Water stewardship
Water is an essential resource for our operations, as it is used intensively in both our mining and processing operations. We have a responsibility to effectively manage any interaction and minimise any impacts on water.
We recognise the importance of working together with communities to ensure greater stewardship of this precious resource and that access to clean, safe water is a basic human right.
Water Stewardship Strategy
Kenmare's Water Stewardship Strategy, approved by the Board of
Directors, guides us in ensuring the access rights of others are not impacted by our
operations, that water-related risks are managed, opportunities for
increased water re-use are implemented and all Kenmare employees value
water as a precious resource.
Kenmare’s water stewardship strategy continues to focus
on five key areas of activity:
1. Watershed management – to secure water supply
for current and future operations while protecting
and enhancing other water uses. This is implemented
through a site-wide water balance, environmental
monitoring and surface water and groundwater
modelling to measure the current and projected
operational water demand and to characterise the
surface water and ground water systems
2. Impact mitigation – to proactively mitigate
environmental and social impacts associated with
the abstraction, use and discharge of water and to
enhance water use opportunities
3. Operational performance – the site-wide water
balance is used to manage water as an asset, through
improved performance and compliance with all
commitments
4. External engagement – to collaborate and engage
externally on water policy, management, and
challenges in Mozambique to create shared value
5. Internal collaboration – to support coordination
across all water management areas of the business.
An essential resource
Kenmare extracts water from a local aquifer. This water is used to assist in the mining, processing of the sand, tailings deposition, dust suppression and water and sanitation supplies. With chemical-free mining and processing operations, most of the water used at Moma is returned to the groundwater table, with the exception of evaporation. The aquifer also receives annual rainfall recharge.
Current groundwater withdrawal volumes are well within regulatory-approved withdrawal volumes and due to the nature of mineral sands production there are no discharges of waste water to the environment.
Low water stress
The World Resources Institute (WRI) AqueductTM tool maps water risks
such as floods, droughts, and stress, using open-source, peer reviewed
data. This tool indicates that the Moma Mine extracts 100% of its water requirements from an area of low
baseline water stress and projections as far out as 2040 indicate a
similar low water stress.
