Many of South Africa's quarries are under threat due to illegal operations and ill-considered borrow pits, which are undercutting the prices of formal quarries and bringing many to their knees. This is according to Nico Pienaar, director of the country's surface mining industry association ASPASA.
Pienaar said that the South African quarrying industry is technically advanced and able to supply materials for modern construction techniques. However, he added that it is only through the coordinated efforts of the legal quarrying industry that the construction of appropriate infrastructure will be able to take place.
He said that without well managed quarries operating in towns and cities the cost of construction will become unaffordable for Government, developers and even for homeowners. If allowed to disappear he predicts there will be similar problems to energy and water crisis involving electricity utility Eskom, where Pienaar said too little was done too late and the citizens will bear the brunt.
“Imagine we need specialised materials to build a dam wall, tunnel or hospital or private contractors need high strength concrete for mine shafts, high rise buildings or advanced new construction techniques,” said Pienaar. “Imagine we can’t supply them because our formal quarrying industry – with its mining experts, blasting professionals, mineral processing engineers and skilled workers – have left the industry due to the quarries closing. Illegal miners and small-scale borrow pits don’t have the skills nor the expensive capital equipment to produce such materials.”
He said that, by supporting illegal miners or establishing ill-considered borrow pits to meet short term construction requirements more cheaply, Government departments, municipalities and construction firms will be complicit in the demise of South Africa’s quarries and will spell the inevitable demise of the country’s formal construction industry.
“While short term price gains may seem attractive, it undermines the livelihoods of thousands of workers who are gainfully employed in the formal quarrying sector with its strenuous health, safety and environmental laws, as well as compliance with employment criteria etc,” Pienaar added.
Legal quarries which are members of ASPASA must obtain mining, water usage and environmental permits and have to abide by strict regulations in order to begin quarrying operations. Once in operation, Pienaar said they are heavily regulated (in terms of the impact on surrounding communities) and have to comply with the strictest possible regulations relating to noise, dust and water pollution among others. An additional benefit is the creation of direct and indirect jobs that are sustainable over a long period of time.
With the South African government’s commitment to building new homes and the rising population growth, a strong demand for infrastructure development is required and Pienaar said this needs to be supported by legal quarry operations in every town and city.
“We are calling for Government, contractors, developers and the formal construction industry to recognize the important roles played by well resourced, well equipped, formal quarries and to support them in the interest to sustainable construction,” he said.
ASPASA has recently conducted research suggesting that every job in the quarrying industry creates a further five jobs in downstream operations. The association added that these figures therefore suggest that quarries are major contributors to regional job creation efforts.
Research conducted in the USA by the Phoenix Centre for Advanced Legal and Economic Public Policy Studies found that quarries are not only beneficial to the development of physical infrastructure but are also major contributors to the building of strong local economies, with the benefits lasting for 20 years or longer.
