Activists Fire First Salvo in Long War

FIRST SALVO: Activists take their memorandum to a representative of Tormin. Photo James Lowe

Earlier this week, environmental group Protect The West Coast (PTWC) - spearheaded by big wave surfer Mike Schlebach - travelled up the West Coast to Brand se Baai to hand over a ‘Memorandum of Grievances’ to Mineral Sands Resources (MSR), which runs the Tormin Mineral Sands Operation along a 12km stretch of coast north of the Olifants River.

Apart from their disquiet over a number of inshore and offshore mining applications, of particular concern to PTWC is the “10 Beach Extension” granted to MSR that allows them to expand their operations to a further 125 hectares of untrammelled coastline north of their current concession extending inland to a total of 398ha.

Minister of Environment Barbara Creecy opened the door last year when she rejected appeals by the Centre for Environmental Rights (supported by scientists and environmental experts) against the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy to rubber stamp the extension by issuing an Integrated Environmental Authorisation. See the original Groundup article.

Other protesters participated in a 102 kilometre trail run through the affected coastal area, much of which has been laid to catastrophic waste with little to no governmental oversight, and with little to no public participation or knowledge of the extent of the carnage and disregard for sustainable processes. The restrictions of movement brought about by the Covid Lockdown have not helped.

OUT OF SITE, OUT OF MINED: It might seem desolate, but it is anything but. Photo Sacha Specker

Since 2013, MSR - one of two South African subsidiaries of Australian-owned Mineral Commodities Ltd (MRC) - has “mined nearly five times the Indicated Resource of 2.7 million tonnes”. In other words, what their website is saying is that they have been tearing up big chunks of pristine coastline over the better part of a decade, and now they get to slam another few million tonnes for the next.

What is even more scary is that they proudly declare that “the heavy minerals in the beach are constantly replenished by the transport of new sediment from deeper waters”, which to my uneducated ‘What they are doing up there is diabolical’ear is hardly incentive to rehabilitate the beach.

Head of the PTWC Schlebach bluntly summarised the issue in a recent interview: “What they are doing up there is diabolical.” Of the protest this week, he said on Facebook: “Felt pretty good to get in the face of Australian mining company MRC (MSR in SA) who is wreaking havoc on our shores! Unfortunately, this is just the beginning, MSR themselves have a prospecting application in at the Olifants Estuary and then there’s a whole bunch of new applications coming in South of the Olifants (right down towards Elands Bay).”

HI YO HI YO: This map on the MCR website shows the current and future extent of their mine.

Yes. Elands Bay. Imagine the entire West Coast from Elands all the way to the Orange River as one giant open cast mine, with massive diggers and machines grinding up and down the beach. In between these giants, such as Tormin, Trans Hex Marine Shallow Waters at De Punt, and Tronox, who operate Namakwa Sands at Brand se Baai, you will find other, smaller individuals and companies looking for diamonds and processing heavy minerals. To top it off, there is the constant hoovering up of sediment from the sea floor further north by diamond prospectors.

Mining minerals from beach sand is quite a palaver. From the Tronox website: “The ore is mined and processed at the primary concentration plants to produce a mineral concentrate. It undergoes further Zircon is used in ceramic products, and as an opacifier in surface glazes and pigments and even Cathode Ray Tube television glassprocessing at the secondary concentration plant to yield a magnetic and non-magnetic stream. These concentrates are transported 60km to the Mineral Separation Plant where the minerals in the streams are separated to produce zircon, rutile and ilmenite.

Zircon is used in ceramic products, and as an opacifier in surface glazes and pigments and even Cathode Ray Tube television glass, while Rutile (a form of titanium dioxide mineral with ilmenite) is a pigment used in paints, coatings and plastics and as well as cosmetics, inks and fibres, and even toothpaste, sunscreen and food colouring. Titanium dioxide is used in specialist applications including welding rods and also in the production of titanium metal for industrial and aerospace applications.

“Rail trucks are used to transport the products 270km to the smelter at Saldanha Bay where the ilmenite is processed in furnaces to produce titanium dioxide slag and pig iron. The zircon and rutile is stored on site for export.”

As you can see, this has all the markings of an almighty shitshow lasting generations.

NOT DIGGING IT: This photo by John Yeld appeared on Groundup showing the Tormin operation.

Incidentally, apart from MSR, the other subsidiary of MRC in South Africa is Transworld, who you will know from controversial attempts for more than a decade to establish a titanium mine at Xolobeni, a rural area on the Wild Coast of Pondoland.

In 2016, anti-mining activist and chair of the Amadiba Crisis Committee Sikhosiphi Bazooka Rhadebe was shot dead by hitmen masquerading as policemen outside his house in Lurholweni township, This soulless methodology of numbering the beaches is similar to the way prison inmates are issued a number. Numbers take away their humanity just as these beaches are denied what is beyond the shiny minerals that lie glistening among the grains of sand: bio-diverse homes to a myriad animals and plantsMbizana. This was the story on Wavescape at the time.

According to the mother ship MCR’s website mineralcommodities.com, the West Coast concession “hosts some of the richest grades in the world of naturally occurring zircon, ilmenite, rutile, magnetite and garnet”.

But even more scary is the ‘10 Beach Extension’ granted last year (see this Daily Maverick article) starting at Beach #1 and working up to Beach #10. This soulless methodology of numbering the beaches is similar to the way prison inmates are issued a number. Numbers take away their humanity just as these beaches are denied what is beyond the shiny minerals that lie glistening among the grains of sand: bio-diverse homes to a myriad animals and plants.

No mention of that on the MCR website. It's all about the numbers and the high grade deposits that will keep them going for years due to the “constant replenishment profile of these beaches”, where wave action and upwelling keep coughing up the minerals, albeit with slowly diminishing returns.

“The Northern Beaches incorporate ten beaches directly north of and adjoining the Current Beaches at Tormin. These areas unite semi-continuous tenements approximately 23.5km in length, covering an area of 398 hectares of beach sands prospective for zircon, rutile, ilmenite, garnet, leucoxene and magnetite.”

“Garnet is usually thought of as a gemstone but most garnet is mined for industrial uses. The major industrial uses of garnet are for waterjet cutting purposes, abrasive blasting media, water filtration granules and abrasive powders," says this page on the MCR website.

IT'S OFF TO WORK WE GO: Mike Schlebach spearheaded the protest up the coast. Photo Lowe

Apart from the threat to bio-diversity, Schlebach said that there are other negative impacts to a region with environmentally fragile coastal ecosystems: “These mining activities also generate air pollution from the large numbers of trucks on gravel roads often without protective covering. Other concerns include the impact on groundwater resources, which affects local farmers, as well as issues around public access to the affected coastal areas, many of which are now inaccessible due to restrictions imposed by the miners.”

PTWC’s Memorandum, which the organization also intends to deliver to MSR’s office in Cape Town, as well as government representatives, including Minister Creecy, covered several topics. These included a pending judicial review application before the Western Cape High Court to set aside Minister Creecy's refusal to uphold appeals against the expanded mining area: “Given the legal challenges raised to the authorisation granted, which may result in the authorisation being set aside, to have commenced mining activities is premature and potentially places the environment and the surrounding communities at risk.”

PTWC_Protest_Memorandum.pdf

The memorandum also lists activities they allege are taking place at the site without authorisation, and includes a list of demands requesting that, among other requirements, all mining activities in the extended mining area are immediately halted until the legal challenges are finalised; and that the correct applications are immediately submitted for any and all activities that have commenced without authorisation. PTWC also requested the immediate removal of signs restricting access on areas that should be accessible to the public for which there was no reasonable justification.

Schlebach said, “Our first protest went well and we got our point across. PTWC is committed to ensuring that the West Coast is protected and that any mining activities taking place are done in a manner that accords with the environmental right enshrined in our Constitution, the applicable environmental statutes, and the relevant authorisations granted.”

Find out more at www.protectthewestcoast.org

#protectthewestcoast #stopreklessmining #minealert #protectsouthafrica #savetheplanet #conservation #oneearth #abetterfuture #westcoast #southafrica #protest #PTWCprotest #gohomemsr #notomining #savethewestcoast #savethebeaches #environmentaldestruction #dontexploitnature #voetsekmsr #oursnotmine