Zimplats to spend $5.8 million to refill Ngezi open-pits

Zimplats will spend $5.8 million over six years on a land rehabilitation exercise to refill open pits at its Ngezi Mine, an official has said.

Zimplats group safety, health environment (SHE) and quality manager Abednego Chigwada said the programme, which commenced in 2011, will run until 2017 to meet waste and effluent regulations enacted in 2007, which requires lining of all landfills and construction of leachate collection systems to avoid environmental contamination.

“Our aim is to continue backfilling Ngezi open-pit voids with waste rock and re-establish indigenous grass and tree species by end of 2017 at a total cost of $5.8 million,” he said at an event organised by the Zimbabwe Environmental Lawyers Association (ZELA) in Harare recently.

Chigwada said they have already covered 70 percent of the targeted area at a cost of $3.3 million.

The tree planting and grassing of Ngezi and the Selous Metallurgical Complex tailings dams was also progressing well, he added.

“The current tailings dam rehabilitation targets new surfaces created as the dam continues to rise. A total of 2.5 hectares of the tailings dam new rising have been rehabilitated through grassing and tree planting this year alone,” he said.- The Source

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