A critical evaluation of the challenges facing dust management within gold mining regions of South Africa by JJ Martins
Extract:
“…the biggest challenge within this area is that neither districts nor gold mines receive any assistance nor do they report to government with regards to their dust management programme. This poses a challenge as it limits both the district‟s and gold mines ‟ability to enforce and improve their dust management programmes. The lack of use of information provided by interested and affected parties (Paragraph 4.3.8) within the dust management plan of both the district and gold mines is a major challenge as deposition-dust regulations were initiated to protect the public and their property … in the first place. The biggest challenge, however, as identified in the study for this focus area is the lack of specialist involvement in dust management plans and programmes of both districts and gold mines … There are, however, implications regarding the capacity of consultants rendering services as air-quality specialists ….). It is the view of the author that when it comes to using consultants a clear distinction should be made between dust management and monitoring as the necessary qualifications relevant to each of the areas are totally different. It was confirmed by questionnaires to specialists … that there is a general lack of scientific knowledge within dust management. It is furthermore the author’s view that to render air-quality services specifically pertaining to monitoring one should at least have a tertiary qualification in science.”