NGOs planning legal action to force ArcelorMittal SA to publish masterplan

Monday, 14 Feb 2011

Although their relationship with ArcelorMittal South Africa had become less acrimonious, environmental groups said that they are planning legal action to force the steel producer to publish a secret 8 year old environmental masterplan.

The issue has strained stakeholder relations after the masterplan was compiled by consultants in 2002 but never made public. ArcelorMittal SA said yesterday that it would not release the 9000 page report. The company published year end results and announced plans to spend ZAR 3 billion up to 2015 on environmental rehabilitation, legacy water pollution and clean energy projects. Environmental spend amounted to R300 million in the year under review.

The company said its commitment to making our operations sustainable has not wavered, despite the economic downturn. By comparison, it said in 2009 that only the most urgent of its environmental projects would proceed.

The Vaal Environmental Justice Alliance said in Vanderbijlpark that their relationship was no longer acrimonious, but legal action was nonetheless being pursued.

Vanderbijlpark is home to ArcelorMittal SA's headquarters and primary production site, which has attracted the attention of the Green Scorpions as it falls within the Vaal Triangle priority air shed area.

Mr Phineas Malapela chairman of Vaal Environmental Justice Alliance said that environmental NGOs and Department of Water Affairs officials were part of a monitoring committee to keep watch on issues such as the proximity to water sources of toxic sludge leached from an unlined waste site.

The firm said it no longer had unlined ponds at Vanderbijlpark after a new site was commissioned in December.

Mr Malapela believed the change in ArcelorMittal SA’s attitude to have come about on the instruction of parent company ArcelorMittal, which owns 52% of its JSE listed subsidiary. Global environmental groups have sustained an international campaign to highlight transgressions at ArcelorMittal operations worldwide.

Mr Bobby Peek director of NGO groundWork said that although the relationship with ArcelorMittal SA was not acrimonious. He added that "It's not of any value in the monitoring committee. You can't have a relationship of value to monitor old toxic landfill sites that is based on information you don't have."

He accused ArcelorMittal SA of using the committee to tick boxes. He added that "It's partly up to us (organizations) to unpack that, which is why we’re taking the legal process." He added that an alliance of environmental organizations was investigating the possibility of securing access to the masterplan via the Promotion of Access to Information Act.

According to Mr Malapela, ArcelorMittal SA had said that it was advised by its lawyers not to release the document.

Previously ArcelorMittal SA argued it would not make the document public because it was accepted practice that audits were confidential and the bulk of the work undertaken in the masterplan was outdated. The company said that its efforts to improve environmental performance relied heavily on the experience of and research and development within its parent company.

It would benchmark plants against best practice plants in Europe, North America and South America, and had approved detailed action plans with targets for improved efficiency and reduced energy usage.

(sourced:www.iol.co.za)