Cleaning up tailings dams, and the Jagersfontein collapse

Cyril Ramaphosa visits Charlesville after the collapse. Credit: Mlungisi Louw/Volksblad/Gallo Images via Getty Images.

Between 2am and 6am on 11 September, 2022, residents of Charlesville and Itumeleng in South Africa’s Free State province heard a deep rumbling sound. Shortly after, a massive wave of tailings sludge crashed into the two, sweeping away four community members, covering farmland and grazing fields, and destroying multiple homes.

Two people were killed, another two remain missing to this day, and 164 homes in the settlements were destroyed by the flood of toxic mine waste from an abandoned diamond mine.

While the South African government and various mining organisations were quick to state the devastation as a tragedy and pledge their aid, to date very little help has been given to the victims, and most of their homes remain in ruins.

With more and more time passing since the incidents, and with the local population now displaced over 120km away from the site of the disaster, the question must be asked: will the victims of Jagersfontein ever rebuild? 

The Jagersfontein diamond mine began operations in the 1870s, operating as an open-pit mine before transitioning to an underground mine in 1913. The mine was operated by the De Beers group between 1931 and 1971, when ore extraction concluded. De Beers continued to own the mine - and its associated tailings ponds - until 2010. At the time of the disaster, the dam was operated by Jagersfontein Developments, and owned by Stargems Group, a Dubai-based diamond trading firm.

In the immediate aftermath, the disaster response was shaky at best. Stargems claimed that due diligence had been performed on the tailings before they acquired the assets, before promising to donate R20m ($1,074,750) to aid repairs - an amount that would not afford one house in one of the more upmarket suburbs of Johannesburg or Cape Town. Promises were made of temporary accommodation and food parcels, but the accommodation provided was 120km away from the town, and the only evidence of food parcels provided for the community was a daily provision of oranges, dumped by the side of the road in Charlesville.

The cleanup operation is still far from complete, over a year after the disaster. At the beginning of October 2022, community members began to report widespread coughing as a result of the drying tailings dust, as well as children suffering nosebleeds. Cyanide, mercury and arsenic are frequently found in mine tailings, causing fears of poisoning in the community.

While the full investigation will not conclude until spring 2024, early discoveries have revealed some ugly truths. In April 2023, two academics from Witwatersrand University analysed publicly-available data and found that the tailings dam owners had not followed best practice in their disposal of waste. The analysis found that operators had not rotated disposal areas, leading to excess strain on the west side of the dam, where the first breach of the dam wall occurred.

Investigations also uncovered that a 2020 assessment raised concerns about the integrity of the dam, leading to the Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) ordering Jagersfontein Developments to halt their tailings operations in September 2020. That order was given because Jagersfontein Developments had violated their water use license by exceeding the volume of water in the dam by a whopping 70%.

However, despite Jagersfontein Developments not meeting the conditions of their licence, the decision was overturned in May 2021.

A report by the Bench Marks Foundation also noted that the Jagersfontein tailings dam was built on top of a shallow aquifer. This means that it was impossible for the tailings to dry out, and the dame became weakened from its base. The report notes that “the design of the tailings dam on a shallow aquifer was a factor in the liquidity, instability, and inevitable collapse of the tailings.”

The report by Bench Marks also targets several other design faults that may well have led to the failure of the dam, noting that the chosen location of the dam, at the confluence of the Proses river, led to a dangerous liquid balance in the dam. It also added: “The tailings dam was severely overloaded, and signs of spillage over its steepest wall should have alerted the owners of the rim’s inevitable collapse”.

However, this tragedy was not entirely unforeseen. As part of their investigation, the Bench Marks Foundation interviewed a former worker who oversaw the pumping of slurry into the tailings. They note that they warned their bosses that the dam was at risk just hours before the disaster, stating “We were pumping too much slurry into the tailings dam every hour and every day. On the Saturday night before the tailings broke (10 September 2022), we warned our supervisors three times to say that the tailings dam is going to break. But they said, ‘don’t worry, nothing will happen, go back to work’.”

Shortly after the incident, 30 families launched a class action lawsuit, led by human rights lawyer Richard Spoor. Spoor has said his firm will file a civil action suit for damages suffered by community members and farmers, with a private prosecution against the operator seeking a court order to “force it to clean up the mess that they have created”.

“In terms of the class action, the action will be against [operating company] Jagersfontein Developments, but in terms of the criminal prosecution, under the provisions of the National Water Act and National Environmental Management Act, it will be prosecuting the directors of Jagersfontein Developments,” Spoor explained. South Africa’s DWS officially opened their criminal case against Jagersfontein Developments on 4 November, 2022.

Concerningly, multiple sources have reported allegations that victims are being bullied into signing settlements with Jagersfontein Development. One resident, Monamodi Maphalane, alleged that displaced victims were being presented with settlement contracts offering immediate reconstruction of their homes in return for release of their right to take legal action against the firms involved in the disaster. Often, these were presented without legal representation present.

“The first thing they tell you[...] is 'we don’t want you to come with your legal representatives', yet the contract that we are supposed to enter with them is compiled by their legal representative. You can see already there is something fishy,” he said.

Spoor also believes intimidation tactics are being used to pressure victims into giving up their rights to take legal action. “They say that if you don’t sign these agreements with us, we will terminate your interim accommodation. The company at the moment has built more than 30 houses. It is a problem for us because some of our clients have signed these agreements,” he said.

Spoor estimates that the damage “will conservatively amount to hundreds of millions of rands [South Africa’s currency]”, but there are concerns as to if Jagersfontein Developments will be able to provide this level of compensation if legal action is successful.

Most victims of the disaster have their hopes pinned on the success of any legal action. While litigation is still in progress, many others have their sights set on a larger question: how do we prevent the next tailings disaster?

Within South Africa, Bench Marks makes several recommendations for altering mining laws to prevent future casualties. These include banning construction of housing, infrastructure and roads below tailings deposits, and introducing a compulsory 1,500m exclusion zone around mining operations. Globally, the challenge is larger.

In 2020, the International Council on Mining and Metals introduced its first Global Industry Standard on Tailings Management, in the wake of the tailings facility collapse in Brumadinho, Brazil, in 2019. The Standard, however, is voluntary for non-members of the ICMM, and the failure of the Jagersfontein tailings dam brings into focus the need for a greater regulation and enforcement of good practice for tailings dams. Patchwork regulatory systems and lack of oversight allow dangerous operations to slip through the cracks, and it is common understanding that mining regulations are written in blood.

While these standards are reasonably comprehensive, including measures to improve transparency and accountability and involve local stakeholders, the ICMM is clear that some issues cannot be addressed, and are better handled by local law. Speaking to Reuters after the incident, ICMM Chief Executive Rohitesh Dhawan described South Africa as having a “patchwork of different regulations and laws that govern tailings management”.

Jagersfontein and Brumadinho are only two among a legion of tailings dam disasters, and are not even the two most recent. Most incidents are minor, contained, or remote, limiting their danger. Still, fatal or devastating collapses continue to happen far too frequently for a problem with an open-source solution. How many more collapses will it take before governments move to enforce better tailings regulation?