Consulting Engineers South Africa (Cesa) said on Monday that its members was ready to contribute to the short-term acid mine drainage (AMD) mitigation measures as identified in a report presented to the Inter-Ministerial Committee on AMD in December.

Cesa CEO Graham Pirie said that the government was on the “right track” with the report and added that Cesa and its member firms were ready to assist.

Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan announced in February when he presented his Budget speech in parliament that R225-million had been set aside for dealing with AMD.

The budget makes specific provision for short-term measures to bring the AMD situation under control and to avert short-term environmental and property impacts and risks.

Further work to develop long-term technically feasible and financially viable approaches and solutions to the management of AMD were still being considered.

Areas that needed intervention included the Western, Central and Eastern basins in the Witwatersrand area, where mining has been taking place for more than a hundred years.

In the Western basin, intervention would require the establishment of a neutralisation plant with a capacity of 20-million litres a day to supplement the existing treatment capacity operated by Rand Uranium. An upgrade of mine water pumping facilities would also be required.

In the Central basin, a pumping facility with a capacity of about 60-million litres a day would need to be installed in one or more of the existing mine shafts, and a neutralisation plant or plants of matching capacity would need to be established nearby.

Expanding on the problem in the Central basin, which is the largest, the report states that the water level has been rising at an average daily rate of 0,59-million litres since July 2009, varying seasonally between 0,3-million litres a day and 0,9-million litres a day. By the end of last year, the water was about 510 m below the surface.

It is predicted that the rising water level will reach the surface by March 2013.