Owners given 60-day deadline to register dams
The Department of Water and Sanitation has issued a 60-day deadline for owners of dams to register with authorities.
The deadline comes after several incidents of dams collapsing in the Western Cape and the Free State.
In August this year, three dams collapsed in Riverlands in the Western Cape, resulting in floods, and damage to property and infrastructure in Riverlands, Chatsworth and Dassenberg outside Malmesbury.
More than 50 homes were flooded, and hundreds of people were uprooted.
In 2022, a mine tailings dam collapsed in the Free State mining town of Jagersfontein, killing three and displacing hundreds.
The notice was gazetted by Water and Sanitation Minister Pemmy Majodina on 22 November.
The Department's head of Dam Safety Regulation, Wally Ramokopa, said the dam registration will assist the government in keeping an accurate database of dam ownership and safety compliance.
“The department considers a dam with a safety risk as a dam with a storage capacity exceeding 50,000 m³ (50 megalitres) of water, whether the water contains other substances or not, and having a vertical wall height of more than 5 meters, measured from the downstream base,”
The department is meant to conduct safety inspections at dams every five years.
“Dam owners are bound by law to comply and to also implement recommendations as made by an APP’s after inspections are conducted,” Ramokopa warned.
"To prevent the loss of life and safeguard the environment, we will not even blink twice to ensure that dam owners do what is required of them by law.”
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