Villagers take mining firm to court over polluted blue water, toxic to plants and animals

The Patising and Maloraneng communities living near the mine share the surrounding natural water sources. But residents say dark blue water runs in the contaminated streams, which is causing illness and death.

Letšeng Diamond Mine, which started operating in 2004 and is 70% owned by London-based shareholder Gem Diamonds as well as the Lesotho government, denies any wrongdoing. The mine claims it is managing pollution levels that are a by-product of operations. 

In a confidential report to Lesotho’s Department of Environment, seen by the MNN, the mine admits: “Seepages from the waste rock dumps and overflows from dirty water containment facilities allow receiving surface water environments to become polluted with especially nitrates and sulphate”. 

Chief executive officer of Letšeng Diamond Mine, Kelebone Leisanyane submitted a report in January this year to the Department of Environment, under the Ministry of Tourism, Environment and Culture, in line with the Environmental Act 2008.

The social and environmental management plan compliance audit report states: “Standards for nitrate are consistently exceeding in Patising [sic].

“Despite the implementation of several mitigatory measures to clean the seepage [dilution and engineered wetlands], the system remains polluted with nitrate to levels exceeding domestic and livestock guidelines.

“Standards for the nitrates are consistently exceeded in the Patising, Qaqa and RTZ systems while biomonitoring results show the Patiseng system to be in a poor condition, mostly owing to elevated salts and organic pollution [biannual water quality monitoring report of March 2021].”

The report further reveals the RTZ system, a structure built to treat water in the mine, has recorded increasing levels of nitrate and sulphate since 2014, which suggests the mine has been aware of its impact on Mokhotlong’s water sources for years. 

In a telephonic interview with MNN, Leisanyane said: “The issue of sulphates and nitrates in a mining area is one of the things that are being managed on a regular basis because the mine uses explosives and that is something which is there.” 

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Section 4 of the Environment Act 2008 compels companies to take all reasonable measures to “mitigate undesirable effects not contemplated in the environmental impact statement and shall report those measures to the director annually or whenever the director requires”.

To achieve this, companies compile their social and environmental management plans (Semp), which are externally audited before being submitted to the Department of Environment, when requested by the director of environment, Motsamai Damane.   

In Letšeng’s case, the audit was carried out by South African environmental consultancy, Shangoni Management Services. In its findings, Shangoni refers to previous reports, such as the March 2021 biannual water quality monitoring report, which confirms water contamination allegations against Letšeng. 

While Shangoni notes that there was high level of compliance on the mine’s Semp, the consultancy lists six non-compliance issues, which include activities affecting the surrounding clean water environment “through seepages and release of affected water – high nitrate and sulphate concentrations”. 

Shangoni’s findings coincide with two independent research studies undertaken by the Maluti Community Development Forum, an interest group that defends the rights of Lesotho’s poor communities in mining areas as well as a masters study by Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) student Bokang Shakhane. 

The forum’s report states: “A high concentration of nitrates [NO3] was found in water samples near tailing sites in Letšeng and Maloraneng villages”.

“While most natural streams in Lesotho have been found extremely clean in terms of water quality, nitrate levels up to 18 mg/l are not uncommon. However, the levels found in the samples from Letšeng and Maloraneng exceeded the detection limit of the measurement instrument [absorbance of 3 000, equivalent to 86.18 mg/l NO3].”

The forum engaged experts from the National University of Lesotho to test water samples through ultraviolet-visible spectrophotometry. 

Reacting to the forum’s findings on 29 March 2022, Leisanyane issued a statement, noting “in line with our commitment to transparency, we make regular and full disclosures to the appropriate stakeholders in Lesotho”.

The third CPUT report, by Shakhane, states “the results indicated the concentration of nitrates/nitrites in the range from 0.13 – 167 mg/l and 0 – 67.8 mg/l during dry and wet seasons respectively”. 

“The nitrates and nitrites, on the other hand, proved to be mainly point sources because they were highest at Patising stream which carries some effluent from Letšeng diamond slimes dams,” Shakhane said.

He says ammonia, also distributed across all the sampled locations but highest at Patising, ranged from 0.17 – 1.89 mg/l and 0.15 – 0.68 mg/l in the dry and wet season respectively. 

Another heavy metal, copper ranged from 0.039 – 0.219 mg/l and 0.011 – 0.029 in the dry and wet season respectively while the levels of lead ranged from 0 – 0.020 mg/l and that of chromium were found to lie between 0 and 0.046 mg/l. 

“The results obtained in the present study indicated that there was a definite pollution in the Khubelu River catchment with respect to HMs [heavy metals] and nutrients studied,” Shakhane said, stressing that these metals can have serious health implications for all animals and plants. 

He recommended an appropriate joint monitoring programme by the Departments of Environment and Water Affairs be done in order to minimise the possible impacts. 

Leisanyane told MNN: “We are not getting into these research-related questions because we do not have time, they are highly academic”. 

The big question

Minister confirms pollution 

Who is fooling who?