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Row brewing over DRDGOLD dump Posted: Tue, 03 Oct 2006 [miningmx.com] -- EXECUTIVES at DRDGOLD must be scratching their heads in disbelief. That after meeting some opposition from the Heritage Foundation, a South African non-governmental organisation, that would prefer the company didn’t reuse “Top Star” – the name of the cinema drive-in that sits on piled sand and gold and officially known as Erf 1, Park Central Township. The 10 hectare Top Star property is south of Johannesburg, just over the M1’s (freeway/motorway) Crown Interchange. It’s recognisable owing to its large drive-in screen. However, the dump has recently been used for high-profile events. For example, the music broadcasting company MTV used Top Star to launch its Africa channel. Having failed to buy AngloGold Ashanti’s Ergo, a dump retreatment company, DRDGOLD settled on Top Star, completing the R20m deal in its June quarter. At a grade of around 0.7g/t to 0.8g/t, the dump isn’t fabulously wealthy, but it will serve to keep the mills turning at Crown Gold Recoveries (CGR), the DRDGOLD subsidiary. But CGR needs to move swiftly. The pipe network that surrounds the dump will be removed shortly, a development that will landlock the dump. Removing it later would have to be done by truck, making it more costly. The Heritage Foundation’s complaint is therefore badly timed for CGR. There was no mention of any such intervention at any of CGR’s two public participation meetings in January, it says. Nonetheless, the Heritage Foundation says that Top Star represents South Africa’s mining history and that it should be preserved. The dump was formed from earth dug from about 1887, when the Crown Mine was being operated by Jo’burg’s early gold entrepreneurs. However, Charles Symons, MD of CGR, says it’s not the last of the city’s mine dumps. “Just to the west there’s another mine dump. That’s just as high and prominent, only it’s not in the middle of Johannesburg.” Even though 170 million tons of sand have so far been removed in dump retreatment around Jo’burg, there are still 200 dumps left unrehabilitated, according to Environmental News Services. CGR has the rights to mine about 70 of them. Symons says CGR owns the Top Star property as well as the sand and has subsequently funded a concept of what the area could look like as a housing and recreational redevelopment. The logic in the concept is that the removal of the dump will open the south end of Simmonds Street and mirror the regeneration of Newtown, which is conveniently situated at the north end of Simmonds.Free news alerts: click here to subscribe
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