Monthly Archives: May 2019

Dust Storms Becoming More Common In Australia

Dust Storms Becoming More Common In Australia – take a look at the article below and find out why.  Please follow the link to the original website to find more interesting links regarding this subject.

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“Why dust storms appear to be becoming more common

By Rosemarie Lentini – 9 News – Australia 

A sea of red has blanketed the NSW town of Condobolin as a thick dust storm swept the state’s central west, a symptom of the drought gripping Australia.

Local residents shared incredible images of the red dust billowing over homes, fields and swimming pools yesterday afternoon.

“Dust storm out at Condo (Condobolin) this afternoon. Praying for rain for you folk out there,” Pj N Gj Fairfull shared on Facebook, alongside a snap of Condobolin Swimming Pool against a dramatic backdrop of red clouds.

Dust Storms Becoming More Common In Australia
Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) senior forecaster Jake Phillips said the dust storm was caused by high winds and thunderstorms in the area.

“There weren’t widespread incidents of raised dust. There were definitely some localised areas where the dust was kicked up and it was quite thick,” he told 9News.com.au.

“It would have been caused by a large degree of winds generated by thunderstorm activity in the area related to a front moving through the region.”

Mr Phillips said the dust storm was not picked up by BOM’s satellites and likely subsided after a few hours.

Yesterday’s dust storm follows recent spate of similar storms in eastern Australia, including one nearly two weeks ago that left more than 5000 homes in regional NSW without power.

Households in Griffith, Temora, Ariah Park and Barellan suffered power outages for several hours on January 8 as the dust storm bore down.

Just a week before, on New Year’s Eve, dust swallowed whole towns as it barrelled through NSW centres including Dubbo, Tullamore, Nyngan and Hermidale.

Social media users tagged their dust pictures with hashtags including “hothothot” and “cleanupcoming”, as Dubbo reached a top of 39C.

Dust storms are a cyclical phenomenon which occur when hot, dry wind, usually above 30km/hr, picks up dust and carries it from west to east as a cold front moves through.

Dr Craig Strong, a lecturer at the Australian National University’s Fenner School of Environment and Society, said eastern Australia has experienced an increase in the frequency of dust activity over the past 10 years.

“The frequency is cyclic over longer time periods with episodes of strong dust activity occurring on 10 to 20 year cycles,” he said, adding that climate and land management are the two drivers for wind erosion.

“Ground cover, predominately vegetation cover, is critical in protecting soil from wind erosion. Drought naturally reduces available water and restricts plant growth. This then reduces vegetation cover increasing bare ground (exposed soil) and likelihood of dust,” he said.

Just a week before, on New Year’s Eve, dust swallowed whole towns as it barrelled through NSW centres including Dubbo, Tullamore, Nyngan and Hermidale.

Social media users tagged their dust pictures with hashtags including “hothothot” and “cleanupcoming”, as Dubbo reached a top of 39C.

Dust storms are a cyclical phenomenon which occur when hot, dry wind, usually above 30km/hr, picks up dust and carries it from west to east as a cold front moves through.

Dr Craig Strong, a lecturer at the Australian National University’s Fenner School of Environment and Society, said eastern Australia has experienced an increase in the frequency of dust activity over the past 10 years.

“The frequency is cyclic over longer time periods with episodes of strong dust activity occurring on 10 to 20 year cycles,” he said, adding that climate and land management are the two drivers for wind erosion.

“Ground cover, predominately vegetation cover, is critical in protecting soil from wind erosion. Drought naturally reduces available water and restricts plant growth. This then reduces vegetation cover increasing bare ground (exposed soil) and likelihood of dust,” he said.”

For the full article, please follow the link provided.

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Dust Monitoring Equipment – providing equipment, services and training in dust fallout management to the mining industry.

Safer Mining Practices

Mining is a dangerous business!  It’s always good to hear of initiatives to help make this industry safer.  Here is an article found at https://www.environment.co.za/mining/safer-mining-practices-reduce-hazardous-exposures-in-small-scale-mining-in-nigeria.html about one of these initiatives.

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“Safer Mining Practices Reduce Hazardous Exposures in Small Scale Mining in Nigeria

A pilot program to reduce lead poisoning in Nigerian gold mining communities has brought extraordinary improvements to an area where hundreds of children had died from lead poisoning according to a study published today. The study authors concluded that a two-year effort to introduce safer mining practices was effective at preventing deaths and reducing lead poisoning in highly exposed villages.

“Our pilot project demonstrated that low-cost dust control measures were effective at reducing average airborne lead exposures by 95 percent,” said Perry Gottesfeld, Executive Director of Occupational Knowledge International (OK International) whose organization partnered with Doctors Without Borders/ Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in this effort.

The safer mining project took place in the Shakira community in Niger State where high levels of lead are naturally present in the gold ore. The primary objective was to reduce lead exposures among artisanal small-scale miners and minimize take home exposures.

“We worked cooperatively with miners to provide them with the information and tools to reduce their exposures to lead and silica dust. Together we showed that these efforts minimized contamination and helped save lives.” Gottesfeld said.

The organization demonstrated the effectiveness of reducing airborne lead levels by working with miners to convert dry operations to wet methods. Water spray misting was proven to be highly effective while minimizing water consumption. In addition to significant reductions in airborne lead, the authors reported that these control measures reduced the smaller respirable silica dust by 80%.

Philip Aruna, Head of Mission in Nigeria for Doctors Without Borders said “OK International has exceeded expectations in bringing an entire community together to prevent severe lead poisoning and by demonstrating significant reductions in lead exposures among miners.”

Gottesfeld noted that, “Following our extensive outreach and training, these miners were motivated to take measures to reduce hazardous lead exposures and invested their own time and money to implement these protective measures.”

The authors of the Study “Reducing Lead and Silica Dust Exposures in Small-Scale Mining in Northern Nigeria” published in Annals of Work Exposures and Health noted that average lead exposures among ore processors before the implementation of safer practices were 19 times greater than the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) permissible limit for lead. (available online at: https://doi.org/10.1093/annweh/wxy095)In Nigeria and in most other African countries, there are no occupational limits for exposure for lead or silica dust.

Silica dust causes silicosis, lung cancer and is a significant risk factor for tuberculosis (TB). Lead causes severe neurological deficits and death among children in these communities, but even at low exposure levels is responsible for 674,000 deaths each year primarily due to cardiovascular disease.

There are an estimated 40 million informal small-scale miners working in at least 70 countries around the world. Although some programs have attempted to reduce mercury exposures in these communities, this is the first such intervention to demonstrate reductions in lead and silica dust exposures. The authors of the published article note that in mining communities lead and silica hazards pose a far greater risk to human health than the use of mercury.

Dr. Adolphe Fotso, Medical Coordinator for Nigeria with Doctors Without Borders, and an author on the paper, said “That this effort was an extraordinary success in reducing these significant health risks and protecting children from lead poisoning.”

In addition to introducing wet methods, OK International focused on training miners to implement simple measures including handwashing, showering, setting up separate eating areas, and changing out of work clothing before going home at the end of the day. The study estimated that the overall cost for introducing these measures in this community was approximately $5,000 USD.”

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Who is OK International?

http://www.okinternational.org/

“Occupational Knowledge International (OK International) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving public health through innovative strategies to reduce exposures to industrial pollutants. We seek to address inequities in environmental standards between developed and developing countries by working in partnership with industry, government and non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

Millions of people around the world are exposed to hazardous materials including lead, mercury, silica and asbestos. Pollution from industrial operations contaminates the environment, causing millions of deaths and rampant disease throughout the world. But the burden of environmental disease is not evenly shared. Exposures to hazardous materials is growing in developing countries in contrast to the trend in the U.S. and Western Europe. Our goal is to bridge the gap between environmental standards in the developed and the developing world.

However, bringing attention to these problems is not enough. OK International also brings the technical resources to measure exposures, find solutions, and clean up the environment in order to protect public health.”

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Dust Monitoring Equipment – providing equipment, services and training in dust fallout management to the mining industry.

Safer Mining Practices

The impact of dust aerosols on cyclone activity

With the recent cyclone in Mozambique and the huge floods in KZN it’s interesting to read this article on the impact that aerosols have on monsoon rainfall in India.  Could the same sort of thing be affecting the rainfall on the west coast of Africa?  And then also, do cyclones affect dust fallout?  Take a look at these articles below – for the full articles, please click on the links provided.

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https://www.nature.com/articles/ngeo2107Nature Geoscience

“The Indian summer monsoon is influenced by numerous factors, including aerosol-induced changes to clouds, surface and atmospheric heating, and atmospheric circulation. Most previous studies assessing the effect of aerosols on monsoon rainfall have focussed on the local impact of aerosols on precipitation on monthly to seasonal timescales. Here, we show that desert dust aerosol levels over the Arabian Sea, West Asia and the Arabian Peninsula are positively correlated with the intensity of the Indian summer monsoon, using satellite data and models; a lead–lag analysis indicates that dust and precipitation vary in concert over timescales of about a week. Our analysis of global climate model simulations indicates that by heating the atmosphere, dust aerosols induce large-scale convergence over North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, increasing the flow of moisture over India within a week. According to these simulations, dust-induced heating of the atmosphere over North Africa and West Asia rapidly modulates monsoon rainfall over central India.”

Click the link for the full article.

Image from CNN.com - In this photo taken on Friday, March 15, 2019 and provided by the International Red Cross, an aerial view of the destruction of homes after Tropical Cyclone Idai, in Beira, Mozambique. Mozambique's President Filipe Nyusi says that more than 1,000 may have by killed by Cyclone Idai, which many say is the worst in more than 20 years. Speaking to state Radio Mozambique, Nyusi said Monday, March 18 that although the official death count is currently 84, he believes the toll will be more than 1,000. (Denis Onyodi/IFRC via AP)

Image from CNN.com

New evidence for a relationship between Atlantic tropical cyclone activity and African dust outbreaks

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/216791181_New_evidence_for_a_relationship_between_Atlantic_tropical_cyclone_activity_and_African_dust_outbreaksResearch Gate

“It is well known that Atlantic tropical cyclone activity varies strongly over time, and that summertime dust transport over the North Atlantic also varies from year to year, but any connection between tropical cyclone activity and atmospheric dust has been limited to a few case studies. Here we report new results that demonstrate a strong relationship between interannual variations in North Atlantic tropical cyclone activity and atmospheric dust cover as measured by satellite, for the years 1982 – 2005. While we cannot conclusively demonstrate a direct causal relationship, there appears to be robust link between tropical cyclone activity and dust transport over the Tropical Atlantic.

The recent upswing in Atlantic tropical cyclones(including both hurricanes and tropical storms) affectingNorth America has raised the awareness of their impact onsociety and the economy. Currently, there is a debatesurrounding the cause of this observed increase in cycloneactivity. Several recent studies have explored the relation-ship between long– term trends in tropical cyclone activity(either in terms of their number or intensity) and environ-mental factors that may or may not be influenced byglobal warming [Emanuel, 2005a, 2005b; Landsea, 2005;Trenberth, 2005; Webster e t al. , 2005]. Other studies,however, have concluded that different environmentalfactors – not necessarily related to global warming –control trends in cyclone activity [Goldenberg et al., 2001;Knutson and Tuleya, 2004].[3] In this paper, we explore another possible contributorto changing North Atlantic tropical cyclone activity: the role of atmospheric dust. This hypothesis was first suggested byDunion and Velden [2004], who showed that tropicalcyclone activity may be influenced by the presence of theSaharan Air Layer, which forms when a warm, well-mixed,dry and dusty layer over West Africa is advected over thelow-level moist air of the tropical North Atlantic [Carlsonand Prospero, 1972]. The Saharan Air Layer rides over themarine boundary layer and can be a significant feature ofthe atmosphere as it transits over the North Atlantic, oftenseen as far away as the Caribbean (7,000 km west of theSahara Desert) [Dunion and Velden, 2004]. The Saharan AirLayer’s longevity is likely enhanced by the persistenttemperature inversions that exist at its base and top: daytimethermal heating by dust entrained within the Saharan AirLayer tends to counter nighttime radiative cooling, thuskeeping the Saharan Air Layer relatively warm and stable asit traverses the North Atlantic [Prospero and Carlson,1972].”

Click the link for the full article.

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Dust Monitoring Equipment – providing equipment, services and training in dust fallout management to the mining industry.

Fallout Dust Monitoring course – June 2019

Good day

The next Fallout Dust Monitoring course is in June 2019 in Pretoria

11 – 13 June 2019 – Pretoria

The costs are in the attached files, R4400 per person per day.

If you would like to attend or to send a representative, then please email chris@dustwatch.com or call 021 789 0847 or 082 875 0209 to reserve a place.

Please do not hesitate to contact me regarding any queries, comments, or suggestions.

Sincerely

Chris Loans

DustWatch CC – Precipitant Dust Monitoring

082 875 0209 or 021 789 0847 (Chris)

083 308 4764 (Gerry)

021 789 0847 (Cape Town)

011 083 8750 (Johannesburg)

+1 832 422 5031 (USA)

0866 181 421 (Fax – SA Only)

www.dustwatch.com

 

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Cyclone Idai and Africa’s fossil fuel extraction

Landry Ninteretse of The Guardian (follow this link for the full article), made the statement (in March 2019) that fossil fuel extraction must end before more lives are lost due to storms and flooding in Africa.

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Cyclone Idai shows the deadly reality of climate change in Africa
Landry Ninteretse

Vain promises and empty slogans have got us nowhere. Fossil-fuel extraction must end before more lives are lost.

As Africa climate week unfurls in Ghana, the countries of Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe count the costs of Cyclone Idai, which ripped through villages and towns, taking hundreds of lives and leaving a trail of destruction.

For a continent already racked by the effects of the climate crisis, Idai is another chilling reminder of the destructive power of the kind of storms that will become more common as the world warms up.

The cyclone made landfall on 14 March, the same day that the One Planet Summit started in Nairobi, called by French president Emmanuel Macron. After picking up speed, with winds of 195km/h (120mph) accompanied by lashing rains, Idai caused flooding and landslides, ruining crops and roads, and has already affected millions of people. The city of Beira in Mozambique was hit the hardest, with nearly 80% of homes and public infrastructure destroyed.

While the most vulnerable communities are facing the real impact of climate change on the ground, national leaders at the One Planet Summit kept their talk inside comfortable and acclimatised rooms. During the summit, Macron encouraged global collaboration towards ensuring sustainable preservation of forests, and President Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya made a pledge to achieve at least 10% forest cover in the next three years.

These commitments would be laughable if it were not so tragic. Africa needs to do a lot more than that to build climate resilience. Cyclone Idai is another powerful demonstration of this.

While many countries appear to be already reducing carbon emissions and moving towards an energy transition, Africa’s coalfields are open for business. Along with a few Asian countries (Indonesia, Vietnam and Bangladesh in particular), our continent continues to be an El Dorado for the coal cheerleaders and big business determined to carry on its coal-onisation. New plants are being planned from South Africa to Senegal, from Kenya to Mozambique, as well as in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Côte d’Ivoire. Most of them are co-financed by the African Development Bank, on whose board sit members of African, European, North and South American and Asian governments.

This is the case for the coal-fired power plant projects in Bargny (in the suburbs of Dakar, Senegal), San-Pédro (Côte d’Ivoire), Lamu (Kenya), or the Thabametsi power station in Limpopo province, South Africa, near the border with Botswana.

The situation is pretty similar for the oil industry, a source of energy that continues to attract investors in Africa, a continent that accounts for 8% of global production, with 7.5m barrels a day. Despite the drop in the price of oil over the last five years, new players are added yearly to the list of majors companies, such as Total, Shell, Exxon, BP and Eni.

In Uganda, for example, a new field will be exploited, the fruit of the cooperation between Total, the Chinese company CNOOC, and the British company Tullow Oil. Perenco, a French-British company, has just set up in Gabon and DRC and plans to produce half a million barrels a day. In February 2019, Total announced the huge offshore discovery of gas-condensate and light oil in South Africa, which could contain 1bn barrels of total resources.

Even though Africa is estimated to produce just 4% of global carbon emissions – compared to 80% by the most industrialised countries (G20), it is the continent that pays the highest price. For us, climate change is not a future risk, it’s already a reality evident in wrecked families, lands and livelihoods, and hopeless children and young people who have no choice but to seek a future by migrating.

Everywhere on the continent, communities fear losing their land as each season hits one country after another with exceptional floods, unexpected storms and increasingly long droughts. Fauna and flora reserves have been running out, access to water has become a privilege, and extreme weather events have become more numerous and left families without homes or livelihoods.

Some assume that increasing forest cover or granting new billions in funding to governments plagued by bad governance and corruption will prevent such disasters from happening and solve the issue of global warming. This is an insult to people facing untold suffering in every corner of the continent, while new coal and mining infrastructure and carbon commodification continue to be allowed.

The proliferation of fossil-fuel projects is happening at the expense of people’s health, the climate and ecosystems. Yet the solutions to this crisis are also well known. They include ending coal extraction and mining, stopping the funding of new coal infrastructure – mines or power plants – and accelerating the investment in renewables.

International cooperation and funding from industrialised economies are necessary to combat climate change. And such efforts should start by not promoting or funding any fossil fuel projects anywhere in the world.”

Cyclone Idai and Africa's fossil fuel extraction - image from The Guardian

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Dust Monitoring Equipment – providing equipment, services and training in dust fallout management to the mining industry.

Review of the Mining Charter 2018

In March 2019, the Minerals Council released the following media statements regarding their application to review the Mining Charter.  For more information, please follow the link to the Minerals Council website.

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MINERALS COUNCIL FILES APPLICATION FOR REVIEW OF MINING CHARTER 2018

Johannesburg, 27 March 2019: The Minerals Council South Africa advises that it filed an
application for the judicial review and setting aside of certain clauses of the 2018 Mining
Charter published by the Minister of Mineral Resources on 27 September 2018.

A decision to pursue this action was very reluctantly taken by the Minerals Council Board.
The Minerals Council has engaged in ongoing attempts to reach a compromise with the
Minister on certain provisions that are problematic for the industry, and which would be
detrimental to its sustainability. The Minerals Council has delayed bringing the application in
the hope that those discussions would be successful but, given the peremptory 180-day time
bar imposed by section 7(1) of the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act (PAJA), the
Minerals Council was obliged to launch the review proceedings on 26 March 2019, despite
the fact that the discussions are ongoing and may yet bear fruit.

Minerals Council CEO, Roger Baxter, notes that: “The Minerals Council and its members
remain fully committed to transformation of the mining sector in South Africa, with the aim of
achieving job creation, economic growth, competitiveness and social upliftment and
development. A transformed, growing and competitive mining sector would be a significant
catalyst for South Africa’s social and economic development and critical for the realisation of
the ambitions of the National Development Plan.

“But these goals will only be realised through a minerals policy framework that conforms to
the rule of law and principles of legality; and by administrative action which is lawful,
reasonable and procedurally fair and consistent in all respects with provisions of the
country’s legislation. The rule of law, regulatory certainty and the fair and even-handed
administration of laws are of the utmost importance in sustaining the mining industry, and
indeed the economy as a whole.”

For the full statement, go to the Minerals Council website and follow the links from there.

Review of the Mining Charter 2018

“PRESENTATION: ENABLING THE RENAISSANCE OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN MINING SECTOR

Johannesburg, 6 March 2019. Minerals Council South Africa CEO, Roger Baxter presented at the
annual PDAC convention in Toronto, Canada on 5 March. Mr Baxter’s presentation, titled: Enabling
the Renaissance of the South African mining sector, outlined the important contribution made by the
mining sector, the vast potential that still exists and the steps needed to enable South African mining
to realise its full potential.

Mr Baxter said: “The economic and transformational potential of mining is vast. Even in the absence
of a greenfields exploration boom in South Africa, mining investment could almost double in the next
four years if the country was to return to the top quartile of the most attractive mining investment
destinations. Given the industry’s commitment to real transformation, this would also materially
advance the entire country’s transformation agenda.”

Mr Baxter commented on the most recent Fraser Institute perceptions survey: “The significant
improvement from being close to the bottom decile of the Policy Perception Index (PPI) league table
at 81st out of 91 jurisdictions, to about two-thirds of the way down at 56th position out of 83 can, we
believe, be attributed to the early impacts of the shift of political leadership of the country and of the
industry in 2018 of President Cyril Ramaphosa and Mineral Resources Minister Gwede Mantashe.”
Mr Baxter outlined the Minerals Council’s view on steps needed to restore the South African mining
sector to the top quartile of the most competitive mining jurisdictions, including:

• Developing a social pact for competitiveness, growth and transformation between key
stakeholders.
• Re-establishing trust with global mining and investment community.
• Significant crackdown on corruption and unethical leadership.
• Significantly improving licensing systems and turnaround times
• Creating a stable, predictable and competitive policy, regulatory and operating environment
that encourages long term investment in mining.
• Resolving Infrastructure constraints and uncompetitive costs.
• Developing a strategy to encourage exploration boom.
• Developing national strategies for each commodity.

The full presentation may be accessed at https://bit.ly/2VDCABR

For the full statement, go to the Minerals Council website and follow the links from there.

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Dust Monitoring Equipment – providing equipment, services and training in dust fallout management to the mining industry.