{"id":68344,"date":"2017-06-15T16:17:01","date_gmt":"2017-06-15T14:17:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mobserver.co.za\/?p=68344"},"modified":"2017-06-16T12:05:31","modified_gmt":"2017-06-16T10:05:31","slug":"video-illegal-sand-mine-near-botshabelo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/news-headlines\/2017\/06\/15\/video-illegal-sand-mine-near-botshabelo\/","title":{"rendered":"Video: Illegal sand mine near Botshabelo"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The video below shows depleting sand levels in open pits, right on the river banks and a landscape almost unrecognizable compared to just 12 months ago.<\/p>\n<p>It is operating for over a year now, and initially started on private property but has since moved onto municipal land.<\/p>\n<p>Hundreds of tons of sand has been removed and wide open pits now dot the landscape.<\/p>\n<p>They have been reported to the Department of Mineral Resources but nothing is being done.<\/p>\n<div class='tie-fluid-width-video-wrapper tie-ignore-fitvid' style='margin-bottom: 30px;'>\n\t\t\t<iframe style='width: 100%; min-height: 300px; aspect-ratio: 16\/9;' src='https:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/9fgyfIYU5bw' loading='lazy'><\/iframe>\n\t\t<\/div>\n<p>Now owners of at least 20 hectares of property also on the same land, a corporative called Motlaibaile, has opened a case of trespassing and malicious damage to property at the Police station, which is now pending.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A sand mine operating illegally near Botshabelo &#8211; where the Klein Olifants River meets Keeromspruit &#8211; has drastically changed the entire landscape of that area and could become a environmental disaster.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2844,"featured_media":68374,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"hasGravity":false,"cxt_article_byline":"Yaseen Gaffar","cxt_disable_google_ads":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news-headlines"],"category_labels":{"Category":"News","SubCategory":"Local news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2844"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68344\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}