Latest news with #Mike Mposha
News24
3 days ago
- Health
- News24
Zambia mine disaster: Heavy metals found in water, clean-up yet to begin
Zambia's government sought to calm public pollution concerns stemming from a disaster at a copper mine six months ago, saying municipal drinking water is safe, even as laboratory tests showed excessive levels of heavy metals in some areas. 'The water is fit for consumption,' Green Economy and Environment Minister Mike Mposha told reporters in Lusaka, the capital, on Friday. Laboratory results received this week showed that pH acidity readings were within safe levels in water tested in the region surrounding the mine, he said. Still, there were elevated levels of manganese and zinc in four of the 23 places that were sampled. At one river site, manganese concentrations were 400 times the acceptable limit, according to a government report Mposha's ministry released on Friday. The partial collapse of a waste dam at the Sino-Metals Leach mine in Zambia's northern Copper province in February may have released 30 times more toxic sludge into the environment than previously reported, Drizit Zambia — appointed by Chinese state-owned SML to conduct an environmental audit of the accident — said in a June 3 letter. Mposha declined to comment on the assessment, saying he's yet to receive any such report officially. Drizit warned of persisting serious health risks from heavy metals contained in the spill, and described the incident as a 'large-scale environmental catastrophe.' Vulnerabilities around tailings storage have been in particular focus over the past decade after dam disasters at two Brazilian iron-ore mines owned by Vale SA, including a 2019 collapse that killed more than 272 people. Similar failures around the world over decades have resulted in deaths, destroyed property and caused massive environmental damage. The laboratory results released by Zambia's Mines Ministry on Friday showed lingering risks from the incident. Its report used samples from water and made no reference to tests of soil that Drizit says has been contaminated too. Heavy metals Dried sludge still cakes streams and riverbanks in the fallout zone, and seasonal rains that usually begin in November may wash this into river systems, together with the heavy metals still contained in the waste, according to Drizit. The cleanup after the accident has yet to begin. The government first needs to hire a company to carry out an independent environmental impact assessment of the damage that will instruct the restoration efforts. That process has faced months of delays after Sino-Metals terminated Drizit's contract to do the work, citing unspecified contractual breaches. Drizit declined to comment. 'This is very urgent,' Mposha said on Friday. 'We should not get into the rainy season, because that can complicate things.' Zambia is Africa's second-biggest copper producer, and plans to more than triple output to 3 million tons by early next decade. The Zambian government last week played down the danger from the spill, saying there was no cause for alarm as the 'immediate danger to human, animal and plant life has been averted.' At least 50,000 tons of highly acidic mine waste escaped when the dam burst, according to official reports. Drizit estimated that at least 1.5 million tons were lost from the dam system in total — enough to fill more than 400 Olympic-sized swimming pools. Sino-Metals has apologised to the government, distributed initial compensation to farmers directly impacted, and paid a fine of 1.5 million kwacha (about R1.1 million).
Bloomberg
6 days ago
- Politics
- Bloomberg
Zambia Assures Public Water Is Safe After Mine-Pollution Spill
The Zambian government sought to calm public concerns about pollution levels after a study found that the damage done by a disaster at Chinese state-owned copper mine in February was much larger than officially reported. 'The water is fit for consumption,' Mike Mposha, Zambia's minister of green economy and environment, told reporters in Lusaka, the capital, on Friday.
