A compromising health issue

Lecturers at a Johannesburg college that is surrounded by three abandoned mine dumps claim that they are getting sick from exposure to uranium.

Medical reports on lecturers at the Central Johannesburg College's Highveld campus suggest that their health is being compromised by swirling clouds of uranium-filled dust emanating from mine dumps surrounding the area.

The reports reveal similar symptoms - chronic nasal allergies, allergic rhinitis and sinuses - all of which are associated with the inhalation of dust.

But more than the short-term effects, the lecturers fear long-term exposure to the uranium carried in the dust.

No one knows when the dumps around the college were established, but environmentalist Mariette Liefferink said they were probably established in the early 1950s.

"These are abandoned mines and we don't know who owns them. They were decommissioned and abandoned many years ago."

Neither the Department of Higher Education and Training nor the college bothered to conduct an environmental impact assessment when the Highveld Campus relocated from Parktown in 2006.

But while there has been no epidemiological study conducted on the medical conditions associated with the long-term exposure to uranium, Professor Frank Winde at North West University in Potchefstroom said numerous other studies have shown that uranium contains radon, which causes lung cancer.

The Chamber of Mines of South Africa has published mine residue dump guidelines.

These include that no human settlement should be established within a 500m radius of any dump.

The chamber environmental officer Stephina Mudau said ideally the college and the department of education should have conducted studies before relocating to Highveld campus.

In 2009 the auditor-general told parliament that South Africa would need R30-billion to rehabilitate the country's 1730 abandoned mines.

Gauteng, the site of South Africa's mining industryg has about 380 mine-residue deposits - most of them in Randfontein on the West Rand.

The Department of Mineral resources, tasked with rehabilitating abandoned mines, said it was not rehabilitating mine-residue deposits because some mining companies have started mining them again.

Central Johannesburg College's principal Motsumi Makhene insisted that it was not necessary to conduct an environmental impact assessment at the college as no studies were done when communities such as Diepkloof, Soweto, Riverlea, East and West Rands were established near mine residue dumps.

"The communities in these areas are a legacy of colonial mining and apartheid settlement patterns that were not preceded by an environmental impact assessment by the colonial mining companies in collusion with the government of the day.

"Therefore the question of the new Department of Higher Education and Training making decisions to undertake an EIA before merging the five former Johannesburg colleges ignores history and the cruelty of a reckless mining history."

Makhene said while he was not opposed to relocating the campus, he insisted on seeing lecturers' medical reports to prove they were getting ill as a result of exposure to toxic dust emanating from the mine dumps.

The lecturers, he said, declined to provide an investigation team set up to probe the matter, with their medical reports.

But, argue the lecturers, they will present their medical reports on Thursday at a meeting with college management and senior officials from the Department of Higher Education and Training.

Experts are expected to make presentations to the officials on the medical conditions associated with dust and uranium.

Based on the results of the meeting, the officials will decide whether or not to relocate them.

The matter has been referred to the Education Labour Relations Council for arbitration.

Last year the Krugersdorp-based Mogale City Municipality, on recommendations from the National Nuclear Regulator, forcefully relocated the Tudor Shaft informal settlement when it was discovered that their shacks were built on top of a radioactive uranium-rich dump.

Authorities had found that uranium in the area was 15 times above the permissible legal limit.

NNR spokesman Gino Moonsamy said constant exposure to high levels of radioactive material such as uranium was not good for anyone.

He said if civil society suspects the presence of dangerous levels of uranium, they should contact the NNR's office, which will send inspectors to take measurements and advise accordingly.

Teachers driven out by pollution

NOMVULA Mehlamakhulu has been teaching art and design at Central College's Parktown, Johannesburg, campus since 2004 but her symptoms appeared after the institution relocated to near Crown Mines.

Her medical file reads: "The above-mentioned patient is suffering from chronic allergies due to the dusty environment which she is exposed to."

Senzeni Marasele, who arrived at the college in 2008 to teach visual arts, said her symptoms began towards the end of 2010. She has decided to resign.

Her medical file reads: "This letter serves to confirm that we have seen and treated the above-mentioned person for allergic rhinitis."

Marasele said: "I've been suffering from this for some time now. The doctor asked me where I work and when I told him he was not surprised.

"I have decided to resign as a result. I can't die slowly here.

"I don't have a job to go to but I can't stay there; it is not possible."

Riaan Opperman started teaching at the college in 2003.

His medical report reads: "He has a history of chronic sinusitis and bronchitis due to inhaling dust and other particles in the air at his workplace. When he is on leave, he is perfectly healthy.

"His respiratory tract has deteriorated to such an extent that he presents with chronic obstructive airway disease." - Sipho Masondo

A US STUDY

Uranium endangers communities

A STUDY conducted last year by a professor at the Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston in the US says that, though previous studies have focused on miners' exposure to uranium, evidence shows that communities can also suffer from exposure to it.

"Additional novel toxicologic findings, including some at the molecular level, are now emerging that raise the biological plausibility of adverse effects on the brain, on reproduction, including estrogenic effects, on gene expression, and on uranium metabolism," said Professor Doug Brugge.

His study found that, in New Mexico, communities were still affected by uranium mines decommissioned decades ago.

Hundreds of miners in Navajo had died or became ill as a result of being exposed to uranium through airborne dust and contaminated drinking water, he said. - Sipho Masondo