Salinity, sanitation and sustainability in Johannesburg

摘要

While water and sanitation emerged as real winners at last year's World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, the host city's own environmental sustainability came under the spotlight with a focus on the threatened discharge of potentially massive volumes of highly contaminated acid mine rising lake of waters polluted with salt, acids and heavy metals. With some remaining mines already pumping over 100 million litres per day (MLD) just to remain operational, it is estimated that final closure and filling would see hundreds of MLD decanting from multiple diffuse discharge points along availability of appropriate technology.