A tailings dam at Samancor Chrome's Dikwena operation near Brits collapsed in August 2025, and an opinion piece published on 8 October 2026 argues the disaster was foreseeable because the facility was never entered on the Department of Water and Sanitation's register of dams with a safety risk IOL. The article, written from a civil-society standpoint, ties the failure to a wider pattern of under-registration and weak enforcement across South Africa's water infrastructure.
Key takeaways
- Only 29 tailings dams are registered in terms of the law out of roughly 337 tailings dams the Department of Water and Sanitation had in its database as at 2023 IOL.
- The Department of Water and Sanitation, which holds the dam register, has stated it does not know how many tailings dams exist in South Africa IOL.
- 56% of South Africa's 1,150 wastewater treatment plants are in poor or critical condition, and 75% of 910 municipal wastewater treatment works failed to meet even 50% compliance with minimum effluent standards last year IOL.
- The water enforcement unit known as the Blue Scorpions has fewer than 30 inspectors, compared with more than 3,000 Green Scorpions handling environmental crimes IOL.
- Only four permanent inspectors are tasked with overseeing more than 5,700 registered dams, including toxic tailings facilities IOL.
What happened
Writing in an opinion column on 8 October 2026, the CSOs Tailings Working Group draws a direct line from the August 2025 Dikwena tailings dam failure to what it calls a "regulatory nightmare" at the Department of Water and Sanitation IOL. The group notes that its recent study found that only 29 tailings dams are registered in terms of the law, against approximately 337 tailings dams the department had in its database as at 2023 IOL. About 180 of the dams in the database were too small in scale to qualify as "dams with a safety risk" and therefore were not required to register, the study said IOL.
The article stresses that the low registration figure does not equal compliance, because a fully compliant operator would have registered every dam under its care. From that reasoning, the working group estimates that only about 25 companies complied at all IOL. The column also repeats the group's claim that the Department of Water and Sanitation was given the report to comment on two months before publication and "chose not to reply" IOL.
The wider compliance picture
The same column ties tailings management to a broader wastewater crisis. It cites figures indicating that 56% of South Africa's 1,150 wastewater treatment plants are in poor or critical condition, and that 75% of 910 municipal wastewater treatment works failed to meet even 50% compliance with minimum effluent standards last year IOL. The piece quotes environmental writer Ferial Adam as arguing that "the 'Blue Scorpions,' the water enforcement unit, has fewer than 30 inspectors, compared to over 3,000 'Green Scorpions' for environmental crimes," and concludes that "stronger enforcement and tougher penalties are essential to end impunity" IOL.
On staffing, the column notes a "Please Sir" study finding that only four permanent inspectors oversee more than 5,700 registered dams, including toxic tailings facilities, and asks whether the government's promised 10,000 new labour inspectors could free up additional capacity for dam safety IOL. The group has called for a public, independent inquiry into the structural integrity of the Dikwena facility, with a clear reporting timeline, and for the latest safety audits and dam stability records to be released IOL.
Specification read
Translating the reported asset base into the units a plant manager or procurement lead would use: the source counts approximately 337 tailings dams in the Department of Water and Sanitation's database as at 2023, of which only 29 are registered under the law IOL. The source does not give a flow rate, volumetric capacity in m³/day, or a population equivalent for any individual facility, so the hydraulic scale of the Dikwena dam itself is not reported here and must be confirmed from the mine's own filings before any sizing work is done. On the municipal side, the same column cites 1,150 wastewater treatment plants and 910 municipal wastewater treatment works in South Africa, of which 56% are in poor or critical condition and 75% failed to meet even 50% compliance with minimum effluent standards last year IOL. The typical treatment train for a municipal works of this class runs screening → grit removal → primary sedimentation → biological treatment (A2O, MBR, MBBR, SBR or UASB depending on influent strength) → tertiary polishing and disinfection, and this event bears most directly on the regulatory and compliance stage that sits above the process design: permit conditions, dam-safety registration and inspector coverage. If your site is a municipal wastewater treatment works in South Africa, treating a few thousand to a few tens of thousands of m³/day with BOD and COD in the typical domestic range, and you are already operating under effluent compliance pressure, this article matters because the regulator has publicly stated it does not know how many tailings and dam assets exist, and a third of municipal works are already failing the 50% compliance line — the enforcement gap, not the unit process, is the headline risk. For buyers scoping new builds or refurbishments, see our Domestic Sewage Treatment in South Africa (2026 Guide) and the Effluent Treatment Plant in Pretoria: 2026 Buyer's Guide for Industrial Plants.
FAQ
What happened at the Dikwena tailings dam? A tailings dam at Samancor Chrome's Dikwena operation near Brits collapsed in August 2025, and the CSOs Tailings Working Group says the facility was not on the Department of Water and Sanitation's last-updated July 2025 register of dams with a safety risk IOL. The group is calling for a public inquiry and the release of the latest safety audits.
How many tailings dams in South Africa are actually registered? Only 29 out of approximately 337 tailings dams in the Department of Water and Sanitation's 2023 database are registered in terms of the law, with about 180 too small in scale to qualify as "dams with a safety risk" IOL.
How bad is compliance at South African wastewater treatment works? The column reports that 56% of South Africa's 1,150 wastewater treatment plants are in poor or critical condition, and 75% of 910 municipal wastewater treatment works failed to meet even 50% compliance with minimum effluent standards last year IOL.
How many inspectors cover water and dam safety? The Blue Scorpions water enforcement unit has fewer than 30 inspectors, while more than 3,000 Green Scorpions handle environmental crimes, and only four permanent inspectors oversee more than 5,700 registered dams including toxic tailings facilities IOL.
