ILLEGAL miners are using highly poisonous mercury to extract gold from rocks in an illegal Roodepoort mining operation that includes washing rocks in a nearby river.
The matter has been reported to the South African Police Service(SAPS) by the Department of Mineral Resources, it emerged in an interview with Democratic Alliance (DA) MP James Lorimer on Tuesday.
The high price of gold in recent years has seen the proliferation ofillegal mining activities, especially in the Free State and Gauteng. These cost South Africa an estimated R5bn a year, according to Mineral Resources Minister Susan Shabangu.
"It (illegal mining on the surface) is a major problem and it is extensive in the old gold mining areas, except Barberton (in Mpumalanga). The only way to eradicate it is to rehabilitate the area," said Col Hennie Flynn from the SAPS.
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