A/68/264 38. Polluting industries frequently expand into areas in which disadvantaged populations, such as indigenous communities, reside, and such populations bear the brunt of the ill effects of industrial water pollution, including health problems and the disruption of traditional livelihoods (see A/HRC/18/35, paras. 30-36). For instance, oil operations have an impact on water quality, drinking water often being contaminated through oil spills, for example in the Niger Delta, where the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights found spills and that the resulting pollution brought about devastating effects on human health and livelihoods. 29 Such contamination often goes hand in hand with disrespect for the human rights principles of meaningful participation, and free, prior and informed consent (see A/HRC/18/35, para. 47). 39. The mining sector poses particular challenges. The Special Rapporteur on the implications for human rights of the environmentally sound management and disposal of hazardous substances and wastes explained in a report that no other resource is more affected by the extent and level of degradation of quality and quantity owing to unsound management of hazardous substances and waste from extractive industries than water. Substances seep, leech and drain into water systems, contaminating not only the water reservoirs of the population living in the immediate area around the mine, but also of communities living hundreds of kilometres downstream (see A/HRC/21/48, para. 39). 40. Once valuable materials have been extracted, mine tailings can cause severe water pollution with sometimes devastating results when tailing facilities fail (ibid., para. 17). Mining waste has also been disposed of directly into watercourses (ibid., para. 11). Most seriously, water resources can be affected by acid drainage resulting from the decomposition of minerals triggered by mining activities. The legacy of acid drainage can continue for centuries long after the mine has been closed which results in water quality problems, with no current owner of the mine who can be held directly accountable. 41. Activities of the fossil fuel industry to recover shale gas and other unconventional reservoirs have increased through the use of hydraulic fracturing (or fracking), in which a mix of water and chemicals is injected at high pressure into a well to extract underground resources, such as oil, natural gas and geothermal energy. Both wells and pits are very likely to have ecological impacts, including the pollution of groundwater aquifers and contamination of drinking water (see report on mission to the United States, A/HRC/18/33/Add.4, paras. 43-46). From the point of view of human rights, largely unanswered questions arise concerning health and safety. IV. Integrating human rights in wastewater management and water pollution control 42. The challenges arising from contamination call for concerted efforts to achieve sustainable wastewater management and pollution control based on human rights. __________________ 29 12/23 African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, Decision 155/96, taken at the eighteenth ordinary session, in 2001 (ACHPR/COMM/A044/1659, para. 68). 13-41825