Government moves on Australian mining company over environmental damage
The controversial Australian mining company Mineral Resources Commodities (MRC) has launched a court case against the national Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) arising from the department’s raid on the company’s Tormin Mine, situated 350 kilometers north of Cape Town. A spokesperson for the company Anne Dunn, confirmed that MRC was taking legal action. The raid in late September had been expected after numerous complaints to mining and environmental authorities about alleged illegal actions by the mine in the coastal zone. These include the construction of structures on the beach zone, mining in prohibited zones and questions about a massive collapse of the sea cliffs below the mine processing plant. From the outset Tormin only had environmental clearance to extract around 5% of the minerals, specifically the zircon and rutile. This would have had only limited environmental impact. However the mine unilaterally began to extract the full range of minerals from the sand, a mo...
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