WONDERFONTEINSPRUIT , 15 February 2008 (IRIN) - One legacy of South Africa's extensive mineral deposits is the infrastructure and wealth of the country. But another more troubling legacy is emerging as an increasingly urgent problem: environmental contamination from over 100 years of mining that could severely pollute the country's water, affecting the food chain and citizens' health.
The magnitude of the potential problem has government agencies scrambling to coordinate a response to a relatively new issue for the regulatory bodies. "The truth of the matter is that as a nation we don't know how to deal with this problem because it has never happened to us before," said Dr Anthony Turton, a leading water researcher at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).
"This was always suppressed before because people didn't matter in the pre-1994 South Africa. All we've done so far is see the tip of the iceberg. We certainly don't have any coherent government strategies yet."
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