Several residents in the Bo-Kaap community are opposed to the gold refinery, and local schools are concerned about the health of their pupils. File picture: David Ritchie/Independent Media Several residents in the Bo-Kaap community are opposed to the gold refinery, and local schools are concerned about the health of their pupils. File picture: David Ritchie/Independent Media
Cape Town - Two Bo-Kaap schools are worried about the impact a gold refinery 200m away will have on the health of their pupils.
They are now preparing to lodge appeals against the environmental authorisation granted by the Western Cape government to Lueven Metals earlier this month to operate the refinery from a property between Buitengracht and Jordaan streets.
St Paul’s Primary School principal Yeye Mgudlwa said the majority of the school’s pupils travelled there from the Cape Flats and often had to be sent home because of asthmatic conditions from emissions emanating from existing jewellery manufacturing businesses operating from the same building.
“Who will be supervising the chemicals they will be using there? As a school we are not happy at all with what is going to happen,” said Mgudlwa.
St Paul’s accommodates 650 pupils from Grade R to Grade 7, but was not considered in the environmental impact assessment for the refinery.
In reaching its decision, the Western Cape Department of Environmental Affairs said: “No site visits were conducted. The competent authority had sufficient information before it to make an informed decision without conducting a site visit.”
The authorisation was subject to the development of an emergency response plan and an emergency evacuation plan, it said. Charlene Little, principal of Vista High School, said her school was not informed about plans for a refinery.
“Most of our pupils walk past there on their way to the school. It is extremely dangerous when it’s humid. This refinery is not good for our school,” she said.
The school has 543 pupils. The Department of Environmental Affairs said it was satisfied the public participation process met the minimum legal requirements and all concerns had been addressed in the environmental impact assessment.
Bo-Kaap Civic and Ratepayers’ Association chairman Osman Shaboodien said the association was receiving legal assistance to mount its appeal.
“How the Department of Environmental Affairs can okay such a decision speaks volumes about how they evaluate what is good for residents and what is not,” he said.
“We are adamant that we cannot allow a refinery in the heart of our community to poison our children.”
Shaboodien said zoning legislation for the area was “antiquated”.
“I feel the department did not apply their minds properly. They did not do an in loco inspection which is very important when you look at the environment in which it will be situated.”
Robyne Conway of the Brave Foundation, a rehabilitation centre also in the immediate vicinity of the proposed refinery, would also be appealing the decision.
“Unfortunately we have not managed to bring the greater Cape Town community on board. People still think of it as a Bo-Kaap issue. For the department to grant a licence without determining a plan for evacuating people from the schools is problematic,” she said.
Mayoral committee member for health Siyabulela Mamkeli said the city council had not yet received an application for an atmospheric emission licence.
lindsay.dentlinger@inl.co.za
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