NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
FOR WRITTEN REPLY
QUESTION No. 366
DATE OF PUBLICATION IN INTERNAL QUESTION PAPER: 14 March 2014 INTERNAL
QUESTION PAPER NO. 06 - 2014
â366. Dr JC Kloppers-Lourens (DA) to ask the Minister of Science and
Technology:
Whether the National Research Foundation in collaboration with
dentists has done any research on the water quality in Potchefstroom
and Ventersdorp to determine whether uranium deposits coming from the
Wonderfontein Spruit are feeding into the Mooi River?
NW420E
REPLY:
No research has been funded or conducted by the National Research
Foundation (NRF), in collaboration with dentists that looks specifically at
uranium and water pollution.
The Water Research Commission (WRC), a close partner of the Department of
Science and Technology (DST) on issues of water research, development and
innovation, has supported research activities to determine the water
quality and the levels of uranium and heavy metal pollution in the
Wonderfontein Spruit and Mooi River. A number of articles and reports were
published by the WRC on this subject. There is, however, no specific
collaboration with dentists mentioned in these studies. All of these
documents are freely available on the WRC website and can also be found via
an internet search on their titles (listed in Appendix 1).
Appendix 1: Question 366
The WRC documents most relevant to answering Question 366 are listed
below:
⢠Uranium pollution of the Wonderfonteinspruit, 1997-2008, Part 1:
Uranium toxicity, regional background and mining-related sources of
uranium pollution; Winde F: 2010/04/28
⢠Uranium pollution of the Wonderfonteinspruit, 1997-2008, Part 2:
Uranium in water â concentrations, loads and associated risks; Winde
F: 2010/04/28
⢠Overview of the influences of mining-related pollution on the water
quality of the Mooi River systemâs reservoirs, using basic statistical
analyses and self organised mapping; Barnard S; Venter A; Van Ginkel
CE: 2013/10/11
⢠Tier 1 risk assessment of selected radionuclides in sediments of the
Mooi River catchment; Wade PW; Woodborne S; Morris WM; Vos P; Jarvis
NV; 2008/01/11.
⢠Heavy metals (Cd, Pb, Cu, Zn) in mudfish and sediments from three hard-
water dams of the Mooi River catchment, South Africa; van Aardt WJ;
Erdmann R: 2004/04/01
