The Department of Water and Sanitation calls on dam owners across the country who own unregistered dams to promptly undertake the dam registration process in order to ensure dam safety compliance as required by law.

This comes as the  Minister of Water and Sanitation, Pemmy Majodina published a gazette notice calling for the registration of existing dams with a safety risk, as mandated by the National Water Act (Act No. 36 of 1998), along with Regulations 2, 3, and 37 of the Dam Safety Regulations (R 139 of 24 February 2012).

The registration process aims to ensure the safety of dams and reduce risks to the public, property, and water resources. Owners of dams meeting the criteria for classification as a dam with a safety risk must verify their registration status and if not yet registered, submit the required forms to the Department of Water and Sanitation.

“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,” said Wally Ramokopa, Head of Specialist Unit: Dam Safety Regulation within the Department.

Ramokopa added that the Department of Water and Sanitation is rolling out a mass multimedia campaign to raise awareness about the importance of dam registration with the aim of ensuring that all dams with safety risks meet compliance standards to reduce potential harm to people, property, and the environment.

The dam registration campaign is also aimed at maintaining an accurate database of dam ownership and safety compliance for effective regulation and risk management.

Dam owners are required to update their details if already registered and submit registration and classification forms if not yet registered. Forms can be downloaded from the Department’s website at www.dws.gov.za/dso or collected from the nearest departmental offices.

The Department enforces compliance for dam owners to conduct safety inspections at least every five (5) years. As such, dam owners are required to arrange for the execution of a formal dam safety inspection by an Approved Professional Person (APP).

When carrying out the five yearly safety evaluation, the APP will conduct a flood frequency analysis to check whether the dam is able to route through different flood occurrences. This helps the Department’s Dam Safety Office in knowing beforehand whether the dam would be overtopped should a certain size of a flood occur or potential damage of the dam.

The Department’s Dam Safety Office then receives reports from APPs which contain information pertaining to the flood handling capability and structural behaviour of dams.

In addition to the dam safety regulations dam owners must abide by, the Department’s Dam Safety Office conducts dam safety compliance monitoring inspections to ensure that dam owners implement recommendations by APPs once the dam safety evaluations are received.

Failure to implement the APPs recommendations, especially when findings indicate that the dam may not be safe and have the potential to fail or cause loss of life, the Dam Safety Office is able to issue directives to compel dam owners to comply.

Ramokopa issued a stern warning to dam owners who do not complying with regulations and emphasised that the Department will not hesitate to take punitive measures to ensure compliance with the law.

“Dam owners are bound by law to comply and to also implement recommendations as made by an APP’s after inspections are conducted. 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,” Ramokopa emphasised.

The Department urges all dam owners to act immediately. Compliance is not just a legal requirement but a critical step in ensuring the safety of communities, protecting the environment, and securing water resources for the future.

For more information on dam registration contact: Specialist Unit: Dam Safety Regulation at damsafety@dws.gov.za or Ms Mokgadi Modipane at 082 802 7092 or Ms Makgano Tlaka at 083 412 2649.