• OPERATIONS
WATER:
BLESSING OR CURSE?
For mining, water can be both a blessing and a curse,
writes Barnabas Mboweni.
Water is an extremely precious resource; necessary
for sustaining life itself. No organisation can
operate without it. Whether it is a simple corporate
office, a factory, a farm, school, even a household, all need
water to operate.
For mining however, water can be both a blessing and a curse. In
the confines of the man-made underground caves and mining
pits, water is continually intruding through fissures, seepage,
rain, and even accidental at times from pipe burst and leaks
from service lines. At the same time, clean water is required for
mining activities such as drilling, cleaning of equipment and
other services. After use, this water adds to the already existing
burden of undesired water. It then becomes a balancing act of
how much water is sent down versus re-use of already existing
water in the workings. At the end of the day all that water needs
to be removed from the mine. A process, which if not well
managed, can result in flooding (a reportable incident to the
Department of Mineral Resources (DMR) of the mine and loss of
equipment from water damage). All these can compound to a
considerable loss of revenue for the business.
As much as it is necessary to remove water from the mine,
water it is still necessary to carry out mining activities. With
several interventions, there are companies able to provide
unique solutions that allow the removal of nuisance water,
treating, repurposing and sending it back into the operations.
Such careful use of water means that raw water intake from
natural resources are reduced, in line with the provisions of
environmental water acts and applicable water use licences.
For historic operations that have not been operating for a very
long time (for example Orion Minerals’ Prieska Copper and Zink
project in the Northern Cape), with water accumulation up to
300m from the surface of the shaft; de-flooding the cave will be
one of the critical path activities in the project plan. A thorough
40 • African Mining •May 2020
Barnabas Mboweni
Water in underground mines can be a curse or a blessing.
www. africanmining.co.za