Heritage Cases

Vuna Mining Resources (Pty) Limited proposes to undertake coal prospecting activities over the Naudesbank Prospecting Area, which occurs of portions 4 and 16 of the farm Naudesbank 172 IS within the Carolina magisterial district, namely the Naudesbank Prospecting Project. The proposed project entails prospecting for coal using diamond core drilling. Access to the prospecting area will be via existing roads. Before the proposed Naudesbank Prospecting Project can be commenced with, an environmental authorisation must be obtained by Vuna Mining Resources (Pty) Limited. In view the above, Vuna Mining Resources (Pty) Limited has applied for an environmental authorisation for listed activities within the proposed project area. The above-mentioned environmental authorisation application was acknowledgement by the Department on the 16th of March 2016. This section will indicate the activities that were included in this environmental authorisation application. Table 3 is compiled as prescribed by the DMR BAR and EMPr template and reflect all Naudesbank Prospecting project activities applied for. The proposed Naudesbank Prospecting Project area will be explored in three phases i.e. literature review phase, field mapping phase and drilling phase. Only the field mapping and drilling phases have potential for environmental impacts, hence will be described in this section of the report. The field mapping will include the establishment of access to the site, establishment of a campsite, field surveying (to determine sensitive areas), geophysical surveys (if necessary) and pegging of the drilling sites. Drilling phase will involve the drilling of the sited drilling boreholes using a diamond core drilling technique. A sump will be constructed in each drilling borehole for the collection of water from the drilling operation. The sump will be constructed to be one square meter in size and have a maximum depth of one metre. Any soils removed from the sump (approximately one cubic meters) will be placed adjacent the drilling site and used for rehabilitation of the site. Boreholes will be drilled at pre-planned sites. The boreholes will be drilled to intersect all the expected coal seams and will be logged by the geologist. The coal samples will be sent to the laboratory for quality and washability determination. This data will form the basis for the geological modelling and financial evaluation.