Residents of Namaqualand town Concordia have witnessed increased copper mining activities in and around their town.
- Residents of Concordia in the Northern Cape have raised the alarm over increased mining at several copper mines in and around their small town in recent months.
- They say the company’s large trucks are destroying their roads in and around the town and creating a dust hazard.
- Tensions between residents and Copper 360 and subsidiary Shirley Hayes-IPK (SHiP) have risen since the arrest of protesters at the mine last year.
- The Department of Mineral Resource and Energy will visit Concordia in July to assess their complaints.
People living in the Namaqualand town of Concordia say their worst fears have become a daily reality as mining activities in the small town are ramping up.
Residents describe how the mining company’s large trucks are destroying roads in and around the town, creating a dust hazard.
The mining company, Copper 360, and its subsidiary Shirley Hayes-IPK (SHiP) has been extracting copper from several mines in the Northern Cape town. Increased mining in recent months has caused conflict between residents and the company, which the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE) is trying to mediate.
The Rietberg, Homeep, Koeëlkop, and Jubilee mines are located outside the town and Hester Maria and Wheal Julia mines are located inside the town where residents live.
It’s been nearly 11 months since 29 Concordia residents were arrested during a protest outside Copper 360’s Jubilee mine, which GroundUp reported on.
Residents are worried about how the nearby mining will affect their homes and communal land owned by the Concordia Communal Property Association.
Residents say large trucks have been passing through the town nearly every day, for months, creating dust and destroying the roads.
“The trucks are a big problem … They are driving our town flat,” says Shereen Fortuin, a community leader. Fortuin says their homes get covered in dust.
GroundUp first sent questions to Copper 360 on 13 June, which were acknowledged but had still not been responded to at the time of publication.
According to DMRE spokesperson Ernest Mulibana, in order to curb the dust issue, water is being extracted from the Jubilee mine to douse the roads and prevent excess dust.
But this too has raised concerns among residents about whether the mine water that is used to douse their roads is polluted, says Nuchey van Neel, chair of the Concordia Communal Property Association (CPA).
Stalemate
Talks between residents and the company have reached a stalemate.
The company issued a notice in terms of section 54 of the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act in August saying that CPA members prevented the company from accessing its Wheal Julia mine. This means that a dispute resolution process will have to be mediated by the department.
The department confirmed that officials have met with community members “on a regular basis” and “issues raised have been taken up with the rights holder in order to resolve such matters”.
But Van Neel says the process is taking too long. People living near the mines, particularly those living close to the Hester Maria mine in the town and the farmers close to the Rietberg mine, have been left in the dark.
Marco Benson, a resident of Concordia, said, “There is a lot of unhappiness in what is going on here. It is our land. The community is not being recognised.”
In March some Concordia residents marked Human Rights Day with a march through the town, calling for a moratorium on all new and existing mining applications and permits until affected Namaqualand communities are meaningfully consulted.
Mulibana said the department will do a physical compliance inspection in July to “determine compliance” with the relevant mining right. This will include compliance checks for dust mitigation, he said.
Concordia residents say that dust in the town has increased with mining trucks driving through the town every day.
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Blink
A British man on safari walks into a bar far out in the reaches of a game reserve in Southern Africa, he stays at the bar for a while shooting the shit with the bartender and drinking like a fish, he offer to buy the barkeep a round and since no one else is within 2km of their small oasis of liquor the barkeep obliges. The englishman goes off to the bathroom to have a good old go at the porcelain, he\’s back and ready for a few more whiskeys. He\’s just sat down when suddenly in the distance he hears a scream. He looks over his shoulder and dismisses it as nothing, he turns to the barkeep and orders a drink, takes a sip and hears the scream again. He looks at the barkeep who just shrugs it off. A minute or two later he and the barman hear it again and go outside to take a look. They see a lone figure running towards them screaming, he spots them and lets out a cry, RUN!!!!! HE\”S COMING!!!!!
The barkeep and the Englishman both look at the terrified bedraggled sight before them, and try to calm him down, but he\’s completely inconsolable. They give him water and finally manage to get a word out of him but he struggles free from their grasp and run away screaming.
A few minutes later the same thing happens with a whole group of men running in and screaming, he\’s coming, he\’s coming the barkeep grabs hold of one of the men as he tries to sprint past the bar and tries to get information out of him, again no response other than terrified gibberish.
The barkeep and his customer are starting to get worried, they start to pack up before another group of horrified natives run up to the bar most of them flee but one tries to hide behind the bar, the barkeep pulls out a shotgun and points it at the terrified man\’s face, finally managing to coax some words out of him. \”He\’s coming for us, Vernon Koekemoer is coming for us, we have to hide!!! We have to get out of here.\” He gets up and tries to run but the barkeep grabs him, feeling trapped in a panic he grabs the barkeeps shotgun and blows his own head off. The Englishman and the barkeep look at each other starting to really panic now.
They look out of the window and off in the distance they see a tornado coming towards the bar, at the bottom of the tornado they see the hugest beast of a man they have ever seen, as he gets closer they spot that he is riding a rhinocerous and using a crocodile as a riding whip, with each smack of the crocodile across the back of the rhino the louder is screams and the faster it runs, the tornado following it getting ever larger.
The 2 look at each other and start to fortify their position, they\’ve got a gun and they\’re waaay to drunk to run, so they start piling bar stool and tables and anything they can get their hands on to make sure they\’ll be safe when he arrives. They\’re not gonna make it, they can see the man slowing down his rhino, by now the crocodile is nothing but reptile paste on the bruised rump of the half dead rhino, the rhino drops down dead from exhaustion and crashes to the ground right outside the bar the tornado loses it\’s last breath in a cloud of dust as the huge man crashes his way through the make shift barricade and charges up towards the bar where the 2 men have taken shelter, he grabs a bottle of the hardest liquor on the shelf and down the entire litre in 1 gulp, he peers over the bar sobbing and sees the 2 defenders cowering down behind the crates of beer, they look up at the mans\’ face and he stares at them with a look of complete and utter hopelessness, he stares at them for a half second and half screams, half sobs, \”Oh my god what are you still doing here!!! WE HAVE TO GET OUT OF HERE NOW!!!! Vernon Koekemoer is coming!!!!\”
Star Killer
Eish! – an exclamation [Ay-sh] or [ee-sh] A Khoi term usually expressed when someone experiences surprise or shock.