Johannesburg - The Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) is updating a database of all tailings or mine residue deposit dams in the country that meet the requirements to be classified as dams with a safety risk.
The department said it was calling on mining houses that have not registered their dams as required to submit their information in order to be classified as dams with safety risks and ensure that they are regulated.
According to the department, tailing dams are dams that are used to store water and waste that come as by-products from mining processes. Dams with a safety risk are those with a minimum height of five metres (5m) and that are able to store more than 50 000 cubic metres (m3) of water or water-containing substances.
The department said information would be used to update the register and also to monitor these dams as required by the National Water Act and the Dam Safety Regulations published in Government Notice R. 139 of February 24, 2012.
“The department, through the directorate responsible for dam safety regulations, is intensifying regulations on the safety of tailings and mine residue deposit dams across the country to ensure that these storage facilities are regulated, with a view to averting another undesirable occurrence such as the Jagersfontein disaster, which occurred in the Free State on September 11, 2022, resulting in the loss of lives and properties," said the department.
The department’s dam safety regulations director, Wally Ramokopa, said it was important to provide correct information in order to ensure that the dams were registered and compliant, and further advised that the information be compiled by a registered engineering professional with knowledge of dams and/or tailings storage facilities.
"Dams with a safety risk are defined in Section 117(c)(i) of the National Water Act as follows: any dam that can contain, store, or dam more than 50 000 cubic metres of water, whether that water contains any substance or not, and which has a wall of a vertical height of more than five metres, measured as the vertical difference between the lowest downstream ground elevation on the outside of the dam wall and the non-overspill crest level or the general top level of the dam wall," Ramokopa said.
He emphasised that the department would soon do random inspections to verify the correctness of the information and the existence of the dam(s), as well as collaborate with the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE) to ensure compliance.
“The DWS has engaged the DMRE in order to get the data of mining houses, and as a result, correspondence has been sent to at least 337 tailings dams so that they can be classified as dams with a safety risk should they meet the requirements as stated above, and we encourage those mining houses that have not disclosed to the DMRE their ownership of tailing dams to register with the department.
“As the custodian of water resources in the country, the DWS is empowered by the National Water Act (Act 36 of 1998) to regulate dams so as to improve the safety of new and existing dams with a safety risk and to reduce the potential for harm to the public, damage to property, or resource quality.
“Section 120 in the National Water Act (NWA) requires an owner of a dam with a safety risk to register the dam within 120 days after the date on which the dam meets the requirements to be classified as a dam with a safety risk as defined in Section 117 of the NWA," the department said.
The Star