Heritage Cases

Barberton Mines (Pty) Ltd (BML), which forms part of Pan African Resources PLC, owns and operates the Fairview Mine, New Consort Mine, Sheba Mine and Barberton Tailings Retreatment Plant (BTRP) near the town of Barberton, Mpumalanga. Mining in the Fairview area commenced in the 1880’s. Today, Fairview Mine has an approved Mining Right (Reference Number 30/5/1/2/3/2/1/191) and Environmental Management Plan (EMP) in terms of the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act (No. 28 of 2002) (MPRDA). The Mining operation comprises underground gold mining through the No 11 Adit, as well as surface reclamation of Tailings material. Ore is transported from the No. 11 Adit via aerial ropeway to the processing facilities, while material is hydraulically reclaimed from Tailings facilities and piped to the processing facilities. Processing involves crushing, milling and flotation to produce gold concentrate, which is further processed at the Biox Plant and the CIL Plant. Final concentrate is smelted on site to produce gold bullion. Flotation Tailings and CIL Tailings are produced by these processes, Tailings are currently being deposited on a TSF known as the New Bramber Tailings Dam, or BTRP TSF. Ongoing production will soon necessitate additional capacity for storage of Tailings material. BML therefore proposes to construct a new Tailings Storage Facility (TSF) at the site of the original Bramber TSF which has since been reclaimed. The new TSF will be referred to in this report as the Fairview TSF. Due to the long history of gold mining in the area, several waste dumps resulting from historic mineral extraction and processing exist throughout the area. Many of these dumps still contain high percentages of gold.