The Truth about Mpumalanga Coal Mines Failure to Comply with their Water Use Licences

This report by the Centre for Environmental Rights evaluates water use licence (WUL) compliance among eight large coal mining operations in South Africa's Mpumalanga province. It concludes that the regulatory system has effectively disintegrated, characterized by massive failures by the Department of Water & Sanitation (DWS), non-compliance by mining companies, and misleading reports from independent auditors.

• The Department of Water & Sanitation (DWS) is described as being in a state of "complete institutional and regulatory breakdown," failing to issue licences timely, monitor compliance, or take enforcement action against violations.
• Delays in issuing water use licences, which can take between 2 and 8 years, often lead companies to begin construction without authorisation. Consequently, conditions regarding design and location are frequently deemed "not applicable" by the time the licence is issued because the infrastructure is already built.
• Mining companies frequently use the annual submission of Integrated Water and Waste Management Plans (IWWMPs) and Rehabilitation Strategies and Implementation Programmes (RSIPs) to unilaterally change their water management regimes, as the DWS fails to approve or respond to these documents.
• Independent environmental auditors often provide misleading "compliant" ratings based on visual "walk-through" assessments during dry weather, ignoring technical data that reveals non-compliance or the absence of required monitoring during rainfall events.
• There is a systemic failure to monitor storm water quality leaving mine sites during rainfall. None of the eight assessed mines monitored runoff during rain events, which prevents the detection of pollutant loads entering rivers.
• The DWS has abdicated its responsibility for equitable water allocation by requiring licence holders to provide alternative water supplies to users impacted by mining, a duty the report argues belongs to the State as public trustee.
• Financial provisioning for long-term water treatment is often missing or based on ambiguous WUL wording, which companies interpret as only requiring funds if treatment is already deemed necessary, rather than as a proactive requirement for post-closure risks.
• The DWS has failed to collect water use charges from several licence holders, and has not yet implemented tariffs for the discharge of wastewater.
• The Olifants River Catchment is identified as one of South Africa's most stressed catchments, with coal mining contributing to severe degradation through acid mine drainage and mining effluent, impacting human health and aquatic ecosystems.
• The report identifies a pattern of illegal commencement of water use, where companies start activities and only apply for licences later, without facing penalties from the DWS.

APA

Centre for Environmental Rights (2019). The Truth about Mpumalanga Coal Mines Failure to Comply with their Water Use Licences. https://fulldisclosure.cer.org.za/2019/doc/Full-Disclosure-2019.pdf

Chicago

Centre for Environmental Rights. The Truth about Mpumalanga Coal Mines Failure to Comply with their Water Use Licences. 2019. https://fulldisclosure.cer.org.za/2019/doc/Full-Disclosure-2019.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Centre for Environmental Rights |title=The Truth about Mpumalanga Coal Mines Failure to Comply with their Water Use Licences |date=July 2019 |url=https://fulldisclosure.cer.org.za/2019/doc/Full-Disclosure-2019.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{centreforenvironmentalrights2019truth, author = {{Centre for Environmental Rights}}, title = {{The Truth about Mpumalanga Coal Mines Failure to Comply with their Water Use Licences}}, institution = {Centre for Environmental Rights}, year = {2019}, month = jul, url = {https://fulldisclosure.cer.org.za/2019/doc/Full-Disclosure-2019.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }