Berg Aukas once served as a mining town, where ores of lead, vanadium, and zinc were mined and roasted on site until 1979. Roasting of ores produced an unknown hazard in the surrounding area. For this study, soil, crops, and water from the Berg Aukas area were analysed for various pollutants. The main pollutants are metals such as Pb, Zn, Cu, Cd, As, Hg and Mo. They are bound to layered silicates, to sulphide minerals, or occur as elements. The analytical results point to severe heavy metal contamination of the surface soils south and east of Berg Aukas. Crops grown at the National Youth Service, like sweet potatoes, cabbage, and Irish potatoes, accumulate heavy elements that are deleterious to health. Prolonged exposure to heavy metals in concentrations as found in the soils and some crops in Berg Aukas can cause severe health problems like diabetes, skin lesions, bladder problems, neurological effects, as well as skin, kidney or lung cancer. The severely contaminated area at Berg Aukas, as a zone of high hazardous risk, represents an ellipsoid with diameters of approximately 3.5 km (E-W) and 2.5 km (N-S). Decision-makers in the Namibian Government were informed that the area should be avoided for any further residential or agricultural developments. As an immediate response, the hostel of the vocational school was moved to an uncontaminated area near Rietfontein. The farm management was informed to either diversify the crops grown on contaminated soils to crops that are less vulnerable to high heavy metal contents in soils or to transfer farming activities to less contaminated soils in the eastern portion of the farm.