The Bench Marks Foundation said yesterday it had been calling on the government to put exclusion zones around tailings of about 500 to 1 500 metres and not to allow any development near them as this is dangerous.
This follows the collapse of a mine tailings dam in Jagersfontein on Sunday, in the Kopanong Local Municipality in the Free State, which led to the death of one person, and the displacement of many others.
The cause of the collapse has yet to be determined.
The dam collapsed at about 6am on Sunday. The flow of water had stopped by Sunday afternoon.
In an interview, Bench Marks Foundation spokesperson David van Wyk said the mining companies should also have known that it was wrong to have its tailings in proximity to a township.
“This is a mining town and the township is located to the western side of the tailings and that’s the direction in which the tailings broke and flooded the houses of the community. Another concern we have is that the legacy of a pocket in this country is that black townships were always constructed on the wrong side of tailings in mining areas,” he said.
Van Wyk said the foundation was also concerned with regulations around tailings.
“The tailings should be signposted. They should not be accessible to the public. The tailings are very badly managed and regulated. What we are having here is the sludge flooding into a community knocking down houses, knocking down people’s properties,” he said.
Yesterday, the Jagersfontein Developments said it made R20 million available immediately for relief operations and would monitor progress tightly within its priority of people’s safety and health; restoring the town; and returning people to their homes and livelihoods.
Jagersfontein Developments owns the tailings dam, which is a treatment facility for the tailings dump at Jagersfontein.
Van Wyk said the R20m was too little for the devastation that the community has gone through.
“I’m sorry to say this, houses on leafy suburbs of Cape Town or Sandton go for about R20 million. This amount does not even really address the impact of the damage caused by this particular tailings breakage. I think that the community should engage in a class legal action against this company, and they should take the directors of this company to court,” he said.
Van Wyk called for the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy to conduct more regular inspections of mining operations.
“The department is supposed to be a regulator, yet, it is the promoter of mining, it should not promote mining, attract, regulate and manage to mine, it should govern. It should not be an agent of the mining industry. It should be a referee of the mining industry. That’s what government departments are supposed to do,” he said.
Meanwhile, in a statement, Jagersfontein Developments said an independent water analysis determined that the waste was not hazardous and does not pose a health risk at this stage.
“The report defines the waste in the alkaline pH range and classifies the Sludge Cake and Liquid as Type 3 (Low Risk). This means the waste does not pose any health threat to anybody exposed to it,” it said.
The company said currently, the dam was stable and was being closely monitored.
Mineral Resources Minister Gwede Mantashe visited Jagersfontein on Tuesday and said the owners of the burst dam tailings should take responsibility.
Mantashe said the government will assist in finding a solution due to the magnitude of the disaster. President Cyril Ramaphosa visited the site on Monday, along with delegations from the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy, and the mayor of Kopanong Local Municipality, Xolani Tseletsele.
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