1. Drought, Mining and Water Wars
Prof Mary Galvin
University of Johannesburg
Centre for Social Change

2. Water Wars: protest

4. Service Delivery/ “Community” Protests
About service delivery, but also accountability and corruption
22% of all protests are community protests, most labour related
Number of community protests doubled from to 2013, from 700 per year to per year

5. Violence misrepresented, used to justify police response

6. Water Wars redefined
1. Water conservation (pricing) 2. System maintenance (dry taps) 3. Self-connecting (no access) 4. Dry sanitation (lack of options) Characterised by ongoing local resistance.

8. Climate change: Scarcity gets worse

12. 1. Mining and water wars: resource pollution and regulation/ licenses
Acid Mine Drainage: 6 000 old, abandoned mines, and many of them are ticking environmental time bombs.
Acid mine water containing sulphates and heavy metals goes largely untreated into rivers, and many poor communities who cannot access or afford municipal water have no choice but to use water from these rivers. (WWF)
Since the inception of the National Water Act 17 years ago, only four cases involving mines contravening the legislation had been successfully prosecuted.
According to an annexure attached to an earlier reply, there are a total of 104 mines around the country operating without a water-use license. 
Less than 1% of the country’s major water source areas were being mined, “70% of the areas in Mpumalanga are under either a prospecting or mining licence, and this is cause for particular concern”.

13. 2. Mining and water wars: resource allocation
Allocation: use of water by mines over people!
Priority to basic needs and ecological reserve first– in National Water Act.
Government by Dept now, should be Catchment Management Agencies but not set up/ finalized due to Dept incompetence and politics
Water Allocation Reform- to review allocations so more equitable– NOT DONE!

14. Madibeng municipality
Jericho
Hebron
Marikana
Mothutlung
Majakaneng
Kosmos Village
Pecanwood Golf Estate
Madibeng
Magaliesburg Mountains
and ‘Cradle of Humankind’

16. 3. Mining and Water Wars: Cost
Low cost of water to mines, industry and agriculture.
Example of electricity

17. Derek Keys, last apartheid finance minister & first democratic SA finance minister under Mandela – controversially allowed SA firm Gencor to externalise billions in 1993 to buy Shell Oil’s Billiton, then became its CEO in 1994
Xolani Mkhwanazi, former SA National Electricity Regulator, now BHP Billiton Southern Africa Chief Executive Officer
3 hours north of Durban, Richards Bay’s aluminum smelter, beneficiary of $0.02/kWh electricity thanks to forty-year Eskom deal
BHP Billiton at heart of SA’s crony-capitalist ‘Minerals Energy Complex’: big mining houses get world’s cheapest electricity, at the expense of lowest-income South Africans
Mick Davis, former Eskom Treasurer who offered BHP Billiton the sweetheart power deals, then worked for BHP Billiton (and now heads world’s largest mining house, Xstrata)‏
Vincent Maphai, chair of Southern Africa BHP Billiton, attended February 2008 meeting with President Mbeki, defending firm during national grid blackouts …
Marius Kloppers, BHP Billiton CEO (Melbourne) applied intense pressure to ‏halt disconnection threat

18. annual report, though reason for R9.7bn 2009-10 losses
SA offers world’s cheapest electricity to metals smelters - phase-out needed!
Eskom brags in 2009
annual report, though reason for R9.7bn losses

19. Moving from service to resource protests!
Citizen science to monitor rivers and water sources- show when mining affects water supply
Gather information about water in mining affected communities
Fight for allocation of water to people over mines: a legal right in the Water Act (Water Allocation Reform)
Campaign so cost of water to mines reflects its true value