongola River Catchment Protection Association (PROBA),

� Affected landowners in the Paulpietersburg/Commondale area in this application.

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1. Locus standi

We refer to the attached area map (annexure A) which provides an overview of the relationships

in the catchment of the Pongola river as well as the locations of the main interested and affected

parties (IAP) presenting this objections before you.

1.1 IMPALA WATER USERS ASSOCIATION

1.1.1 Impala is a water services institution in terms of the National Water Act, Act 36 of 1998

(NWA).

1.1.2 Impala represents approximately 17 020 ha of irrigated agricultural land in Pongola,

downstream of the area of interest of the Applicant.

1.1.3 Impala is part and member of a civil organisation, “The Greater Pongola River Catchment

Protection Association” which represents the farming communities of Paulpietersburg

areas and Pongola.

1.1.4 Impala provides raw water for domestic use to the Water Services Authority, the

Zululand District Municipality (ZDM), which provides domestic water to the whole of

Pongola, Ncotshane and the rural Simdlangentsha east and western areas.

1.1.5 The total economy, progress and livelihood of this Pongola area is directly and to the

largest extent, dependant on the availability, quality and sustainability of the Pongola

and Bivane river systems.

1.1.6 Impala constructed and completed the Bivane Dam in the Bivane river of which the

financing cost of approximately R 150 million is being paid by the irrigation farmers of

Pongola and guaranteed by the Department of Water Affairs.

1.1.7 Impala is participating in the transboundary water supply agreements between SA,

Swaziland and Mozambique. Impala therefore represents a “water supplier” to

Mozambique in terms of the above tri-national agreements.

1.2 The Greater Pongola River Catchment Protection Association (PROBA)

1.2.1 This is a public/civil society body established in November 2010.

1.2.2 PROBA represents water users in the Luneburg, Paulpietersburg and Commondale area

as well as Impala Water Users Association.

1.2.3 The sole purpose of the Association is to undertake public benefit activities on a non-

profit basis with an altruistic or philanthropic intent. The protection of the environment

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is vital to the enjoyment of all rights protected by the Constitution of South Africa and

is indeed vital to life itself.

1.2.4 This Association acknowledges that it’s activities will be carried out to protect the

environment for the next generation and the Association will therefore endeavour to

ensure an environment not harmful to our health and wellbeing through the promotion

of sustainable development.

1.2.5 All affected persons or legally constituted corporations/organizations (juristic persons),

who subscribe to the objects of the Association; and are approved by the Management

Committee as members are eligible as members of the Association.

1.3 The landowners of the targeted area in terms of this application.

1.3.1 The landowners with the registered title deeds are the lawful occupiers and users of the

land.

2. COMMENTS

We regard mining impact to be cumulative and have negative effects for many years after

closure. Empirical proof of this phenomenon is especially visible and detectable in the

Paulpietersburg area.

It is stated herewith that this state of affairs is unacceptable for this generation of IAP’s, as well

as to leave a repeat of similar conditions to future generations.

It is our opinion that this Scoping Report is very basic regarding our addressing our concerns.

It does not provide sufficient information to evaluate its sound and safe practices, but rather

merely solicit further raising of insufficiently addressed and unaddressed concerns.

2.1 SECTION 2 – EXISTING STATUS OF THE ENVIRONMENT

2.1.1 SOCIAL

a. How exactly, what type and to what extent will sustainable support for small scale

farmers and commercial farmers be implemented?

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b. To what extent and on which roads are road development and maintenance being

planned?

c. No mention is made of the existence or extent of consultation and consent of the

local municipality and Roads Department of Paulpietersburg regarding the use,

maintenance and upgrading of roads, anticipated in with this endeavours?

2.1.2 CHANGES IN TOPOGRAPHY

a. Infrastructure is regarded as the physical buildings and plant developed for the

activities. A serious concern is the negative effect of mine tailings, washing area

and waste dumps and the eventual collapse of the “mining roof” on the change of

topography.

2.1.3 SOILS AND LAND CAPABILITY

a. Large spatial variability appears in soil and land type occurrence, which already over

time, formed a dynamic equilibrium and interlinked functional system, reflected in

the natural water accumulation, subsoil percolation and surface runoff.

In terms of your own acknowledgement of the agricultural potential of the land, it

should be realised that disturbance of this equilibrium will negatively affect the

surrounding interlinked soil-water system.

2.1.4 SURFACE AND GROUNDWATER

a. Information provided is very basic. However it does indicate various critical pointers

that will be exposed to the proposed mining activities. The geological subsurface

material which will be exposed during excavation, washing, stock piling and dumping

will affect surface and groundwater in this particular setting irreparably.

b. The above mentioned impact is cumulative and irreversible.

2.1.5 VISUAL ASPECTS

a. Mine tailings and waste/overburden dumping sites will also affect the visual

landscape character and, as acknowledged in the Report, “the sense of place and

scenic quality”.

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2.2 IDENTIFICATION OF ENVIRONMENTAL AND SOCIAL IMPACTS

2.2.1 MOTIVATION, NEED AND DESIRABILITY

a. From the point of a private organisation participating in the flow of modern day

economics, the primary purpose is that of economic wealth and shareholder value.

The supply to ESKOM and export of coal are put up in this Scoping Report as

motivation, with a further basis of job opportunities and unspecified provisions in

the IDP’s of the Amajuba/eMadlangeni municipality and National Government.

However, the sensitivity of the headwater of the pristine Pongola river Catchment is

in the very long term, critical for a very large number of different communities and

livelihoods, especially where some are totally dependent on the natural surface

water resource.

We herein call upon the moral duty of environmental consultants, mining houses

and other role players in the well described judgments of two important court cases,

namely;

BP Southern Africa (Pty) Ltd) v MEC for Agriculture, Conservation and

Land Affairs, 2004 5 SA 124 (WLD) The court emphasised the importance

of the progressive realisation of a protected environmental right by stating inter

alia:

“Pure economic principles will no longer determine in an unbridled fashion,

whether a development is acceptable.”

“Development, which may be regarded as economically and financially sound,

will, in future, be balanced by its environmental impact ......”

Fuel Retailers Association of SA v Director General: Environmental

Management, Dept of Agriculture, Conservation and Environment,

Mpumalanga Province, 2007 6 SA (CC) in an attempt to balance social,

economic and environmental concerns, stated that,

“....development and the environment cannot exist upon a weakening

environmental base. Consequently, the promotion of development requires the

protection of the environment”.

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2.3 IDENTIFICATION - ENVIRONMENTAL AND SOCIAL IMPACTS

2.3.1 PROJECT OVERVIEW

It is noted that further exploration, development and optimisation as well as further

exploration drilling is provided for. It is also stated that a right of 20 years has been

applied for.

We are aware that prospecting during more or less 2010 and 2011, took place on other

areas by Commisssiekraal Coal, Vince Mining and Tholie Logistics. It involved a much

larger area as the farm Commissiekraal 90Ht under this MR application.

We need assurance of what is the long-term intention of the Tholie Logistics / Bright

Resources in terms of this future development, mentioned above?

2.3.2 ACTIVITIES – TRANSPORT

Our comments under para 2.1.1. (b) and (c) refer.

2.3.3 WATER SUPPLY:

The intended water supply from Utrecht municipality is a highly impugnable issue.

Clarity and detail about this issue is needed as well as an explanation of why a

municipality would rather supply a mine with potable water than large number of rural

communities.

2.3.4 CONSTRUCTION WASTE MANGEMENT

What assurance will be provided that all contractors would honour and comply to any

waste management procedure set up by the Applicant.

2.3.5 OPERATIONAL PHASE – MINING

What is the landscape, soil types and slope stability in terms of blasting operations?

Pillar extraction and roof collapse will cause a vertical shear effect on all layers up to

surface. How will water / hydrogical inflow and subsequent contamination of other

resources be prevented?

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In terms of landscape and top soil rehabilitation, what is the ratio between volumes of

material removed and railed away versus the created voids to be refilled at

rehabilitation?

What will be done to repair voids that cannot be refilled?

2.3.6 OPERATIONAL PHASE – WASTE MANAGEMENT.

The statement that minimal waste rock will be produced is debatable.

What is a boxcut platform?

What is the expected volume ratio of overburden and soil / rock material, as waste,

versus the volume needed for the boxcut? What would be the position if the waste

exceeds the “boxcut” volume needs?

2.3.7 DECOMMISSION AND CLOSURE

A detailed description and assurances in terms of environmental and rehabilitation care

is needed in the cases of;

• Selling of mining right during mining

• Closure and abandoning of the mine.

• Escalation of commitment of the Applicant

2.4 COMPARISON OF THE “NO-GO OPTION”

2.4.1 The assessment of a comparison between the “existing situation” and a situation with

the project, the “No-Go option” sounds ridiculous.

How will the future negative impacts on the environment and livelihoods of communities,

inclusive of the remaining mitigation cost of the mining history in terms of environmental

degradation and pollution, be weighed, against the personal financial gain of a private

mining company and its shareholders?

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Yours truly,

J. H. Boonzaaier

Chief Executive Manager


On behalf of:


The Greater Pongola River Protection association

The IAP Landowners.

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ANNEXURE A

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William Berry

From: Adv JP Snijders <[email protected]>

Sent: 22 May 2015 02:27 PM

To: Alex Pheiffer

Cc: 'Heye Daun'

Subject: RE: Commissiekraal Coal Project: Scoping report / Summary for review

Dear Alex and Heye,

The following position of the IAPs listed below is not clear from the Scoping Report, and should be included in the

EIA, in my own words:

- On behalf of the owner, Dr. L. A. Snijders, of both Tiverton No. 4, a neighbouring farm to Commissiekraal

and Drift No. 17072/2 and 17072/3, a neighbouring farm of Commissiekraal; I formally oppose the issue of a

mining licence on Commissiekraal;

- As a tenant and land user on neighbouring Tiverton, I personally oppose the issue of a mining licence on

Commissiekraal.

The reasons for this opposition include, among other reasons, the following:

- The claim of Tholie to a proposed access route across Drift is unlawful;

- The current SLR scope of environmental impacts omits or misrepresents significant effects on neighbouring

land, water and environmental rights;

- No provision is made by Tholie for adequate housing, clinics, schools and other social infrastructure for

mine workers, their families, and suppliers of the mine and their workers.

- All environmental impacts and damage, and all social impacts and damage expected to be caused by

Tholie’s proposed mine are expected to be borne by the communities of Dumbe and Emadlangeni, other

communities who use the proposed polluted downstream water resources, and the communities relying on

environmental tourism in those communities and the neighbouring Pixley kaIsaka Seme Municipality;

- Because environmental impacts are under-reported, proposed abatement and remedial measures will be

grossly inadequate;

- The proposed mine is in pristine environment where there has never been any mining activity in the

Pandana, Tsakwe, or Sibabe Rivers, important catchments for the Pongola River;

- Tholie is misrepresented as a ‘junior miner’; when it has in fact never been a South African coal miner of

any type.

Regards,

JP Snijders

From: Adv JP Snijders [mailto:[email protected]]

Sent: 14 April 2015 04:57 PM

To: 'Alex Pheiffer'

Cc: 'Heye Daun'

Subject: Commiessiekraal Coal Project: Scoping report / Summary for review

Dear Alex,

May I have an electronic copy of the full scoping report.

Kind regards,

JP Snijders

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William Berry

From: Adv JP Snijders <[email protected]>

Sent: 18 June 2015 04:01 PM

To: Alex Pheiffer; [email protected]; [email protected];

[email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected];



[email protected]; [email protected];


[email protected]

Cc: William Berry; 'Heye Daun'

Subject: RE: Commiessiekraal Coal Project: Air quality

Attachments: IMG_0073.JPG

Dear Alex,

Regarding the proposed research to be conducted on air quality, I attach for your consultants’ consideration a

photograph I took with environmental tourists on Sunday 15 June 2015. This is a photograph of air-quality sensitive

epiphytic orchids and lichens on old-growth forest on Magidela Mountain.

According to the Scoping Report, Tholie plans to mine for coal under Magidela and to truck it unwashed on dust

roads to the Dumbe railway siding.

I am happy to see that the unavoidable degradation of air quality of the proposed mine and its activities and its

consequential deleterious effect on human life and the living environment will be assessed in the EIA.

Magidela forms the divide between the pristine catchments of the Pandana, Sibabe and Bivane River systems, all

tributaries of the Pongola.

Regards,

Adv JP Snijders

Tiverton Farm

Emadlangeni LM

From: Alex Pheiffer [mailto:[email protected]]

Sent: 18 June 2015 01:36 PM

To: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; Bret Berglund; [email protected];
















2




[email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]

Cc: William Berry; Heye Daun

Subject: Commiessiekraal Coal Project: Final scoping report & Updated EIA timing





FINAL SCOPING REPORT AND UPDATED EIA TIMING

Dear Interested and/or Affected Party

Final scoping report

As an interested and/or affected party (IAP) registered on the project’s database you had an opportunity to review

and comment on the draft scoping report and/or summary. This letters serves to inform you that the scoping report

commenting period is closed. The scoping report has been updated to include all comments received during the

scoping report review process. All comments including responses from the project team are included in the updated

issues and concerns table (Appendix D of the scoping report) with full copies of the comments included in Appendix

B of the scoping report. All comments received will be addressed in the next phase, the environmental impact

assessment (EIA) phase, of the process.

Some of the comments required edits to the scoping report. These are listed below:

• In relation to the mining rate, inserted the underlined wording “Approximately 480,000 tons per annum (for

each of the two production sections)” (in Table 3.1 and the executive summary)

• In terms of NEMA listed activities, replaced the striked through words with the underlined words “Pollution

control dams Water supply reservoirs located at the project site will could exceed a capacity of 250 cubic

metres” (in Table 3.2)

• Specified tourism as a land use to be addressed (in Section 3.4.2)

• Added surface subsidence as a potential impact to be addressed (in Section 3.4.4.1) and the related terms

of reference (in Section 6.4.1)

• Added an objective to the soil and hydrology specialist studies’ terms of reference to provide input on soil-

water interrelationships ( in Section 6.4.2 and 6.4.4)

• Added an objective to the biodiversity specialist study terms of reference to provide input on the effects of

coal dust on sensitive plants and grazing animals (in Section 6.4.3).

The final scoping report will be submitted to the Department of Economic Development, Tourism and

Environmental Affairs (DEDTEA) and the Department of Mineral Resources (DMR) for their review and consideration

by Friday 19 June 2015.

Should you wish to receive a copy of the final scoping report and/or issues and concerns table please request an

electronic copy from SLR. Any additional comments should be submitted by Friday 10 July 2015 directly to the

DEDTEA and DMR (see contact details below), and a copy of the comments forwarded to SLR.

Department and

Contact Person (s)

Postal Address Fax number Email

Department of Economic Development,

Tourism and Environmental Affairs

Mr P Moodley

CC Ms N Mabaso

P. O Box 170

Newcastle

2940

034 312

9986

[email protected]

cc [email protected]

3

Department of Mineral Resources

Ms S Francis

Private Bag 54307

Durban

4000

031 301

6950

[email protected]

Updated EIA timing

It is anticipated that the draft EIA report will be completed and available for public and regulatory authority review

in early September 2015. The planned IAP feedback meetings will likely take place in September. You will be

notified via newsletter of the availability of the draft EIA report, commenting process and feedback meetings.

Should you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact:


(011) 467 0945 (Tel) or (011) 467 0978 (Fax) or


Kind regards

Alex Pheiffer









Projekverwysing: 710.02038.00001 DMH Verwysingsnommer: KZN 30/5/1/2/2/10061 MR DEDTEA Verwysingsnommer: DC25/0010/2014: KZN/EIA/00001763/2014

17 Junie 2015

THOLIE LOGISTICS (EDMS.) BPK.

ONTWIKKELING VAN DIE VOORGESTELDE COMMISSIEKRAAL STEENKOOLMYN

INSLUITEND STEUNDIENSTE EN GEPAARDGAANDE INFRASTRUKTUUR

FINALE BESTEKOPNAMEVERSLAG EN BYGEWERKTE OIE TYDREËLING

Geagte Belangstellende en/of Geaffekteerde Party

Finale Bestekopnameverslag

As ’n belangstellende en/of geaffekteerde party (B&GP) wat op die projek se databasis geregistreer is,

het u ’n geleentheid gehad vir insae tot en kommentaar oor die konsep bestekopnameverslag en/of

opsomming. Hierdie skrywe dien om u te verwittig dat die bestekopnameverslag se kommentaartydperk

verstreke is. Die bestekopnameverslag is bygewerk om alle kommentaar wat tydens die bestekopname

se insaeproses ontvang is, in te sluit. Alle kommentaar, insluitend antwoorde van die projekspan, is

ingesluit in die bygewerkte tabel met kwessies en knelpunte (Aanhangsel D van die

bestekopnameverslag) met volledige afskrifte van die kommentaar wat in Aanhangsel B van die

bestekopnameverslag ingesluit is. Alle kommentaar wat ontvang is, sal in die volgende fase van die

projek, naamlik die omgewingsimpakevalueringsfase (OIE), aangespreek word.

Van die opmerkings het die bywerking van die bestekopnameverslag geverg. Dit word hieronder

uiteengesit:

Met betrekking tot die ontginningskoers, voeg die onderstreepte woorde in “Approximately

480 000 tons per annum (for each of the two production sections)” [“Sowat 480 000 ton per jaar

(vir elk van die twee produksie-afdelings)]” (in Tabel 3.1 en die uitvoerende opsomming)

Met betrekking tot die aktiwiteite wat deur NEMA genoem word, vervang die woorde wat

doodgetrek is, met die onderstreepte woorde “Pollution control dams Water supply reservoirs

located at the project site will could exceed a capacity of 250 cubic metres”

[“Besoedelingsbeheerdamme Watervoorsieningsreservoirs wat by die projekterrein geleë is, sal

kan ’n kapasiteit van 250 kubieke meter oorskry”] (in Tabel 3.2)

Gespesifiseerde toerisme as ’n grondgebruik moet aangespreek word (in Afdeling 3.4.2)

SLR Consulting (Africa) (Edms.) Bpk.

Bladsy 2

Oppervlakinsakking is bygevoeg as ’n potensiële impak om aangespreek te word (in Afdeling

3.4.4.1) en die verwante opdrag (in Afdeling 6.4.1)

’n Doelwit is bygevoeg tot die grond- en hidrologie spesialisstudies se opdrag om inset te lewer

oor onderlinge verhoudings tussen grond en water (in Afdeling 6.4.2 en 6.4.4)

’n Doelwit is bygevoeg tot die biodiversiteit spesialisstudie se opdrag om insette te lewer oor die

uitwerking van steenkoolstof op sensitiewe plante en diere wat wei (in Artikel 6.4.3).

Die finale bestekopnameverslag sal teen Vrydag 19 Junie 2015 by die Departement van Ekonomiese

Ontwikkeling, Toerisme en Omgewingsake (DEDTEA) en die Departement van Minerale Hulpbronne

(DMH) ingedien word vir hul insae en oorweging. Indien u ’n afskrif van die finale bestekopnameverslag

en/of tabel met kwessies en knelpunte wil ontvang, moet u asseblief ’n elektroniese afskrif van SLR

versoek. Enige verdere kommentaar moet teen Vrydag 10 Julie 2015 regstreeks aan die DEDTEA en

DMH ingedien word (sien kontakbesonderhede hieronder), met ’n afskrif van die kommentaar wat aan

SLR gestuur word.

Departement en Kontakpersoon/persone:

Posadres Faksnommer E-pos

Departement van Ekonomiese Ontwikkeling, Toerisme en Omgewingsake Mnr. P Moodley CC Me N Mabaso

Posbus 170 Newcastle 2940

034 312 9986 [email protected] cc [email protected]

Departement van Minerale Hulpbronne Me S Francis

Privaatsak 54307 Durban 4000

031 301 6950 [email protected]

Bygewerkte OIE tydreëling

Na verwagting sal die konsep OIE-verslag vroeg in September 2015 afgehandel en beskikbaar wees vir

openbare en regulatoriese owerheidsinsae. Die beplande B&GP terugvoervergaderings sal waarskynlik

in September plaasvind. U sal per nuusbrief van die beskikbaarheid van die konsep OIE-verslag,

kommentaarproses en terugvoervergaderings verwittig word.

Moet asseblief nie huiwer om met ons in verbinding te tree indien u enige vrae het of verdere inligting

verlang nie.

Vriendelike groete

Alex Pheiffer William Berry

Projekbestuurder

[email protected]

Projekassistent

[email protected]

Vir SLR Consulting (Africa) (Edms.) Bpk.

mailto:[email protected]





Project Reference: 710.02038.00001 DMR Reference Number: KZN 30/5/1/2/2/10061 MR DEDTEA Reference Number: DC25/0010/2014: KZN/EIA/00001763/2014

17 June 2015


DEVELOPMENT OF THE PROPOSED COMMISSIEKRAAL COAL MINE INCLUDING SUPPORT

SERVICES AND ASSOCIATED INFRASTRUCTURE


Dear Interested and/or Affected party


As an interested and/or affected party (IAP) registered on the project’s database you had an opportunity

to review and comment on the draft scoping report and/or summary. This letters serves to inform you

that the scoping report commenting period is closed. The scoping report has been updated to include

all comments received during the scoping report review process. All comments including responses

from the project team are included in the updated issues and concerns table (Appendix D of the

scoping report) with full copies of the comments included in Appendix B of the scoping report. All

comments received will be addressed in the next phase, the environmental impact assessment (EIA)

phase, of the process.


In relation to the mining rate, inserted the underlined wording “Approximately 480,000 tons per

annum (for each of the two production sections)” (in Table 3.1 and the executive summary)

In terms of NEMA listed activities, replaced the striked through words with the underlined words

“Pollution control dams Water supply reservoirs located at the project site will could exceed a

capacity of 250 cubic metres” (in Table 3.2)

Specified tourism as a land use to be addressed (in Section 3.4.2)

Added surface subsidence as a potential impact to be addressed (in Section 3.4.4.1) and the

related terms of reference (in Section 6.4.1)

Added an objective to the soil and hydrology specialist studies’ terms of reference to provide

input on soil-water interrelationships ( in Section 6.4.2 and 6.4.4)

Added an objective to the biodiversity specialist study terms of reference to provide input on the

effects of coal dust on sensitive plants and grazing animals (in Section 6.4.3).

SLR Consulting (Africa) (Pty) Ltd

Page 2


Environmental Affairs (DEDTEA) and the Department of Mineral Resources (DMR) for their review and

consideration by Friday 19 June 2015. Should you wish to receive a copy of the final scoping report

and/or issues and concerns table please request an electronic copy from SLR. Any additional

comments should be submitted by Friday 10 July 2015 directly to the DEDTEA and DMR (see contact

details below), and a copy of the comments forwarded to SLR.

Department and Contact Person (s)


Department of Economic Development, Tourism and Environmental Affairs Mr P Moodley CC Ms N Mabaso

P. O Box 170 Newcastle 2940


Department of Mineral Resources Ms S Francis

Private Bag 54307 Durban 4000


Updated EIA timing

It is anticipated that the draft EIA report will be completed and available for public and regulatory

authority review in early September 2015. The planned IAP feedback meetings will likely take place in

September. You will be notified via newsletter of the availability of the draft EIA report, commenting

process and feedback meetings.

Should you have any questions or require additional information do not hesitate to contact us.

Kind regards


Project Manager

[email protected]

Project Assistant

[email protected]

For SLR Consulting (Africa) (Pty) Ltd






Project Reference: 710.02038.00001 DMR Reference Number: KZN 30/5/1/2/2/10061 MR DEDTEA Reference Number: DC25/0010/2014: KZN/EIA/00001763/2014

17 Juni 2015


UKWAKHIWA KWEMAYINI YAMALAHLE EHLONGOZWAYO YASE-COMMISSIEKRAAL

KUBANDAKANYA NAMASEVISI OKUYISEKELA KANYE NOMBIKO WOPHENYO LOKUGCINA

LWENGQALASIZINDA KANYE NOKULINGANISWA KWESIKHATHI SE-EIA

Lungu Elithandekayo Elinesifiso Sokwazi kanye/noma Nelithintekayo

Umbiko wophenyo lokugcina

Njengomuntu onesifiso sokwazi kanye/noma nothintekayo (IAP) obhaliswe esigcinalwazini (database)

sale phrojekthi ube nethuba lokuhlola nokusika elijikayo ngombiko wophenyo owuhlaka kanye/noma

umbiko ofingqiwe. Le ncwadi eyokukwazisa ukuthi inkathi yokuphawula yombiko wokuphenya

isivaliwe. Umbiko wokuphenya uye wabuyekezwa ukuze ufake konke ukuphawula okutholakale

phakathi nenqubo yokuhlola yombiko wokuphenya. Konke ukuphawula kubandakanya nezimpendulo

ezivela ethimbeni lale phrojekthi kufakiwe ethebuleni lezingqinamba nezimvo (Isithasiselo D sombiko

wophenyo) namakhophi aphelele okuphawula afakwe kwiSithasiselo B sombiko wophenyo. Konke

ukuphawula okutholakele kuzodingidwa esigabeni esilandelayo, esigabeni sokuhlola umthelela

kwezemvelo (EIA), sale nqubo.

Okunye kokuphawula kuye kwadinga ukuba kulungiswe okuthile embikweni wophenyo. Lokhu kufakwe

ohlwini olungezansi:

Maqondana nesilinganiso sasezimayini, amazwi afakiwe adwetshelwe athi “Cishe amathani

angu-480,000 ngonyaka (ngengxenye ngayinye yezimbili zomkhiqizo)” (kwiThebula 3.1 kanye

nombiko ofingqiwe)

Ngokuvumelana nemisebenzi efakwe ohlwini ye-NEMA, kufakwe amagama adwetshelwe

esikhundleni sasuliwe “Amadamu okulawula ukungcola Imithombo yokuphakelwa kwamanzi

esendaweni yale phrojekthi izokweqelal ingase yeqele ngale kwamakhubhikhi mitha angu-250”

(kwiThebula 3.2)

Ezokuvakasha ezichazwe njengokusetshenziswa kwezwe zizobekwa ezithebeni (eNgxenyeni

3.4.2)

SLR Consulting (Africa) (Pty) Ltd

Ikhasi 2

Kunezelwe udaba lokushona kwendawo okungaba nomthelela okuzokwethulwa ezithebeni

(eNgxenyeni 3.4.4.1) kanye nesikhathi okuzosithatha ukwenza uphenyo (eNgxenyeni 6.4.1)

Kunezelwe udaba lokuhlola kongoti oluthinta inhlabathi ne-hayidroloji ukuze kuhlinzekwe

ukuhlobana okukhona phakathi kwenhlabathi namanzi (eNgxenyeni 6.4.2 no-6.4.4)

Kunezelwe udaba lokuhlola kongoti izinto eziphilayo ezikuleyo ndawo ukuze kuhlinzekwe izimvo

ngemiphumela yothuli lwamalahle ezitshalweni ezilimala kalula nezilwane eziklaba lapho

(eNgxenyeni 6.4.3).

Umbiko wokugcina wophenyo uzokwethulwa kuMnyango Wentuthuko Yezomnotho, Ezokuvakasha

Nezemvelo (DEDTEA) nakuMnyango Wezinto Ezimbiwa Phansi (DMR) ukuze bawuhlole futhi

bawucabangela engakedluli uLwesihlanu 19 Juni 2015. Uma ungafisa ukuthola ikhophi yombiko

wokugcina wophenyo kanye/noma nethebula lezingqinamba nezimvo, siza ucele ikhophi e-

elekthronikhi kwa-SLR. Noma yikuphi okunye ukuphawula okwengeziwe kufanele kwethulwe

engakedluli uLwesihlanu 10 Julayi 2015 ngokuqondile kwi-DEDTEA ne-DMR (bheka imininingwane

yokuxhumana ngezansi), kanye nekhophi yokuphawula ethunyelwe kwi-SLR.

uMnyango Nomuntu (nabantu) Okungaxhunyanwa Naye

Ikheli Lokuposa Inombolo Yesikhahlamezi

I-Imeyili

Department of Economic Development, Tourism and Environmental Affairs Mr P Moodley CC Ms N Mabaso

P. O Box 170 Newcastle 2940


Department of Mineral Resources Ms S Francis

Private Bag 54307 Durban 4000


Isikhathi Esibuyekeziwe Se-EIA

Kulindelekile ukuthi umbiko owuhlaka we-EIA uzophothulwa futhi utholakale emphakathini

nasezikhulwini eziphethe ukuze uhlolwe ngasekuqaleni kukaSepthemba 2015. Imihlangano ehleliwe

yezimvo ze-IAP cishe izoba khona ngo-Septhemba. Uzokwaziswa ngencwadi yalezi zindaba

ngokutholakala kombiko owuhlaka we-EIA, inqubo yokusika elijikayo kanye nemihlangano yezimvo.

Uma kukhona imibuzo onayo noma udinga ulwazi olwengeziwe ungangabazi ukuthintana nathi.

Abazithobayo


Umphathi Wephrojekthi

[email protected]

Umsizi Womphathi Wephrojekthi

[email protected]

For SLR Consulting (Africa) (Pty) Ltd






1

William Berry

From: Alex Pheiffer

Sent: 18 June 2015 01:36 PM

To: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; Bret Berglund;



























[email protected]; [email protected]


Subject: Commiessiekraal Coal Project: Final scoping report & Updated EIA timing

Attachments: English_2015-06-15_IAP newsletter_FSR.pdf








As an interested and/or affected party (IAP) registered on the project’s database you had an opportunity to review

and comment on the draft scoping report and/or summary. This letters serves to inform you that the scoping report

commenting period is closed. The scoping report has been updated to include all comments received during the

scoping report review process. All comments including responses from the project team are included in the updated

issues and concerns table (Appendix D of the scoping report) with full copies of the comments included in Appendix

2

B of the scoping report. All comments received will be addressed in the next phase, the environmental impact

assessment (EIA) phase, of the process.


• In relation to the mining rate, inserted the underlined wording “Approximately 480,000 tons per annum (for

each of the two production sections)” (in Table 3.1 and the executive summary)

• In terms of NEMA listed activities, replaced the striked through words with the underlined words “Pollution

control dams Water supply reservoirs located at the project site will could exceed a capacity of 250 cubic

metres” (in Table 3.2)

• Specified tourism as a land use to be addressed (in Section 3.4.2)

• Added surface subsidence as a potential impact to be addressed (in Section 3.4.4.1) and the related terms of

reference (in Section 6.4.1)

• Added an objective to the soil and hydrology specialist studies’ terms of reference to provide input on soil-

water interrelationships ( in Section 6.4.2 and 6.4.4)

• Added an objective to the biodiversity specialist study terms of reference to provide input on the effects of

coal dust on sensitive plants and grazing animals (in Section 6.4.3).


Environmental Affairs (DEDTEA) and the Department of Mineral Resources (DMR) for their review and consideration

by Friday 19 June 2015.

Should you wish to receive a copy of the final scoping report and/or issues and concerns table please request an

electronic copy from SLR. Any additional comments should be submitted by Friday 10 July 2015 directly to the

DEDTEA and DMR (see contact details below), and a copy of the comments forwarded to SLR.

Department and

Contact Person (s)


Department of Economic Development,

Tourism and Environmental Affairs

Mr P Moodley

CC Ms N Mabaso

P. O Box 170

Newcastle

2940

034 312

9986

[email protected]

cc [email protected]

Department of Mineral Resources

Ms S Francis

Private Bag 54307

Durban

4000

031 301

6950

[email protected]

Updated EIA timing

It is anticipated that the draft EIA report will be completed and available for public and regulatory authority review

in early September 2015. The planned IAP feedback meetings will likely take place in September. You will be

notified via newsletter of the availability of the draft EIA report, commenting process and feedback meetings.



(011) 467 0945 (Tel) or (011) 467 0978 (Fax) or


Kind regards

Alex Pheiffer



Mobile: +27 83 269 7545

3

Tel: +27 11 467 0945 Ext: 2036 Fax: +27 11 467 0978

1

William Berry

From: Alex Pheiffer

Sent: 15 September 2015 08:56 AM

To: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected];







[email protected]; [email protected]; 0832976911

@mtnloaded.co.za; [email protected]; [email protected];









[email protected]; [email protected]; ron.j18

@outlook.com; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected];

[email protected]; [email protected]; Bluffman200

@gmail.com; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected];











[email protected]; [email protected]


Subject: Commiessiekraal Coal Project: Updated EIA timing





UPDATED EIA TIMING


As an interested and/or affected party (IAP) registered on the project’s database, this email serves to inform you of

the updated timing for completion of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report.

2

The draft EIA report will be completed and available for public and regulatory authority review in late October 2015.

The planned IAP feedback meetings will likely take place in early to mid-November. You will be notified via

newsletter of the availability of the draft EIA report, commenting process and feedback meetings.



(011) 467 0945 (Tel) or (011) 467 0978 (Fax) or


Kind regards

Alex Pheiffer

Alex Pheiffer African Environmental Management Operations Manager SLR Consulting



1

William Berry

From: Alex Pheiffer

Sent: 18 September 2015 02:38 PM

To: Dominic Wieners; [email protected]; [email protected];






























[email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]

Cc: Heye Daun; William Berry

Subject: RE: Commiessiekraal Coal Project: Updated EIA timing

Dear Dominic

The EIA has been adjusted to cater for the 20 year mining period.

Kind regards

Alex




2

From: Dominic Wieners [mailto:[email protected]]

Sent: 15 September 2015 09:42 AM

To: Alex Pheiffer; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected];








[email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected];




[email protected]; [email protected] Cc: Heye Daun; William Berry; William Berry; Heye Daun

Subject: RE: Commiessiekraal Coal Project: Updated EIA timing

Dear Alex.

Many thanks for the update.

I wanted to enquire whether the EIA had been revised to assess a 20 year life of mine (LOM), as discussed at the site

visit in June, or has the mining application been relodged for only a 10 year LOM? It would be beneficial to know this

information up front, given the potential concerns with the location of the mine within critical corridor areas, many

of which are earmarked for Protected Area Expansion etc, downstream impacts on the Upper Pongola river, and so

on.

Kindly advise.

Best

Dominic Wieners

IEM Process and Standards Planner - Land Use Planning Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife Queen Elizabeth Park, No 1 Peter Brown Drive, PO Box 13053, Cascades, 3202 Tel : (033) 845 1455 Fax: (033) 845 1499 E-mail : [email protected] Website : www.kznwildlife.com

Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail. Kindly check the process for submission of EIA documentation on our website (www.kznwildlife.com)

3

This e-mail, its contents and any file attachments transmitted with it are intended solely for the addressee(s) and may contain confidential proprietary information. Access

by any other party without the express written permission of the sender is unauthorized. If you have received this e-mail in error you may not copy, distribute or use the contents, attachments or information in any way. Please destroy it and contact the sender. The e-mail addresses of Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife e-mail users that appear on this

e-mail may not be used or sold or otherwise made available to others for marketing purposes. E-mail transmissions cannot be guaranteed to be secure or error-free

and Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife, therefore, does not accept liability for any errors or omissions in the contents of this message nor for any loss or damage caused as a result of

the e-mail being intercepted or the recipient being infected with any virus or other malicious code. Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife does not endorse any opinions, conclusions, data

or other information contained in this e-mail which is unrelated to the official business of Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife and furthermore accepts no liability in respect of the unauthorized use of its e-mail facility or the sending of e-mail communications for other than strictly business purposes. Please note that Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife reserves

the right to access, block, and monitor and intercept e-mail addressed to Users in Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife in accordance with Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife's e-mail policy.

From: Alex Pheiffer [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Tuesday, September 15, 2015 8:56 AM

To: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected];


[email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected];








[email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; Dominic

Wieners; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected];

[email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected] Cc: Heye Daun; William Berry; William Berry; Heye Daun

Subject: Commiessiekraal Coal Project: Updated EIA timing





UPDATED EIA TIMING


As an interested and/or affected party (IAP) registered on the project’s database, this email serves to inform you of

the updated timing for completion of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report.

The draft EIA report will be completed and available for public and regulatory authority review in late October 2015.

The planned IAP feedback meetings will likely take place in early to mid-November. You will be notified via

newsletter of the availability of the draft EIA report, commenting process and feedback meetings.



(011) 467 0945 (Tel) or (011) 467 0978 (Fax) or


4

Kind regards

Alex Pheiffer









1

William Berry

From: Alex Pheiffer

Sent: 29 October 2015 06:58 AM

To: Alex Pheiffer


Subject: Commiessiekraal Coal Project: EIA available for review

Attachments: 2015-10-28_Summary for IAPs.pdf





EIA AND EMP REPORT FOR REVIEW


You may be aware that Tholie Logistics (Pty) Ltd (Tholie Logistics) is proposing to establish a new underground coal

mine and related surface infrastructure on the farm Commissiekraal 90HT. The project site is located approximately

28 km north of Utrecht in the eMadlangeni Local Municipality and the Amajuba District Municipality, KwaZulu-

Natal.

As part of the environmental assessment process an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and Environmental

Management Programme (EMP) Report has been produced by SLR. Attached to this email, for your review, is:

• a summary of the EIA and EMP report, (including a comment sheet attached to the back of the summary)

Full copies of the EIA and EMP report are available for review at the following locations:

• Luthilunye Combined School C/o Mr T Nzimande (School Principal)

• Utrecht Library C/o Sizakele Magubane (Reference Librarian)

• Kemplust Hall C/o Eugene de Witt (Kemplust Caretaker)

• SLR Fourways Library C/o William Berry

• Tholie Logistics C/o Bright Resources Cape Town office

Should you wish to receive an electronic copy of the EIA and EMP report to review, please forward your request to

us.

The closing date for comments is Tuesday, 08th of December 2015. This provides interested and affected parties 40

days to review the EIA and EMP report and/or summary and submit comments to SLR. Comments can be submitted

to SLR either via email or fax using the attached comment sheet, at the feedback meetings (see details below), or

alternatively, comments sheets can be dropped off at any of the public venues listed above and SLR will arrange for

collection at the end of the review period.

This email also serves to invite you to one or both public feedback meetings (see meeting details below). The

purpose of the feedback meetings is to provide IAPs with an opportunity to discuss the outcomes of the EIA and

EMP process and to provide IAPs with a chance to submit comments on the EIA and EMP report.

Zulu (and English, where required) English and Afrikaans

Date: Thursday, 19 November 2015 Date: Thursday, 19 November 2015

Time: 09h00 Time: 13h00

2

Venue: Luthilunye Local School Venue: Kemps Lust Hall

All comments received during the review process will be included in the final report submitted to the DMR and

DEDTEA for decision making.



(011) 467 0945 (Tel) or (011) 467 0978 (Fax) or


Kind regards

Alex Pheiffer









1



MINUTES OF BIODIVERSITY-WATER RELATED WORKSHOP HELD FOR THE PROJECT

DATE 13 November 2015

VENUE: Majuba Lodge Conference Centre, Newcastle

PROJECT: Commissiekraal Coal Project

SLR COMPANY: SLR Consulting (Africa) (Pty) Ltd

PROJECT NUMBER: 710.02038.00001

PURPOSE: The purpose of the meeting was to:

Provide attendees with an opportunity to discuss related outcomes of the EIA and EMP process

Interact with the biodiversity and water specialist consultants

Discuss mitigation measures proposed for the project

ATTENDANCE: An attendance register is presented in Appendix 1.

1. OPEN AND INTRODUCTION

Alex Pheiffer (AP) opened the meeting and introduced SLR Consulting (Africa) (Pty) Ltd (SLR)

represented by William Berry (WB) and herself; AP then introduced the biodiversity specialist from

Scientific Aquatic Services (SAS) represented by Emile van der Westhuizen (EvdW); the groundwater

specialist from Delta H represented by Martin Holland (MH) and the applicant from Bright Resources

(Pty) Ltd (Bright Resources) represented by the project manager, Heye Daun (HD). AP then allowed

meetings attendees to introduce themselves.

2. PRESENTATION

AP gave a presentation outlining the objective, purpose of workshop, legal framework, key alternatives

considered and the overall EIA findings. Following AP’s presentation, specialist findings were

presented by EvdW on the biodiversity findings and MH on the groundwater findings.

3. DISCUSSION

A number of issues were raised during the meeting. These have been recorded in TABLE 1 below.

Where a response was provided the response has been included in the table.

2

TABLE 1: ISSUES RAISED DURING THE WORKSHOP AND RESPONSES GIVEN BY THE PROJECT TEAM

Issue raised By whom Response (given by SLR unless otherwise stated)

Procedural Issues

Timeframes and licenses

With regards to the permissions, when a mining right is granted you’ve got a certain timeframe to start mining otherwise the mining right lapses. The problem with some of these process, for instance a water use licence, is that these processes are very long so what sometimes happens is that the mining permit will lapse before the mine gets their water use license. How does that affect the process when you start running into such timeframe problems? Because you might end up in a position where the mine will have to start mining even though the water use license has not been granted. Can a mining right actually be extended to allow the mine more time to acquire other necessary licenses?

Bronwyn Howard

The plan is to initiate the water use license process once the EIA is near completion. There is also provision in the legislation to request for an extension of the start date of mining. (SLR) I can assure you we will not start any construction on site if all our necessary permits haven’t been acquired and that includes the water use license (HD).

Review period Our issue here is that the negotiation phase between the applicant and the stakeholders has now past and now we must run after a deadline to give comments and that is the last opportunity for us to raise our concerns.

Johan Boonzaaier

There is a process that needs to be followed. If you need to request an extension to the review period this can be done.

Assumptions In chapter 12 of the EIA report, it is mentioned that feasibility studies need to be done and then certain leachate studies also need to be done. So how do we understand that because we can report on this document which will be our chance to evaluate the report but there are still outstanding studies that need to be done. What outstanding studies still need to be done?

Johan Boonzaaier

The information presented in the EIA is based on a conceptual feasibility study which is often what is done to inform an EIA process. The feasibility study that is mentioned in the EIA report is the detailed feasibility and design that normally happen post environmental authorisation and these studies happen when there is more security that the project will be granted environmental authorisation. Typically in engineering terms you have scoping studies, feasibility studies, banking feasibility studies and typically the distinction between the studies is the level of accuracy. So how much confidence, that is plus or minus 10% or 15%. So typically the higher you go up the confidence scale the more expensive it gets. Drilling for example, it would be advantageous to have another 50 boreholes in order to increase the knowledge about the geology but the reality is that no one will fund that initiative. However most of the work from a mining point of view, I would say is at an advanced scoping level. So typically what would happen is once we get the mining license we would do a new feasibility process, from a mining engineering point of view, and I’m sure the outcome of the design work will be very similar (HD).

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Assumptions This leaves us with a huge concern, if we give our comments and complaints about the EIA report and the DMR approves it and thereafter you do all these additional studies which changes the outcome of the impacts and reveals more issues however now the approval was granted and we cannot have a say.

Johan Boonzaaier

In terms of the environmental process, any changes to the current mine project such as surface infrastructure changes, changes to the underground mine plan, changes in the management plan triggers a new NEMA environmental authorisation process because we are now in the new NEMA 2014 regulations. Therefore the mine can’t just change the mine plan significantly to what was applied for in the approved environmental authorisation without having to get authorisation to amend the initial plan. The fact that we are going to do further and more in depth studies cannot be used to criticise us because the studies that we have done so far are already appropriate for the level of advancement of this project or for the environmental process. Everything we have done so far is in line with the best practise approach (HD).

I accept that as a principle however in your report you acknowledge that there are uncertainties and things that still need to be done in other words from our perspective a decision cannot be made.

Johan Boonzaaier

Technical Issues

Mine product I’d just like some clarity when you talk about the 1 million tons. Is that then material or exportable sellable coal?

Johan Boonzaaier

Yes. It’s all sellable coal. This project is planned on run-of-mine coal. What that means is that everything that will be mined will be loaded onto trucks as is and sold to third parties, it does not get washed. Most other mining operations in Witbank and elsewhere the coal is washed. Generally the difference between run-of-mine coal and washed coal projects is that there is a small environmental impact with run-of-mine coal because you don’t have dumps but run-of-mine can only be done with high quality coal. So for us it would certainly be preferable to wash this coal but due to the environmental impacts we are proposing run-of-mine coal for this project (HD).

Is the mine planning to extract coal from other seams other than the Gus seam?

J.P Snijders The Gus and the Dundas seam converge on the farm Commissiekraal. There is a 4 meter package of lower and upper Gus as well as the Dundas. There are technical reports that we can make available to you but broadly speaking the plan is to mine the Gus seam (HD).

Are you going to sell your coal oversees or are you going to sell it to Eskom?

Bronwyn Howard

The short answer is we don’t know because we haven’t done the marketing studies as it is still early in the process. I can’t give you definite answers but I believe certainly in the beginning it will be an Eskom product because of the qualities. It is very suitable for Eskom. In the long term it is very likely that some of the coal will be exported. A few years ago export coal was selling for twice the price of domestic coal however currently that has changed since domestic coal is selling at a higher price because Eskom is paying higher prices for the coal. (HD)

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Waste material The coal seam varies from 300 to 2.6 meters according to the EIA report. So you probably have to make an entrance hole as big as this room. Therefore all the overburden and other rock material will come out with your coal. Does that mean that all that material will be transported or is there going to be a separation from the product for what you call run-of-mine coal?

Johan Boonzaaier

Everything mined within the void except for the pillars that will be left behind for support is the product. There is no rock, the mining is on-seam, there may be some rock but that is a very small fraction. The coal seam as we know is 2 to 4 meters thick. The only real waste that will come out will be from the development of the box-cut. The idea is that at the end of life-of-mine the box-cut will be filled again with the same material (HD)

Process description

Could you explain the process from the time you physically mining to loading the coal onto the trucks?

J.P Snijders The box-cut will be developed and the material from the box-cut will be temporarily stored on the proposed infrastructure footprint. Material from mining underground will come out on a conveyor, from the conveyor it will go onto a run-of-mine stockpile. From the run-of-mine stockpile it will go into a crush and screen plant. From the crush and screen plant it will go onto a coal product stockpile and from here it will be loaded onto trucks where it will be transported onto a regional siding.

You’ve got many different qualities of coal as you are mining on different seams but only one run-of-mine stockpile. I would expect there to be different stockpiles for the different qualities of coal. Please clarify this.

J.P Snijders They are only mining from the lower Gus seam and the material from the lower Gus seam will go onto a stockpile. Within the stockpile area there is space for the mine to manage or mix the stockpiles as they wish. The area that’s indicated is a stockpile area but how the mine manages it will be up to them. It’s true, the coal qualities are variable but they vary laterally. There will never be a case where three radically different coal properties are mined at the same time. Because of that it is not necessary to have any blending done on site. I do think that this coal will end up being used for blending by others. A coal of this quality is very sort after by other companies mining lower qualities of coal which they can mix with this coal to give it a higher blended product (HD).

Coal depth How deep is the coal seam under the Pandana River? J.P Snijders The coal seam is 50m below surface at the shallowest point under the Pandana River (MH). It outcrops at various places on the farm Commissiekraal however the underground mine will not come closer than 50 meters below the surface (HD).

Production rate In the presentations so far during the different consultation phases there appears to be an uncertainty about the production rate because originally in the scoping report it was said the production rate is 1 million tons per annum but then it changed to 480 000 tons per annum but then if I recalculate your table with the transport loads it comes down to 830 000 tons per annum. So where we and what are the final production rate?

Johan Boonzaaier

The production rate will be reviewed through another feasibility process. But broadly speaking you can work with 1 million tons per year. For an underground mine of this nature, per adit it’s realistically 50 000 tons per month and that’s 600 000 tons per year. At the moment the number that is on the table is 480 000 tons per production section and we’ve got two production sections therefore the number is roughly 1 million tons per annum broadly speaking (HD).

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Transport numbers

I did my own calculation for the number of truck loads. The report mentions 94 trips and the appendix for the traffic study mentions 200 trips.

Johan Boonzaaier

To clarify, 94 loaded trucks per day will leave the site to deliver coal to a regional siding and 94 empty trucks will be coming to the site for collection. In traffic terms this is 94 trips.

Methane generation

We know that in the Wakkerstroom area they are now planning on doing methane extraction. Also in the Elandsburg you get spontaneous combustion. So how will this affect this proposed mine who will be blasting? The point I’m making is using explosives in this operation, will it not ignite methane or cause spontaneous combustion?

Johan Boonzaaier

Spontaneous combustion is basically caused when the coal is exposed to the air and there is an oxidation process that ultimately leads to coal burning. That is a problem because of the smoke it generates and is usually a management issue. Generally spontaneous combustion is associated with dumps (HD). According to the project’s mining engineer, spontaneous combustion is not an issue for the Commissiekraal Coal project because the coal stockpiles will not be there long enough for spontaneous combustion to be an issue. (SLR) Methane is a gas that is locked up within the coal seam and when you start mining it’s released. Methane has no environmental issues but it does play a major role in health and safety. This is a management issue as there is a risk of underground explosions. The activity near Wakkerstroom is a coal gasification process which is a different process (HD). Blasting is a trade that has certain safe guard measures to ensure that it is done in a manner that is safe. Blasting can cause methane explosions but generally speaking the science of blasting has advanced to such an extent that most of it is electric. So I would say the risk of methane explosions is more related to workers lighting cigarettes in the underground workings but this is a management issue (HD).

Have you tested the methane content from your exploration drilling holes?

J.P Snijders No we haven’t, but will look into this in the future (HD).

Studies have shown that the methane is released from the adjacent rocks and not the coal. The consequence of that is that when coal is extracted the methane becomes exposed which increases the chances of explosions. I would suggest that further studies are done on the methane content.

J.P Snijders Thank you for your suggestion.

Pollution control dams

Is there provision made for extra dams? Because sometimes the dams are not big enough as there might be a lot more water generated than expected. Which may lead to the dam leaking or breaking and are there mitigation measures in place for such events?

Bronwyn Howard

As part of the detailed design, you need to design a pollution control dam in line with GN 704 which requires that the dam does not spill more than 1:50 years, and has a certain amount of freeboard. This is included in the water use license and therefore those conditions are enforced.

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Financial provision

Hypothetically speaking, if there is a methane explosion and the mine would have to close would the area be rehabilitated or will the mine just walk away? Because in Utrecht we are still sitting with issues such as dumps and acid mine drainage from mines that have closed and not been rehabilitated. This is issues from a mine that has closed 2 years ago.

Bronwyn Howard

If the mine is closed prematurely the financial provision fund applies. The financial provision is a legal requirement where the mine has to put down an amount of money before any operation commences which is money that will be used to rehabilitate the mine when the mine closes.

What is the financial provision? The reason I am concerned with this is because we are experiencing these problems as we speak. The mines that I am referring to have closed down 2 years ago and not 20 years ago.

Bronwyn Howard

According to the EIA the financial provision is 8 million (JB)

Is this also applicable if the mine goes bankrupt? Bradley Gibbons

Yes, for Commissiekraal all surface disturbance will take place in the first year of mining so by the end of year 1, which is what is normally provided for, the mine will need to put down its full provision.

With regards to decommissioning, we know that closure and abandoning mines is driven by economics, in other words if the economics of the mine is not successful the board of directors and shareholders then say you have to walk away from the mine. What guarantees can you offer? Because the whole fear about mining in the Vryheid area is the legacy of abandoned mines.

Johan Boonzaaier

Of course companies have come and gone in the area but one thing that has changed is that the rules around mining have changed and the DMR is enforcing these rules. For example the reclamation bond, once we’ve done our EMP, that bond has to be put up before anything is done (HD).

The reclamation bond is not even mentioned, all I’ve seen is the 8.8 million rand and I question whether that is sufficient.

Johan Boonzaaier

What the R8.8 million allows for is the removal of all surface infrastructure, back-filling the box-cut, and rehabilitating the surface disturbance to a post closure land use. That’s in current value using the DMR master rates escalated with CPI to get to a 2015 rate.

I got a figure from a contractor to rehabilitate a mine is a cost of R500 000 to R700 000 per hectare.

The surface infrastructure is 14.7 hectares. So according to the quote from the contractor the amount does add up to approximately R8.8 million. There is also a requirement that annually you update the financial provision. We can argue that the cost you put to rehabilitate is not

sufficient.

Are you using the guidelines from the DMR? Yes we used the DMR guidelines and inflation to calculate the financial provision. The DMR guidelines are way below the market value.

Assurances Around the Utrecht and Vryheid areas there are many abandoned mines and I’m sure those mining companies also promised good mitigation and management practises however we are now sitting with that legacy behind us and we are looking at it through that lens. Therefore we need the security and assurance that we as the people living in this area will not be impacted by the mines activity. As the mine you have a life of mine of 20 years and then you will pack up and leave the area to find another place however these farmers and communities can’t.

Johan Boonzaaier

Thank you for your comment, we will discuss this is further detail in the presentation.

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Compliance With regard to mitigation you mentioned monitoring which is great but I’d just like to give you an example in Newcastle. The river that flows through town has 1000s of dead fish in the river. I had to get officials from the Department of Water and Sanitation in Johannesburg and all they did was collect one bottle of water and I have received nothing since from them. That is what I’m worried about here is that the farmers downstream will have to sit with all the problems and even if they call the DWS nothing will happen.

Bradley Gibbons

I agree the general management issues are important and the EMP is there to provide the management requirements. I can’t give you any assurance but I can say at least we’ve got the will. The way I see it is that there are competing interests and no one will get the perfect solution and therefore we need to find a balance and to do that we need to get together and be engaging with us (HD).

You also mentioned that there will be housekeeping on the operation and it all looks great on paper but it is never achieved. Therefore the rules need to be laid down clearly and will there be a guy there with a whip making sure that the mine complies on a daily basis?

Bradley Gibbons

I agree with Bradley, because it is quite important that monitoring be achieved because it always looks good on paper but the reality is that it never plans out the same. I think what people would like to know is who is to blame if something goes wrong.

Maurits de Bruyn

There are legal provisions in place related to external audits. The public has a right to keep an eye on what the mine is doing and to report things that are not done in the line with the EMP.

Will SLR follow up with the mine after a few years to ensure that they are complying with the commitments in the EMP or does SLR simply set it up then it’s done and dusted?

Maurits de Bruyn

SLR is appointed to run and facilitate the EIA process and once that process is complete our related scope of work is done. The mine will need to appoint consultants to undertake the monitoring and external audits throughout the life of mine.

I’d like to make a suggestion - the mine should employ a permanent environmental officer that will be on site to ensure that the mine complies with all the commitments in the EMP on a daily basis. This does not mean there won’t be any environmental impact as I believe any development has an environmental impact but it makes a very big difference.

Bronwyn Howard

It’s highly likely that the environmental authorisation will have conditions in it that will insist that the mine appoints an environmental control officer at the start of construction. I think it goes beyond compliance. From our side we can’t make promises but I can tell you that we also aspire to implement those values (HD).

Biodiversity

Wetland delineation

You said you identified wetlands using the Department of Water Affairs however on your map it shows the wetlands were identified using the NFEPA database, so which one did you actually use?

J. P Snijders

In terms of reliability the NFEPA database does not yield many results because it has limited ground truthing. We used the DWAF wetlands guideline to identify and delineate wetlands on site (EvdW)

Did you use the DWAF guideline to identify other wetlands that will be affected by drainage or seepage from the mining operations?

J. P Snijders

We identified all wetlands that fall within the Commissiekraal mining right application boundary. Site specific work was done to identify those wetlands (EvdW).

Bird mapping Have you included the IBA map? J. P Snijders

Yes, we consulted quite extensively with the IBA. The entire project site falls within the IBA. (EvdW)

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Species There is no Podocarpus Henkelii in this area. J. P Snijders

Yes there is, but thank you for your comment (EvdW).

You’ve listed all the species that you identified on site, with regards to the management plan, is it site specific?

Mauritz de Bruin

We looked at it from a habitat perspective, because if you conserve the habitat the species will be protected. If you tend to focus too much on one thing there is a risk that a different component in the habitat will be impacted. We do highlight the importance of the protected species in the management plan (EvdW) As part of the EMP, we put together a set of conceptual mitigation measures but work will have to be done by the mine to develop those mitigation measures into the detail that they would need to achieve the objective. One of the commitments is to put together a biodiversity management plan together with the specialist. The biodiversity management plan would need to be in place before construction can commence due to the impacts such as vegetation clearing which will take place during construction.

There should be Golden moles and other bird species in this area, was this observed?

Bradley Gibbons

We received the local species list from Bird Life SA and we did a probability of occurrence from habitat, distribution, food availability but there are always gaps (EvdW).

Baseline site visits

When was the biodiversity site visits conducted? Bradley Gibbons

The first site visits were conducted in 2013, followed by 2014 and 2015. Unfortunately there were instances when we were rained off site however this was a good chance for us to identify the terrestrial orchards (EvdW).

Impact spatial scale

Did you evaluate any other wetlands that fall outside the mine license boundary?

J. P Snijders

In terms of the footprint for the baseline studies the focus was on the Commissiekraal site. Then in terms of understanding the zone of influence that comes from water related impacts, the impacts were looked at as far as the impacts went. So although the focus was on the Commissiekraal farm, the impacts were not restricted the farm boundary.

Did I understand you correct when you said you used the farm boundary as the baseline study and if the impacts crossed the boundary you followed the impacts until it reached a point where it would stop?

Johan Boonzaaier

Yes, that is correct.

Wetland offsets I don’t see any wetland offsets and there are guidelines for that so I would like to see more of it.

J.P Snijders Thank you for your comment.

Water

Baseline studies

When was the flow of the Pandana River measured? J.P Snijders The flow measurement was conducted in September this year (2015).

Did you do pH testing on the soils? J.P Snijders Geochemical tests were done for coal roof, parting and floor samples. These included acid base accounting tests and leachate tests.

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Baseline studies

In the report, it states that some leachate tests still need to be done.

Johan Boonzaaier

There will need to be some additional leachate tests on the coal samples but the acid base accounting which determines the acid mine drainage has been done. (SLR) When you talk about acidity and the potential for acid mine drainage there are two things to consider. Firstly the acid generating potential of the coal itself and secondly the neutralising potential of the surrounding rock. The neutralising potential of the surrounding rock is known to be high and that is positive/ Because it’s a low sulphur content coal deposit the acid generating potential should be a lot less for example than the coal deposits in the Vryheid area. The initial results indicate that just over half of the 17 samples that were tested showed that the acid generating potential of the coal had a potential to be non-acid generating. To me that’s very significant results. I cannot say that this coal will not generate acid but the results show that if there is any acid generating potential it’s very low (HD).

The sulphur content is very high, are you sure that its milligrams and not micrograms per litre? 3000mg/l is very high.

Johan Boonzaaier

No, it is milligrams per litre. For the modelling predictions this value was used as a potential scenario. Further geochemical testwork when samples become available will verify this value but this is considered conservative for the purposes of the study. (MH) It is important to understand that the 3000 mg/l is not the results from our material, but an assumption made for the purposes of modelling. (HD)

Geology and aquifers

Does the Vadoze aquifer form part of the aquifer that you made reference to?

Johan Boonzaaier

No, a perched aquifer means that it is saturated and Vadoze zone is unsaturated (MH).

What prevents water from moving between the two aquifers? The two sills were associated with one another however the displacement from the Gus seam changed the association. So the sill was weathered away although it is still intact in some places but is not uniform over the Pandana valley (MH).

What happened to the sill in the middle of the site?

What material sits between the sills? The material that sits between the sills is intact fractured bedrock (MH).

Dewatering cone of depression

With regards to the low vertical percolation that you mentioned. What would the influence be on the Pandana River and other surrounding areas?

Johan Boonzaaier

The influence is shown in the cone of depression. Note this is not a plume, this is a dewatering cone. What this means is that the pre-mining water levels drop by 2 to 25m when mining starts. The pre-mining (intact water levels) were on average 13 m below ground level. If you add the 25m to the 13m that will give you the drop in water levels due to mining. (MH)

Do you have the cone of depression on a cross section? I think that is important because what you must correlate is then your horizontal flow and the depth and how far that plume will spread out.

Johan Boonzaaier

The 13 m plus 25 m is a huge drop in groundwater levels. Johan Boonzaaier

Yes, it is large in the mining area but it doesn’t extend beyond the mining right area (MH).

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Dewatering cone of depression

That is where I disagree and I would like you to satisfy my concern about the drop in groundwater level.

Johan Boonzaaier

With reference to the cone of depression drawing, the lighter colours on the edge of the cone of depression reflect a drop in water level of between 2 and 5 m. As you move closer to the centre of the dewatering cone there is an increased drop in water levels and there are certain sections where you find a drop of 25 m. The biggest drop in groundwater as observed on the dewatering cone is where mining is taking place.

If we are looking at it horizontally, the drawdown of water from the mining shafts is going all the way to the Pandana, thus impacting the groundwater contribution to the Pandana River

Johan Boonzaaier

Within the Pandana River section you can see the drawdown is between 25 and 50 m which causes a loss of baseflow to the Pandana River of about 8 litres per second however that does not mean the Pandana river will stop flowing. The Pandana River has colluvium and sediment underneath and that creates a barrier so even though you have underground mining this does not mean the entire river will end up in the underground mining areas, there is still a vertical low permeability. Most probably the shallow perched interflow will contribute to the Pandana River. Yes there will be an impact to the velocity of the flow of groundwater contribution to the shallow aquifer which eventually goes into the Pandana River (MH).

Post-closure decant water quality

I have a concern about the issue of dilution, especially in the current water crisis. With climate change it is predicted to get much drier, therefore you can’t always say you will be able to dilute water and is that water going to be treated before it enters the river? Because that’s actually the ideal situation

Bronwyn Howard

Through monitoring you can assess the quality of the water but monitoring is not mitigation. With monitoring you can only see there is a problem and determine ways to fix the problem (MH).

I think that will be too late, I think mitigation should be done before the acid mine drainage enters the river system. We have a situation in Utrecht where we have an old mine that has been closed and I’ve recently discovered that its actually decanting acid mine drainage into our drinking water and this is a mine that was operating in the 60s and they still having acid mine drainage to this day. I know in Mpumalanga mines it’s an issue that they have to purify the water before it gets released and I think it’s a requirement in terms of the water act to purify the water before it is released into the environment.

Bronwyn Howard

There would need to be management and monitoring during the life of mine once the modelling predictions have been verified and to recalibrate the model as an ongoing management tool. One of the mitigation measures is to do monitoring as an early warning to pick up a potential issue. To manage potential decant, one of the mitigation measures is to monitor and manage the water level within the underground mine so that it doesn’t decant at a level that can’t be controlled and/or to store the decant in a pollution control dam and then put a pump and treat system in place prior to discharge to ensure that what goes into the environment is at an acceptable water quality.

What happens after the mine is closed? This is what is happening in Johannesburg, the mines are not pumping the water out and it gets to a certain level and it decants. We must remember this is a wetland system so naturally the system will draw water.

Bronwyn Howard

The post closure scenario shows that after mining has stopped the groundwater model has predicted that water levels will rebound between 25 and 40 years after closure. There are methods that have been developed such as passive treatment systems which depend on the quality of water coming from the underground mine that would put more natural methods in place to clean the water. Therefore there are methods that can be looked at during the post closure phase to ensure that the mining operation is able to close and walk away.

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Post-closure decant water quality

To what level is the water going to be purified that comes out of the mine?

Bronwyn Howard

The mine would have to treat the water to a standard that is agreed to by the Department of Water and Sanitation. It will likely be a license condition. One of the additional test works that is going to happen is once the kinetic tests have been done and it produces the leachates from the site then the biodiversity specialists will do toxicity testing specific to the site with the leachate sample to understand what the discharge standards should be in terms of the receiving water environment.

In terms of post closure, who will be monitoring the water quality impacts? Is there a programme in place to ensure this is done?

Charity Cele The monitoring programme in the EMP looks at the operational phase of the life of mine. When the mine gets to the point of decommissioning and closure they would need to put together a more detailed rehabilitation and closure plan which would then have site specific data from the monitoring programme that can inform what the programme would need to be. The monitoring will be done by the mining company.

In the scoping phase you came up with a predicted requirement for the water usage of the operation, so whatever the mine is dewatering the equivalent amount of water is polluted and therefore I think you need to say that your dewatering is polluted.

J.P Snijders I don’t think that is the case because we said there will be certain discharge standards that will have to meet (HD). If you did nothing the scenario would be that you have clean water that runs through the underground mine and it is then seen as dirty in terms of the environmental law, and therefore you have to do something with that water and the management plan has been put together to manage and do something about the dirty water. One of the mitigation measures is to treat the water that has been dewatered before discharging back into the environment. In that light the water that you put back in makes up for the 8l/second loss and therefore the downstream users do not see the effects.

Operational phase water quality

I would also like to comment on the post closure mitigation measures. You’ve got decant pollution impacts post closure but operational pollution you call excess water. It is actually polluted water and it should be called that. I have no trust whatsoever in Tholie Logistics or any of its successors committing to any post closure mitigation measures. All your mitigation measures are post closure and I would like to see mitigation measures now.

J.P Snijders The use of the words treatment of excess water is for potentially polluted water from the underground mine that the mine doesn’t need to use in its process and is therefore excess water. There are key mitigation measures during the operational phase that are included in the EMP.

We’ve just heard about the results of Makateeskop and Longridge mines and the results show that post closure there is pollution at the source and while you operate it is the same water.

J.P Snijders Samples were taken at Kemplust and Kemplust is a messy site that has never been properly rehabilitated. The results from the downstream water quality show that the water there is good so I’m not using that as an excuse but I think you have to differentiate the sites because there are local factors that influence the results (HD).

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Operational phase water quality

I want to emphasise what J. P Snijders was saying in that post closure is way too late to fix the accumulated effect and we would like to see more convincing mitigations during operation.

Johan Boonzaaier

The reason we focussed on post closure is because during operation it is known exactly where seepage will occur and how water will be managed. However during post closure the mine void will flood and it can surface anywhere that is why mitigation measures need to be in place post closure (MH). I am less concerned about pollution during operation because it’s easier to control and you have infrastructure and facilities in place to control the pollution. However post closure you’ve closed your box-cut, everybody has walked off site and your ability then to mitigate impacts is less. That’s why post closure the effects are more worrisome (HD).

Stormwater management

With regards to stockpile leaching, what treatment measures will be put in place to treat runoff from the stockpile?

J.P Snijders Runoff from the stockpiles will be contained within the dirty water system. It will flow into a lined dirty water trench which will end up in a lined pollution control dam and it becomes part of the mines process water. If there is any water that is discharged from that pollution control dam it will need to be treated. In terms of managing seepage a barrier system will be put in place to minimize the seepage from the coal stockpiles into the shallow weathered aquifer. At closure the coal stockpiles will not be there and that footprint will be rehabilitated.

Surface water flow and use

You mentioned limited groundwater users within the zone of influence; please clarify in the study what is considered the zone of influence? And how does it differ when you talk about downstream users?

Johan Boonzaaier

The zone of influence for dewatering is the cone of depression. The cone of depression is where the groundwater model has predicted that there will be a drop in the groundwater levels. Everything outside of that is not predicted to have a drop in groundwater levels.

So that is the cone of depression, what about the flow of the river?

Heye Daun So we know that rivers are supported by direct rainfall, surface water runoff, interflow and groundwater contribution. If there are springs within the cone of depression that would feed water into the river, those springs have the potential to not flow and therefore you would not have that groundwater becoming surface water which contributes to the flow of that river.

What did the groundwater model indicate if you sum up all these groundwater impacts outside of the cone of depression, how is the flow impacted?

Heye Daun The flow downstream will be partially affected by the drop of water levels in the cone of depression but is still supported by various other non-perennial drainage lines and rainfall (MH).

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There is a moratorium in this area on any expansion of forestation. It means that if an impact in this area affects us such as forestry why should we let the mine come in and contribute to the impacts on the flow of the river.

Johan Boonzaaier

That will be determined by the volume of water being affected, in other words is it an acceptable loss. For instance let’s say we measured the Pandana at 29.5l/second downstream of our impacted area and let’s say we predicted 17.5l/second contribution to that river system and we impact another 8l/second so that 8l/second needs to be put into perspective of the larger river system including runoff, rainfall, etc. The impacts of the mine are reversible overtime and forestation probably has a longer effect (MH).

What I’m saying is x hectares of Blue-gum trees represent a similar loss, the moratorium determines no extra hectares of Blue-gum trees. So how many hectares of Blue-gums does your project represent? In other words if farmers are not allowed to plant one extra hectare of Blue-gum trees because additional trees will cause a loss in water in the catchment, therefore your operation can be correlated to the loss of water you cannot affect in the catchment.

Johan Boonzaaier

What do you think the downstream effect will be due to the mine dewatering on the Pandana flow, 10% or 50%?

Heye Daun In Layman’s terms the downstream users won’t see the effects and the loss of 8l/seconds is only a predictive scenario (MH).

My perspective of the net effects is that the plume is localised, meaning within the Commissiekraal farm boundaries, and secondly the dewatering cone and the impacts of this on the users downstream is also localised.

Heye Daun I cannot directly answer your question with regards to the loss of flow because I am saying there will be a loss of 8l/second. Whether that is acceptable on the ecosystem or the water users is not my decision; this requires knowledge of the ecological reserve done by DWS (MH).

The smaller rivers that you say flow into the Pandana that you say will mitigate what was taken out, do they flow all year around? What happens during winter or when there’s a drought? Because what is happening is that currently mines are relying on dilution to solve their problems

Bronwyn Howard

I’m not saying it will mitigate but I am saying there will be a section of the Pandana where you will see more of an impact if the predictions are correct and the section further on in the Pandana you expect to see less of an impact because the natural environment that still contributes to that flow is still functioning. So it is not a mitigation measure it just reduces the significance of the impact. The mine is not relying on dilution as a mitigation measure; the mitigation measure is to treat the water before discharging it back into the river. If it is a dry season it is dry all round because it is all connected. For instance there will be less water flowing into the mine and therefore less water being discharged into the river. (MH)

The whole thing about the dewatering is that if you plant for instance a citrus orchard and you’ve got many wind breaks like Cassurina trees next to them what you will see is that the citrus trees are dying because of the cone of depression. So if you’ve got a cone of depression of about 1000 hectares for a period of 25 years then the vegetation above the surface will suffer so the issue here is what effect will this operation underground have on the system on the surface? Because we are also seeing that your section about is all expressed in a qualitative manner for a quantitative problem.

Johan Boonzaaier

If the area is in the zone of influence the impact will be there. How its mitigated is through the mine’s management plan (MH).

14



The EIA report very much focuses on the footprint of the mining area now. Currently there may be water in the Pandana River however the Bivane Dam is dry downstream. So from our point of view every additional impact may have a further impact away from the zone of influence which we must be aware of.

Johan Boonzaaier

I think we are going to take that question or concern with us and as a team we will come back to you with an answer.

Aquatic ecosystem impacts

In your initial table of mitigated and non-mitigated impacts you said that the impacts of the river system and aquatics still remain medium and yet Martin says it will be negligible on the volume and I’m assuming the aquatic ecosystems need some kind of a baseflow in order to sustain themselves. Therefore how can that impact still be considered medium?

Dominic Wieners

So we considered two things when looking at the water volume impacts. The first being volume of water for human uses and the second being the effect that the loss of volume has on the ecosystem. We know the aquatic system is sensitive according to the work that the biodiversity specialists have done. The biodiversity specialists have said that a loss in flow of 15% or more will put the ecosystem under strain. The 8l/second of groundwater contribution to the Pandana river that Martin has predicted exceeds the 15% loss in flow that the biodiversity specialists have determined not taking into account the other factors that contribute to the river flow such as rainfall and runoff. So for the aquatic ecosystem the reason the impact is rated as medium is that there needs to be flow monitoring done in the river to understand the rivers flow over the seasons, there needs to be an early warning system for dewatering and how it’s going to affect the flow of the river so even if mining hasn’t occurred under the Pandana yet there should be a warning saying that something occurring in the underground workings has impacted the flow of Pandana and that this should be looked at immediately. This will be an early warning system that the mine can use to avoid the impacts to the aquatic ecosystem. To add to this, I want to give you a percentage of the catchment balance. The 8 l/second groundwater loss in the larger context of the catchment balance results in less than 1% of all the groundwater contributing to the numerical model domain which includes two catchments. Therefore there will be a loss of groundwater contribution at the impacted area however how that fits into the larger catchment is unknown (MH).

Just to add, the Pandana river is recognised nationally as a class-A river.

Dominic Wieners

So after 10 years the mining operation will extend towards the Pandana section and that is when we still see a loss of 8l/second of the groundwater contribution to the Pandana which exceeds the 15% flow needed to sustain the aquatic ecosystem?

Dominic Wieners

So the 15% loss in flow is within the cone of depression. The discharge point hasn’t been decided yet but it would most likely occur downstream on the Pandana. However within the Pandana you still have other factors contributing to the flow of the Pandana river up until the discharge point. The 8l/second should not be looked at it in isolation in terms of the contribution to the river flow, there is also a big surface interflow runoff contribution to the river which could potentially sustain the aquatic biodiversity (MH).

15


Aquatic ecosystem impacts

Will the mine invest in an irrigation system to keep the biodiversity alive during the dewatering phase or is the hydrologist of the opinion that the Vadoze zone has sufficient water to supply the flora on the surface?

Johan Boonzaaier

A point to note is that as a specialist we often over estimate impacts. For example with reference to shallow groundwater and pan investigation studies and not specific to this study, where you investigate what are the driving factors that typically contribute to a typical pan in the Mpumalanga Highveld region being perennial we overestimate the groundwater contribution to the pan which is often 1% of the entire system’s water balance. We see with the saturated water aquifer that is 2.6 to 36 meters below ground, water of a saturated zone and even unsaturated there is moisture within that shallow Vadoze zone and that can have quite a long lag time in seasonal rainfall that can feed the wetland system (MH).

Mapping I’d like to request for a map to be produced that shows the groundwater zone of influence with the biodiversity sensitivity overlaid.

Dominic Wieners

Yes, we will have this map produced.

Land use

Land use I just want to know what the proposed land use will be for the remainder of the site

Dominic Wieners

The land use will likely remain as it is. (SLR) At the moment there is the Lens family that own the farm and their objective is to sell the farm and our objective is to buy the farm. So ultimately that is what we would like to do. If we can buy the farm which will be my first prize then it will happen the way Alex said however there is a possibility that we may only be able to buy a portion of the project area. We hope to buy the entire farm so that we can be in a strong position to implement the environmental initiatives (HD).

Transport and Roads

Road upgrades In the EIA, you are only talking about upgrading and maintaining the roads on the farm but nothing on the D699 and the P40. It appears from the EIA that you are pushing this problem to the local government and we know that the local government will not do anything about this.

Johan Boonzaaier

The EIA has identified that there are sections of the D699 before it gets to the P40 that will need to have some work done on it in order to carry the load of the trucks. There is a commitment in the EMP for Tholie logistics to setup a meeting with the Department of Roads to put on the table what the mine’s transporting plans are and how they can work together to achieve this. The responsibility for maintaining the roads is the Department of Roads. (SLR) That’s why we mentioned that there will be more studies that will be done once we’ve got more certainty that the project will go ahead because it is a risk to spend so much money on a project that has not yet been granted a mining right. Once we have been granted a mining right there will be more drilling, further environmental studies and also a detailed transport study done (HD).

This is a high rainfall area and in the end the mine will sit with all their trucks stuck in the mud.

Johan Boonzaaier

16


On-going communication

Communication Who will the stakeholders be that the mine will keep up to date? The farmers, the community?

Johan Boonzaaier

The commitment is for the mine to setup some sort of stakeholder forum. That forum is made up of landowners, NGOs, or anybody else who wants to be part of the forum. This forum will be used to keep updating stakeholders what’s happening on monitoring results, audit findings, any changes on site. The community awareness and training is to highlight to them what the risks are of mining as they might never had a mine on their doorstep such as blasting risks, mining operation risks, safety provisions and also to educate them on environmental issues.

Socio-economic

Recruitment With regards to the social issues, in the EIA on page 863, you mention that the mine will continue with the stakeholder engagement to keep stakeholders up to date and also to educate the community. Now we understand from the farmers in the area that there is already someone organising recruitment of workers, are you aware of that?

Johan Boonzaaier

No, there should be no reason to recruit because there are no activities happening on site, not even drilling. We have a lady that did the social and labour plan for us. She knows the local municipality and has built strong relationships with the traditional leaders so if this is a very pressing issue with your members she can make some enquiries and provide us with insight about this issue (HD).

Are you prepared to answer the question about recruitment and to mention to the public that the mine is not currently recruiting anyone to clear the confusion in the area?

Mattie Beukes

Yes (HD).

Influx management

On page 865, development and influx management plan. Now the site is very remote and you are going to have opportunists flock down to the farm gate. There are people in Paulpietersburg that will be coming to the area to look for a job. Is the mine going to put guards all over the rural area to prevent outsiders from coming to the site? The reason why this is an issue is because of the general safety in the area, and the people will sit at the gate for weeks on end until they decide to squat in the area.

Johan Boonzaaier

Including a commitment such as this into the management plan is telling the mine that this is not an issue that you can just let happen on its own. We are providing flexibility to the mine to come up with real procedures that will work for this site and its circumstances that achieves the same outcome. It could be setting up a type of forum with the surrounding landowners so as notify/warn when squatting takes place on someone’s property to have the relevant people involved to get those people offsite. It is about good communication with the traditional leaders, landowners and the community. It is about putting together a framework that supports meeting that mitigation measure but allowing flexibility to tailor make it to what’s actually happening on site. There is the plan to recruit at Paulpietersburg, to transport in, to upskill and train the locals so that you can create some of your skills within that area. It can be a concern and difficult to mitigate if the mine is not aware and on top of what is happening in the surroundings. (SLR) That is why we are so interested to buy the farm so that we can act like farmers. I can assure you that there won’t be any recruitment at the gate (HD).

With regards to the figures that talk about the definition of unskilled, semi-skilled and skilled. On a mixed farm there are between 15 – 20 people working on that farm. Now in terms of the mines unskilled demand for workers (25 – 40), that is two farm groups of workers. Therefore how many expectations will be generated in the area and actually provided in the area? Because then you get the dissatisfaction between the farm workers and those that get the jobs.

Johan Boonzaaier

What I am saying in terms of your development and influx management plan is that it creates uncertainty and it creates questions

Johan Boonzaaier

17


Alternative land use assessment

Another issue is the very positive view that you give about the economics. Your sustainability diagram in chapter 9 shows that the economics basically outweighs the social and environmental impacts. Now we will of course debate that, the economic injection into the area may be beneficial and I don’t think we will get to an agreement of this but we would like to know why do you choose to portrait it in this manner?

Johan Boonzaaier

The sustainability diagram is part of a comparative land-use assessment that is required by legislation. It looks at comparing the development of a mine against what would be a reasonable alternative land-use for this site.

18

4. THE WAY FORWARD

The following way forward was agreed:

• Public feedback meetings on Thursday, the 19th of November 2015 at:

– Luthilunye Combined School at 9am

– Kemplust Hall at 1pm

• Closing date for comments: Tues 8 Dec 2015

• Full reports are at:

– Luthilunye Combined School C/o Mr T Nzimande (School Principal)

– Utrecht Library C/o Sizakele Magubane (Reference Librarian)

– Kemplust Hall C/o Eugene de Witt (Kemplust Caretaker)

– SLR Fourways Library C/o William Berry

– Tholie Logistics C/o Bright Resources Cape Town office

• Submission of comments:

– via email or fax

– dropped off at any of the public venues listed above, SLR will arrange for collection at

the end of the review period

• All comments will be submitted to DMR & DEDTEA

• Interested and affected parties will be informed once a decision has been made

5. CLOSE

AP thanked attendees for their input and for making the time to attend the workshop. The meeting has

closed.

19

APPENDIX 1: ATTENDANCE REGISTER

Name Affiliation Contact number Email

Alex Pheiffer SLR Consulting (Africa) (Pty) Ltd

0114670945 [email protected]

William Berry [email protected]

Heye Daun Tholie Logistics [email protected]

Emile van der Westhuizen

SAS 0116167893 [email protected]

Martin Holland Delta H 0824979088 [email protected]

Nkazi Mafa

WWF-SA


Sinethemba Charity Cele


Vanessa Stone 0835864075 [email protected]

Dawie Cronje Impala Water Users Association


Johan Boonzaaier Impala Water Users Association PROBA


Mattie Beukes Impala Water Users Association


Mauritz de Bruin EWT 0714785379 [email protected]

Bradley Gibbons EWT 0825665803 [email protected]

Dominic Wieners Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife 0338481455 [email protected]

Bronwyn Howard Environmental Journalist


J. P Snjiders Resident and IAP 0829942160 [email protected]

















1



MINUTES OF PUBLIC FEEDBACK MEETING AT LUTHILUNYE LOCAL SCHOOL


VENUE: Luthilunye Local School





To provide IAPs with an opportunity to discuss the outcomes of the EIA process

To provide IAPs with a chance to submit comments on the EIA and EMP report



Ntsako Baloyi (NB) opened the meeting and introduced SLR Consulting (Africa) (Pty) Ltd (SLR)

represented by Alex Pheiffer (AP), William Berry (WB) and himself. NB then introduced Bright

Resources (Pty) Ltd (the applicant) represented by the project director Heye Duan (HD). Local

residents followed with prayer prior to starting the meeting.

2. PRESENTATION

NB gave a presentation outlining the purpose of the meeting, the project location, the proposed mining

operations, the proposed timeline for the mine, followed by the legal framework, key alternatives

identified and the key EIA findings.

3. DISCUSSION



2



On-going communication

Communication How will the mine be engaging with the neighbouring farms to ensure that they are kept up to date with the project?

Vuzi Nene As part of the stakeholder engagement process for the EIA, IAPs are kept informed through the distribution of information. These IAPs include not only landowners or land users on neighbouring farms but also the landowner and land users on Commissiekraal, government departments, NGOs, municipalities and other interested and affected parties (SLR). The mine would like to own the farm Commissiekraal in the future however the farm is currently owned by Mr Lens. At this point the mine cannot say whether it will own the farm or lease the farm however we will ensure that the continued communication structure already setup is on-going (Heye Daun).

Please ensure that you engage with traditional leaders as well.

Jabulani Xulu Engagement with traditional leaders has been an ongoing process in this project.

We are thankful that you came to discuss the proposed mine project with us today and we hope that if the project does go ahead the local people with benefit from it.

Jethro Mmabtha

Thank you for your comment.

Procedural Issues

Consultation Consultation in this process has provided us with comfort and we are grateful for this.

Mafikela Miysela

Thank you for your comment.

Please ensure that all the documentation we receive is in Zulu.

Mafikela Miysela

All public involvement documentation including site notices, background information documents, report summaries and SMS have been produced in Zulu. Zulu summaries of the EIA and EMP report are available at the school for community members to collect; these summaries contain the information which was provided in this presentation.

Compliance management

Compliance management

It is all well and good to make all the promises with regard to relocation and prioritising local employment. However what guarantee do the local people have that these promises will be kept?

Charity Cele The EIA report contains an Environmental Management Programme (EMP). All commitments documented in the EMP are legally binding if the project is approved. The commitments in the EMP will also need to be audited to ensure that the mine meets these requirements.

Geology

Sinkhole formation

Will there be a possibility for sinkhole formation? If so how can we report such issues?

Nomusa Shilwane

As part of the planning for the project, the project’s mine engineer determined the number pillars needed to avoid and/or ensure any underground collapse is controlled. Sinkholes are usually formed due to the type of rock structure underground. Those types of rocks are not found on Commissiekraal.

3


Water

Loss of water Is there a possibility of water depletion due to subsidence?

Clement Lens Underground mines create gaps and spaces in the rocks. Groundwater can flow into those spaces depending on the groundwater system. For a mining operation, it is important to keep the underground mine dry (i.e. to pump out the groundwater) to ensure the safety of the workers, this is called dewatering. When water is removed there is a potential for the groundwater level in the surrounding area to drop. On the farm Commissiekraal there is a close relationship between the surface water and the groundwater which was looked at by the specialist studies. The groundwater specialist determined that there is a potential for a drop in groundwater levels however this is expected to be localised to the farm Commissiekraal. The plan is to pump excess water from dewatering back into the river however it is important that the water quality is good. Through the specialist studies it is understood that the communities rely entirely on surface water for consumption and other uses therefore any impacts on water will need to be monitored closely by the mine. Monitoring will be used as an early warning to allow the mine to correct any issues before causing a significant problem for downstream users. The mitigation measures aim to minimise the loss in water for surrounding users as well as downstream users.

With regards to the subsidence of the land there is already a shortage of water, when the mine leaves we will have an even bigger problem.

Sithembile Khumalo

Heritage and Cultural Resources

Graves What guarantee do we have to secure our heritage resources such as the graves?

Thulani Ndimande

Part of the EIA specialist studies was a heritage and cultural impact assessment. This involved a site survey to determine the location and number of heritage resources in the project area. The specialist identified a number of graves that were mainly associated with homesteads in the project area. It was identified that there are two grave sites located within the surface infrastructure footprint of the proposed mine. The mitigation measure for these grave sites is to relocate the graves in line with legislated requirements. However this will involve a detailed consultation process with the families and relevant institutions to ensure the correct permits are obtained prior to any relocation. Along the route of the access road, a grave site has been avoided through the planning of infrastructure. The specialist did identify other graves in the project area however these graves are not within or near to the surface infrastructure footprint and will therefore not be relocated. For graves that are in close proximity to project infrastructure, these will be fenced.

Once graves have been relocated will we have access to visit the graves to perform our rituals?

Jabulia Sibela Yes, if the grave is located on the surface infrastructure they will be relocated with the family and for all other graves located within the project area, families will be granted access to visit the graves as they did previously.

Culturally we have certain rituals with burials. Will this form part of the relocation process?

Bongani Hlatswayo

Yes.

Will the underground mining impact the graves?

Nomusa Shilwane

No, The underground mine is too deep to impact the shallow graves.

4


Blasting

Blasting How would the blasting impact the surrounding infrastructure such as the surrounding houses?

Karsten Hinze Surface blasting will be sporadic and limited to the construction phase. This will be required for the development of the boxcut. A 500m blast zone has been defined around the boxcut. Houses located in the 500m blast zone will be relocated for safety reasons. Mitigation measures have been included in the report to minimise any potential impacts to within this radius.

Socio-economic: transport related issues

Road upgrades You mentioned that 94 trucks will be coming to the site every day. Are there going to be any upgrades done to the roads?

Paul Zwane To clarify, 94 loaded trucks per day will leave the site to deliver coal to a regional siding and 94 empty trucks will be coming to the site for collection. The traffic specialist study showed that the D699 would need certain upgrades from the proposed site to the P40. Discussions with the provincial department of roads and transport will be required to discuss the necessary upgrades. The mine is not planning to tar the road. Upgrades to strengthen the crossings and widen the roads at certain sections would be required.

Air quality

Dust health impacts

What are the health related impacts with regards to the dust that the mine will generate?

Themba Sibesi The specialist air quality study considered two aspects. The first is dust that you can see referred to as nuisance dust and the second is dust that you cannot necessarily see but can inhale and result in respiratory health impacts. The EIA has identified that there is potential for health related impacts due to dust generation for people living close to the mine surface infrastructure footprint. The main sources of dust include the movement of soil and stockpiling of coal. There are also air quality impacts associated with trucks traveling along gravel roads. Mitigation measures have been included in the EMP to minimise these impacts.

Socio-economic

Employment / recruitment

Can you please explain the difference between skilled and unskilled jobs during the construction and operational phases?

Jabulani Xulu During construction there tends to be a need for more unskilled labour. As an operation moves into the operational phase there tends to be a need for more skilled labour. Through the social specialist study it was understood that skills for the operational phase are not necessarily available in the immediate area. Therefore, as part of the Social and Labour Plan (SLP) there is provision to provide the necessary training to upskill workers. The SLP also identifies learnership programmes for the youth. Tholie Logistics’ intention is to source their workforce locally as far as possible.

What structures and programmes are in place to ensure first preference for employment will go to the farm dwellers as you have identified that the farm dwellers are the least skilled?

Thulani Ndimande

For recruitment, this will be handled by a recruitment office in Paulpietersburg and Utrecht. The mine will identify the employment needs of the mine and this will be communicated with local residents. The mine will work towards identifying all local residents, homesteads and traditional leaders in the area to ensure that they understand the community structures. The mine is aware that there might be an influx of other people to the area seeking employment but will work with the community to prevent this as far as they can (Heye Daun). Please provide us with clarity on

recruitment. How will the mine know who are the local people?

Sithembile Khumalo

Can you please explain the recruitment offices in Paulpietersburg and Utrecht?

Karsten Hinze Formal recruitment offices will be located in Paulpietersburg and Utrecht where people can submit their CV’s however long before construction commences the mine will complete a survey to determine who the locals are to have a better understanding of the available skills (Heye Daun).

5


Employment / recruitment

If you get an opportunity to be employed during the construction phase will you be eligible for a job in the operational phase?

Thokozani Zwane

Yes, you can be employment during both the construction and operational phase however this will depend on the skills needed.

If you are saying that there will be no hiring at the gate I suggest that the mine setup a community committee to assist with the recruitment.

Thokozani Zwane

Thank you for the suggestion. This will be put forward to Tholie Logistics for consideration.

In past experiences recruitment was based on political affiliation. We hope this is not the case as everyone is in need of employment.

Jabulani Xulu Thank you for your comment.

Where will skilled labour come from? Bradley Gibbons

Skilled labour will be sourced from nearby towns such as Paulpietersburg, Utrecht and Vryheid. Specialised labour will likely come from further away.

Will the recruitment consider the elders? Nomusa Shilwane

There are no age restrictions but you need to be healthy to be considered for employment (Heye Daun).

If individuals fail their medicals will they be excluded for employment?

T. Khumalo There is still an opportunity to be part of the recruitment process provided that the medical does not impact the conditions of employment. All employees will be hired based on the national standards of employment (Heye Daun).

Due to the poverty in the area many of our relatives had to leave the area to seek employment opportunities however they were born and raised in this area. Will they be considered as locals?

Jabulia Sibelo Ideally everyone wants to be employed. This is a small mine but the mine will try its best to prioritise local employment. There will be requirements for employment which will be communicated at a later stage. These requirements will need to be met in order to be considered for employment. By the law the mine is not allowed to discriminate against people from the outside (Heye Daun). The purpose of this meeting is to outline the environmental impacts and how to control these impacts should the mine go forward. There are a number of factors that will determine whether this mine will go ahead such as the coal prices, if coal prices are too low there will not be a mine. Many things will have to take place before the mine commences (Heye Daun).

I would like to say that the community welcomes the proposed project. However we’d like to emphasize that the mine should be aware that there are people in the area who can operate trucks and taxi’s and it should be the mine’s intention to utilize the local people because if the mine uses outsiders to do a job that can be done by a local it will cause unrest within the community.

Mfanaphuto Mazibuko

Your comment is noted

6


Training Please provide us with clarity on the timing of training, will training take place prior to construction or during construction?

Paul Zwane Construction is normally achieved through contractors. The contractors normally come from outside and they usually bring their own workers however the mine can influence this. The mine is prepared to make an unequivocal undertaking that prior to construction it will identify the local people in the area. The mine cannot make any promises but will work hard to identify everyone in the immediate area to increase the chances of local employment (Heye Daun).

Social Investment

Will the mine support the people who are not eligible for employment with small projects to keep them busy?

Sibongile Mjali Yes, the mine has made provision in the social and labour plan to develop the community through LED programmes (Heye Daun).

Development only comes to the rural areas when there is a proposed new project however the government should work towards developing the rural areas without the need for new projects to come to the area.

Nomusa Shilwane

Your comment is noted for consideration by government departments.

Will the community only benefit from this project though earning a salary? What about becoming shareholders in the mine?

Thokozani Zwane

In general, everyone has different interests. However not all expectations can be fulfilled but the mine will work with the government and the community to support local economic growth (Heye Daun).

Relocation With regards to relocation, is there any compensation for the 7 households identified within the surface infrastructure footprint?

Nomusa Shilwane

Before any relocation can take place there will need to be a detailed consultation process with the 7 potentially affected households. The consultation with the families will inform the relocation action plan. The relocation action plan will need to follow best practises in the industry to ensure the relocation process is fair and transparent. Note the relocation process is not a cash compensation (Heye Daun).

If the new area where families are being located to is not a place that the family prefers. Will they have a say?

Ifana Mazibuko

Yes, both parties will have to come to an agreement to determine the outcome of the relocation before the family is moved.

With regards to livestock, will the relocation process ensure that families are moved to an area with the same grazing potential as the current situation of the farms?

Jabulia Sibelo The relocation process ideally aims to restore the livelihood of the families. The relocation process not only looks at the infrastructure that will need to be replaced but also the livelihoods of the families including grazing for the livestock.

Should the families be relocated to a new area, can the new area have electricity please?

Paul Zwane Your comment is noted.

Housing Where will the workers stay? Clement Lens During the construction phase a temporary construction camp may be established on site. During the operational phase there will not be on-site housing as employees will be transported in every day (SLR) Construction work is limited therefore there might not even be a need for a construction camp (Heye Daun).

7

4. THE WAY FORWARD














• Interested and affected parties will be informed once a decision has been made.

5. CLOSE

NB thanked attendees for their input and for making the time to attend the public feedback meeting.

The meeting has closed.

8


Name Affiliation Contact number

Alex Pheiffer SLR Consulting (Africa) (Pty) Ltd 0114670945

Nstako Baloyi

William Berry

Heye Daun Tholie Logistics

Thembelinde Zwane 0760917156

Joseph Nkwanyana 0822292971

Samuel Marondera 0608812216

Saul Nzima 0174881491

Bhekithemba Nhlabela 0793417374

Nzima Simon 0762212993

Loli Hlatshwayo 0728044637

Mokongani Mayasela 0728044637

Emmanuel Shabangu 0722298489

Scelo Nkosi 0729379264

Noklad Hlatshwayo

Dofu Zwane

Lindiwe Vundla 0722897106

T. H Zwane

ND Phakathj

S. I Mbatha

Jubly Nkosi 0726752027

Mpumzeni Nzima 0729112161

Mokhasonke Mthabela 0760215029

Richards 0713409933

Cebisile Ndaba 0738124870

Bonakele Nzima 0715927822

Bonginkosi Madonzela 0726941222

Siyabonga Mbada 0796507011

H. S Mqiuane 0797598263

K. L Owabe 0797598263

P. N Khumalo 0713859311

T. Ndimande Luthilunye Local School Principal 0763346652

C. Khumalo 0737003404

S. Nkane 0790932713

Sibiya Nomusa 0762281693

Gladys Hlatshwayo 0728111872

B D Magubane 0723039247

T. S Mkhonza 0822946512

E. Luvano

Melusi H. Nkosi 0828616568

Jabulani Khumalo 0606178380

Mbongeni Hlatshwayo 0825958820

Adress Nene

Mcebo Nkozi 0793935412

Sentshali 0606054863

Fortunate Mayisela 0822946512

Sibuzi Sombatha 0791143923

M. P Khumalo 0794494492

Zanele May

Nozipho Vundla 0719546425

Kwanagezile Sibile 0797764621

Sibusizo Shabango 0767455115

N. M Khumalo 0767455115

Z Coka 0796257075

E. Zwane

Z Nkosi 0725098716

S. M Mtshali 0818838471

J. E Sibiya 0724311874

9


G. K Mayisela 0730989813

AP Kubheka 0720652615

B. S Mtshali 0791612279

K. T Mhlungu 0714160941

M. A Sibiya 0714259394

S. Zwane

Zodwa Nzima 0765106117

Winnie Mayisela 0799362238

Mafikeni Mayisela 0768915857

Jethro Mbatha

E. M Mazibuko 0827409070

Sithembile Khumalo 0823692363

Sphiwe Makhany 0798121702

Bongekile Nkosi 0720539556

Paul Zwane 0822974475

K. Hinze Effected Poultry 0832976911

Charity Cele WWF: Prospective mine in Protected area (Elandsberg)

0780897451

Zinhle Hloko 0799221579

Nomusa Mashilwane 0720890233

Thokozani Zwane 0761654499

Mayisela Themba 0729988145

Esawu Zwane

Junie Mbatha 0768533676

Dumisile Mavuso 0762790899

Sibongile Mtshali 0726935537

Thandiwe Nkosi 0724472995

Cebisile Masonda 0760807411

Thembi Gule 0797385819

Lekhina Tshali

Mthembenui Zwane 0793047878

Lebsile Mthethwa 0713377785

Mbekeni Shabangu 0631203833

Vuzi Nene 0725418441

Mandla Zwane 0722017137

Bradley Gibbons EWT 0825665803

Mauritz de Bruin EWT 0714785379

B E Nqwenya 0714736004

Joseph Coka 0737678497

Themba Sibisi 0762250772

Jabulani Xulu 0714084566

Dawie Cronje 0833219688

Sthamndla Mtshali 0791302155

Msawabantu Zondo 0722300901

Bongani I. Nongolo 0762948711

Thokozile Masondo 0826446934

Dumisani Khumalo 0761125225

C. Lens 0845485060

1



MINUTES OF PUBLIC FEEDBACK MEETING AT KEMPLUST HALL


VENUE: Kemplust Hall





To provide IAPs with an opportunity to discuss the outcomes of the EIA process

To provide IAPs with a chance to submit comments on the EIA and EMP report



Alex Pheiffer (AP) opened the meeting and introduced SLR Consulting (Africa) (Pty) Ltd (SLR)

represented by William Berry (WB), Ntsako Baloyi (NB) and herself. AP then introduced Bright

Resources (Pty) Ltd (the applicant) represented by the project director Heye Duan (HD). AP confirmed

with the attendees that the meeting will be conducted in English, and that attendees were welcome to

ask questions or provide comments in Afrikaans or Zulu.

2. PRESENTATION

AP gave a presentation outlining the purpose of the meeting, the project location, the proposed mining

operations, the proposed timeline for the mine, followed by the legal framework, key alternatives

identified and the key EIA findings.

3. DISCUSSION



2



Procedural Issues

Copies of reports

Where can I get a copy of the EIA? Holgar Eckhart

Hard copies of the EIA and EMP report with all the specialist studies have been provided to the public at three review locations, namely at the Luthilunye Local School in the care of the school principal Mr Ndimande, at the Kemplust Hall in the care of Eugene de Witt and at the Utrecht public library. Should you want an electronic copy of the EIA either collect a CD from us today or send a request to us. Should you wish to submit your comments please do so via email or fax. Alternatively you can drop your comments with Eugene de Witt at Kemplust or at the Luthilunye Local School and we will arrange to collect them after the review period.

Review time period

Have you received any feedback from the departments on the extension to provide comment for the EIA?

Karsten Hinze

Not as yet. For now the 8 of December 2015 is the closing date for comments and if the extension is granted IAPs will be notified via email.

Applicability of specialist studies

This proposed mine is on my doorstep. I’ve seen on many occasions how the soil on the Magidela Mountain slopes would move due to heavy rainfall and one can only imagine that with blasting from the underground mine the unstable soil on the Magidela would rush down the slopes causing damage. This area is not flat. This is not Middleburg. The water here has always been flowing and hence the farmers never had the need for boreholes. Therefore the specialist studies here do not apply to an escarpment landscape.

J. P Snjiders Tholie Logistics has total respect and understanding for people’s concerns but all that can be done is to be analytical about the issues and that is the point of using specialists to do their work and predict scientifically what the net result would be. If you disagree with the results that the specialists have presented then please tell us why so that these can be addressed with the specialists (Heye Daun).

Compliance management and ongoing communication

Compliance To me this all seems like an administrative process, there are many concerns that people have based on past experiences. For instance concerns about dust is quite important, I know some farmers who farm close to gravel roads are facing issues such as the reduced size of the teeth of the cattle which reduces their lifespan. Now my main concern is the implementation and policing of these commitments. Therefore there should be a local board or committee that needs to be established to manage and control these issues as they happen on site. Another concern is that once ownership of mine changes the community is most likely not going to be involved in that process. Therefore it is important that Tholie Logistics considers establishing this committee or board.

Coen Labuschagne

There is a commitment in the EMP for the mine to setup a stakeholder communication structure within the community. The purpose of this structure is for the mine to share ongoing information about their operations and anything that they plan to do. That structure can also be used to gain access to monitoring data. The EMP is legally binding, it does not matter who owns the mine. The mine becomes accountable to ensure compliance of the EMP. There is provision for internal and external auditing of the operation to check compliance of the EMP. The same happens for the WUL, there will be a detailed list of conditions from the DWS which the mine will have to comply with. It would be good to review this plan and put forward any suggestions to manage certain aspects of the operation.

3


Communication I agree with Coen Labuschagne, the mine should emphasise stakeholder engagement with the communities on a monthly basis throughout the life of mine. You can plan everything on paper but what happens on site is a different situation.

Charity Cele The EMP commits the mine the compliance on a regular basis and yes you are right it is important for the communication to continue throughout the life of mine.

Technical Issues

Processing Is there an undertaking saying that there will not be a wash plant on site?

Mattie Beukes

A wash plant has not been included in the current application. This type of coal would yield a better quality if washed. However a wash plant is not being considered on-site. In the future, the mine may consider washing offsite, for example at Kemplust (Heye Daun).

If the mine decides to establish a washing plant in the future does that mean the mine will be subject to a separate environmental process?

Holgar Eckhart

Yes, this will likely trigger a number of listed activities which would require a separate NEMA application to be launched.

Water management

What is a pollution control dam? Coen Labuschagne

A pollution control dam is a dirty water containment dam that will be constructed on site to contain all water that flows through the surface infrastructure including water from dewatering. The pollution control dam will collect and manage dirty water within a controlled facility. The design of the pollution control dam is subject to a number of legal requirements set by the Department of Water and Sanitation.

What happens to the dirty water after it is collected within the pollution control dam?

Coen Labuschagne

The water collected by the pollution control dam will be utilized within the mine’s operation. A water balance specialist study was completed as part of the EIA to inform the storage requirements. There are also commitments in the EMP that relate to the discharge of water into the environment.

What is the proposed volume of the pollution control dam?

J.P Snijders The volume that has been included in the EIA is a volume that caters for the dirty water (stormwater) runoff, as well as the water that will come from the dewatering.

In the life of mine there will be more water in the pollution control dam than can be pumped back into the environment

J.P Snijders The size of the pollution control dam that has been included in the EIA is the maximum capacity needed based on the project design as included in the EIA. This water will be utilized within the mine’s operation and any excess water will need to be discharged. What is also important to note is that the pollution control dam will need to be licenced and part of that licensing process is to make sure that the capacity is suitable for the volume of water. The size of the dam is based on the results of the hydrological studies. The specialist study is included in the EIA which is available for you to review. If you need any clarity or further explanation on these studies you can contact us and we’ll be happy to assist you (Heye Daun).

4


Mining method Will the proposed mine be an underground mine or an open cast mine?

Phillip Labuschagne

The proposed mine only makes provision for underground mining.

Based on my previous experience with underground mines, at the closure of the mine pillar extraction leads to a complete loss in water in areas above the mine. I can show you an old mine that has caused surface subsidence and a complete loss in water in the areas above the mine.

Phillip Labuschagne

The plan is to do some pillar extraction at the end of life of mine. Based on SLR’s understanding from the study completed by the mining engineer, there is a certain amount of pillars which will be left underground at closure. This has been informed by mathematical calculations. This will be refined further during the detailed design. If the mine decides to extract the maximum amount of pillars it is referred to as a controlled collapse in the roof of the mine. But the understanding with the Commissiekraal project is that where the depth of mining allows, a controlled collapse of the roof in the underground mine will not be seen on the surface. In the shallower areas of the underground mine there will be no pillar extraction however in the deeper areas of the mine pillar extraction is possible.

Are you sure about the decision to go about using pillar extraction methods over long walling?

J. P. Snijders One thing that is known is that the area is very complex, geologically speaking, and what this means is that there are many faults, folds and intrusions. The geological complexity of the area excludes longwall mining. So in terms of the mining methods proposed you then have the choice of conventional mining, which is what is done in Vryheid, which includes underground drilling and blasting or using continuous mining. At this stage in planning, the thinking is that it will be a combination of conventional and continuous mining (Heye Daun).

Project boundary

Is the site boundary fixed? Coen Labuschagne

Yes, it is fixed at this stage in the project planning.

If more area is need, for example to support water purification, can the project footprint be enlarged?

Should things change after the mine has done detailed design and they require a significantly larger area to support the operations, they wouldn’t be able to just change the area. If the mine gets authorization they get authorization for the project plan as it stands in the EIA and any significant changes in that project plan will likely trigger a new EIA process.

If the WUL determines that the pollution control dam needs to be larger surely this might allow provision to change the project footprint without initiating a new NEMA application?

Heye Daun It might, however should the larger area trigger more listed activities or change the outcome of the impact assessment it will likely trigger a new EIA process.

Detailed designs

When will the detailed design be available? Coen Labuschagne

In order to answer this question, the following background is relevant: There are certain legal processes that need to be followed but prior to that Tholie Logistics conducted drilling as part of its prospecting operations where it spent a significant amount of money. Prospecting doesn’t give certainty that there will be a mine, it is done at risk. Therefore Tholie Logistics applied for the mining right to get the legal process going. If or when the mining right is granted there will likely be another round of feasibility work that will firm up on the details. So the project design is not cast in stone but enough work has been done that Tholie Logistics is confident that it reflects more or less what the operations will look like (Heye Daun).

5


Overburden/ waste rock

What will happen to the waste material removed to gain access to the coal resources?

Mattie Beukes

Waste material from developing the box-cut will be placed on site and returned to the box-cut void after closure. There is very limited waste rock that will be generated as mining will take place on seam. The typical mine has a coal seam of approximately 1 - 1.5 meters however at Commissiekraal the Gus and Dundas coal seams converge to form a 4 meter seam. The method of mining is called “run-of-mine” coal. This means that whatever is mined will be loaded onto the trucks and sold as product (Heye Daun).

What is the percentage of waste rock vs coal? Roland Nieburh

The overburden material from the box-cut is approximately 8,500m3. That

material will be temporarily stockpiled on site and at the end of the life of mine it would be used to backfill the entrance to the adit so that the natural slope can be restored. For the actual mining, the waste material will be very limited as they will be mining on seam and everything will be sold as product. On typical coal mines, so for instance at Middleburg, where they wash the coal they have a % ash of around 50%. Therefore if you take a cubic meter of coal through your wash plant, 50% is put aside and the other 50% is sold. At Commissiekraal, if the coal was to be washed, the % ash would vary between 24-50%. The coal that only has about 25% ash is obviously a very high quality coal. But that would only apply if washing the coal took place which it won’t (Heye Daun).

Ventilation I was impressed with the extent of planning done for the mine surface infrastructure but there is component that is missing from that plan its ventilation shafts?

Phillip Baytop The project plan does cater for ventilation. A ventilation fan is planned for the side wall of the box-cut.

Ownership Would Tholie Logisitics ever consider selling the mine to another company in the future? Oversees companies could easily develop the mine, make huge capital and run. This does not provide us with any security.

Roland Nieburh

Ownership of mines is not like ownership of farms; with farms the property is owned by someone and the owner can pass on the ownership to his family members. Tholie Logistics thinks that the capital cost to build this mine would be between R300-500 million. They do not have that money and so there will likely be co-owners, investors and/or other people involved. I believe Tholie Logistics will be involved for quite some time but ultimately it is a business and the aim is to make capital however it is also a responsible company. Recently some shareholders have been involved in a gold mine development in Namibia which has yielded positive economic and social benefits to the local people. Therefore yes, consideration may be given to selling this mine or parts of it should somebody come with the right offer (Heye Daun).

6


Coal as an energy source

World energy crisis

My biggest fear at the moment is the world energy crisis as a whole. We are faced with issues such as the melting glaciers. England has committed to not use electricity generated from coal. Solar, nuclear and other environmental friendly options need to be looked at. Maybe the crisis can be fixed now. The whole question is what is the future for energy?

Bradley Gibbons

It is clear that Tholie Logistics won’t solve the question of what the future of energy will be but one thing that is known is that countries are signing up to the protocol to limit CO2 emissions. The only way for those countries to reach those targets is to look at other renewable sources of energy and to shut down coal mines. South Africa is worse off than those countries because South Africa releases more CO2 than many developed countries. This is likely to take some time. If South Africans want to continue to switch our lights on at night we are going to rely on Eskom for a long time whether we like it or not. Already the growth of renewable energy is going in the right direction but the one factor that will impact South Africa is the thing they call the “coal cliff”. So if you look at Eskom’s coal supply contracts, by 2018 they will run out of coal so Eskom has a serious issue to supply all their power stations. That’s why for Tholie Logistics it can come up with a project that supplies run-of-mine coal directly to Eskom as we are quite certain for the first 5 years this coal will be sold to Eskom (Heye Daun).

Water

Loss of water supply and/or pollution of water

With regards to the water that will be released back into the environment, should I as a downstream user be concerned about the quality of this water? I would like to be involved with the design of the pollution control dam if possible.

Coen Labuschagne

Normally as part of the water use licence (WUL), the Department of Water and Sanitation will put together a list of conditions and limits for any water that is being discharged. Some catchments already have discharge standards, however this is not available for the catchment that the project site falls into, therefore it is something that the DWS will need to develop. The WUL does have a component of consultation in the process which is initiated during the EIA process but there will be an opportunity to review the technical document that is submitted with the water uses licence application. There is opportunity to be involved in that process. It is noted that you’d like to be part of the WUL consultation process.

Have you collected any primary data for the water? Coen Labuschagne

Yes, a hydrocensus was completed which identified all known boreholes in the surrounding area including springs and surface water points from which samples were taken. The results show that the baseline water quality conditions are good. In terms of flow within the Pandana there was one sample done to determine the flow just off the site of Commissiekraal.

When was the water quality tested? During low flow or high flow season? This is very important because during the low flow everything is concentrated.

Coen Labuschagne

Water quality sampling was done in May 2015, during winter (the start of the low flow season). Follow up samples at Makatees Kop and Kemps Lust were taken in September 2015, end winter (the end of the low flow season).

7



If the activities on the mine cause a potential drawdown in the surrounding farmer’s groundwater and this leads to a scarcity in water from surrounding farms, what will the implications be for the mine?

Mr. Beukes As background: Dewatering of the underground mine is predicted to result in a drop in the groundwater levels in the surrounding area. In the EIA report the groundwater specialist predicted what the cone of depression would be. The cone of depression is the zone of impact where you will see a drop in the surrounding groundwater. With reference to Figure 28 from the EIA displayed at the meeting: any area with a colour over indicates where water levels have the potential to drop. The ranges in which they drop vary depending on where mining is taking place. What’s identified in the groundwater study is that there are very few boreholes and direct groundwater users in the cone of depression. It is understood though that most people in the area make use of springs and water from the river. The groundwater study has shown that for any springs located within the cone of depression, there is a likelihood that those springs would lose flow and that water from those springs would no longer contribute to the river. The range in the drop of groundwater levels in the shallower aquifer is predicted to be between 2 and 25 meters for the first 10 years and up to 50 meters in the second 10 years of mining but only in a small zone above the Pandana river. If there is a mine related loss in water the mitigation measure in the EIA is that there will be a compensation for the loss of water that was caused by the mine.

What is the size of the cone of depression? Mr. Beukes With reference to Figure 28 from the EIA displayed at the meeting: the cone of depression in the shallower aquifer is illustrated to extend to the boundary of the farm Commissiekraal in the unmitigated scenario. The groundwater specialist has identified a number of aquifers in the area and therefore it’s not a constant flow of one aquifer in this area. The aquifers identified in this area include a perched aquifer, a deeper aquifer that’s relatively unconnected to the perched aquifer and a shallow aquifer. I would urge you to read the specialist studies for a detailed explanation of the connectivity of the water systems in this area (Heye Daun).

Is this compensation for the loss of water supply throughout the life of mine?

Mattie Beukes

Yes, the compensation is effective for the life of mine plus anything post mining for as long as it takes for the groundwater to recover. What the groundwater specialist has indicated is that once mining has stopped and dewatering has stopped, the groundwater levels are predicted to take between 25 and 40 years to recover and that’s mainly due to the low speeds that the water flows within the aquifers.

8



Aren’t the surrounding farms wetlands? G. Foster There are a range of wetlands surrounding the project area, some of which are of national importance. With reference to Figure 11 in the EIA displayed during the meeting it was explained that there is a groundwater base flow contribution but there is also expected to be a significant rainfall contribution that sustains the wetlands and the Pandana river. What’s important to note when it comes to water related impacts is although there will be a drop in groundwater levels and that will influence base flow contribution to the rivers and wetlands, the surface water flow is still expected to remain intact. The mining infrastructure is positioned away from the more sensitive wetlands and biodiversity so the catchment runoff that normally feeds the Pandana river and the related wetlands would still be in place and the perched aquifer would retain this runoff water for a long time to sustain the supply of water to these systems over time.

Are the attendees in this meeting aware of all the previous mines at the water issues that still remain long after these mines have closed? Are they pro for this mining project or against the mine and are they only looking at the short term or also the future generations to come?

Phillip Labuschagne

A public feedback meeting was held this morning at the Luthilunye School which was mostly attended by the local community. The same presentation was given. From the meeting, issues related to employment and social upliftment were raised however because the community is completely reliant on the natural resources to survive there was also questions with regards to the potential impacts on the water resources. Tholie Logistics’ does not want to pollute, and does not want to destroy the environment. Unless it can be demonstrated that the mine can mitigate these impacts it will not do it but it is felt, based on the very qualified experts that have been involved in this project so far, that mining here can co-exist with farming and the traditional community. Mining can go forward without polluting the environment. There will be impacts and these are not being hidden but Tholie Logistics believes that those impacts can be managed and that the net result should be positive for everyone otherwise the mine shouldn’t do it (Heye Daun).

What is your gut feeling about the Pongola river? Do you think the flow and quality of the Pongola River will be impacted through the mine’s operations?

Roland Nieburh

The specialist studies predict that any water quality or water volume impacts will be localised to the underground mining area. One of the key mitigations is to pump excess water from dewatering back into the Pandana to compensate for a loss in flow of the river (if the modelled predictions are realised). This would only be possible if the discharged water is at the right quality to not pollute the river.

Your specialist studies makes reference to the aquifers being localised to the project area however I disagree. I believe that the aquifer flows through the Magidela Mountains and that it is not only on the Pandana side of the mountain. The Magidela mountain that separates the Pongola from the Bivane.

J. P. Snijders Hydrologically, there is a natural catchment divide that sits south of the Commissiekraal site and that influences the direction of runoff. Anything on the one side of the catchment divide will run towards the Pandana and anything on the other side will run towards the Bivane. In terms of groundwater aquifers, it is understood that the same applies to the aquifers in terms of flow directions. What the groundwater specialist has shown is that there is a very good correlation between topography and groundwater flow direction which means that the groundwater flow mimics the topography of the site.

9



What about contamination of water after the closure of the mine?

Coen Labuschagne

The EIA has identified that pollution related impacts that occur between the construction and operational phase of the mine are relatively easy to mitigate because there is active management and mechanisms in place to manage any potentially polluted water. The post closure decant is considered to be the more significant contamination issue. These impacts need careful consideration by the decision makers as there are assumptions that influence the assessment of those impacts. There are specific mitigation measures that need to be put in place to minimise and/or prevent post closure decant happening.

Water quality at other mines

You mentioned that the sampling at Makateeskop was not encouraging. Please expand on this.

J. P. Snijders The samples taken at the Makateeskop indicated very high sulphates in the water and a high potential for acid mine drainage. Samples were also taken at Kemplust and the results showed that the quality of water downstream of the old workings is good.

If you had asked, I could’ve directed your specialists to at least 2 or 3 boreholes that contain highly acidic water.

Karsten Hinze

The groundwater specialist connected with Mr Kemp who informed the specialist that there was no water decanting from the mine and therefore a sample from the mine was not possible. A downstream water point was then sampled.

Air Quality

Dust generation

I am concerned about the roads due to the dust impacts.

Mandla Vundla

In the EIA, an air quality specialist study was commissioned. In addition a social specialist was appointed to understand the social structure and context of the project area. In terms of air quality the specialist has predicted that there is a potential for generation of dust that you can see and also the finer dust particles that if inhaled could have an impact on your health. The air quality study used a set of health screening criteria that is set by the government and if it is predicted that there will be exceedance of those criteria then there is a potential for respiratory health risks. If the mine does nothing about controlling the dust there is a potential for people living close to the surface infrastructure area and along the haulage route to be exposed to poor air quality which could have an impact on their health. What influences dust generation is the type of activities that occur, the amount of material that is moved and the wind direction and speed. Key mitigation measures include establishing a 500m buffer around the mine infrastructure and to manage dust generation through dust suppression techniques such as frequently spraying the roads with water and limiting speed limits.

What are the risks associated with air pollution? Mandla Vundla

Socio-economic: transport related issues

Transport route The mine is proposing to loads 94 trucks per day however the roads are in a terrible state. Please explain the route proposed from the site to the siding which the Paulpietersburg is siding currently being looked at.

Phillip Labuschagne

With reference to Figure 18 in the EIA and EMP report displayed at the meeting the existing road network and proposed route was shown. The map shows the access route that joins the D699 and then joins the P40 and finally the R33 which goes to Paulpietersburg.

10


Capacity The roads linking the R33 to the mine. People from around here will tell you 50-100 trucks per day will not work in this area. The upgrading of the roads is going to be necessary. I’ve seen on multiple occasions’ coal trucks that had to dispense half of its load in order to drive up the hill. Therefore the roads are going to need some serious upgrades and I’m just wondering what planning and financing has been done for the roads?

Phillip Baytop The traffic specialist study has identified that there would need to be upgrades done to certain sections of the D699 to the P40. This is to address safety aspects. From a capacity perspective the traffic study has shown that the current roads have capacity to accept project-related traffic. The commitment in the EMP is for Tholie Logisitic’s to consult with the provincial department of roads to understand the necessary upgrades that needs to be done.

Has the Zululand District Municipality, the Vryheid roads superintendent and the eDumbe local municipality been contacted about the plans of these roads?

Phillip Baytop These stakeholders have received a copy of the EIA and EMP report for comment. To date not comments have been received. The provisional roads department has also received a copy of the EIA for comments. Generally the eDumbe local municipality have been quite interactive and they support the project (Heye Daun).

I hope the mine has done a study on the dust on the side of the road, the condition of the road and the condition of the siding in Paulpietersburg as the previous coal mine had caused major problems for the residents of Paulpietersburg due to the dust generated at the siding.

Phillip Labuschagne

As part of the EIA air quality as well as traffic specialist studies have been completed to inform impacts associated with the proposed mining operations and haulage route. The railway siding is being address as a part of a separate EIA process.

Are there plans to tar the roads? I would just like to make the request that the mine at least considers to tar the road

Mandla Vundla

At this stage in the project there are no plans to tar the roads. The request is noted.

Socio-economic

Employment If this mine is solid to a Chinese company in the future who will bring their own workers, what will happen to the local unskilled workers?

Bradley Gibbons

There should be rules and regulations within the South African labour law that would provide the platform for this however I do not foresee that scenario (Heye Daun).

Training With regards to recruitment, you say no employment will happen at the gate but outsiders do not know this so they will in any case still flood to the area to seek employment and when they get here they will be disappointed and they will squat in the area which will resort to other problems such as crime. Therefore I suggest that the mine start training local people as soon as possible so that they are one step ahead of outsiders who will be seeking for employment.

Mr Ndlovu For recruitment, this will be handled by a recruitment office in Paulpietersburg and Utrecht and away from the farm. There will however be a mechanism in place to involve the local community in that process and that mechanism will need to be communicated with the community when it has been setup. The spread of informal settlements will depend on how well the mine manages its recruitment process and how it’s communicated to the community but there is also a role for the community to play. If there are external people that come into the area they should be told to leave. Your comment on training is noted.

Housing I know you mentioned that you don’t plan any housing onsite but somewhere there is going to have to be housing provided for 300 people and their families.

During the construction phase a temporary construction camp may be established on site. During the operational phase there will not be on-site housing as employees will be transported in every day.

Social ills Will the mine also monitor the HIV status of the skilled workers coming from outside areas such as Johannesburg?

Bradley Gibbons

There are guidelines specifically related to HIV/AIDS that the mine will need to implement as part of its occupational obligations.

11

4. THE WAY FORWARD














• Interested and affected parties will be informed once a decision has been made.

5. CLOSE

AP thanked attendees for their input and for making the time to attend the public scoping meeting. The

meeting has closed.

12



Alex Pheiffer SLR Consulting (Africa) (Pty) Ltd 0114670945

Ntsako Baloyi

JC Pretorius

William Berry

Heye Daun Tholie Logistics

Nokuthula Dlongolo 0822648845

Mandlomenzi Vundla 0743777705

Bradley Gibbons EWT 0825665803

Phillip Labuschagne 0837285777

Roland Niebuhr 0837505128

M. J Beukes Impala Water Users Association 0829295490

D. Cronje Impala Water Users Association: Bivane Dam

0833219688

Dingeni Vundla 0722035790

Xoulie Xaba 0762638088

Sizwe Dlamini

Ndabihle Vundla 0798604665

Sinethemba Charity Cele WWF 0780897451

Holger Eckhardt Pongola Catchment 0737823885

Philip Baytop Amajuba District Municipality 0836169392

G. Beukes 0349950206

K. Hinze Commondale 0832976911

Thetheni Xaba 0769903426

Zanele Ntuli-Vundla 0711899554

Zandile M 0797167338

Bhekinkosi Buthelezi 0820838714

J. P Snijders 0829442166

G. Foster Pivaan River (Pivaanspoort) 0825630123 0836552650

Siphiwe Coka 0713531090

Eric Ngcobo 0729671908

Bonginkosi Ndlela

Linda Sibeko 0826246934

Freddy Sangweni 0797729880

Manzana Magagula 0764471574

C. F Labuschagne Metcroc 0826559862

amazon s3 · 1 william berry from: alex pheiffer sent: 27 march 2015 10:20 am to: angus burns cc:...

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