Voëlpan Dam a ‘stinkpan of despair’ as interventions stall and sewage flows on

For decades Voëlpan Dam in Nyakallong, Free State, played a role in the area’s mining and wastewater management. Today, residents call it the “stinkpan” a polluted and flooded water body that local interventions have failed to fix.

Who and what: a long-running pollution and sanitation crisis

The dam was used by mines for water management but has since “degenerated into a source of distress,” according to reporting. The problem sits alongside a persistent municipal sanitation failure: Matjhabeng local municipality planning documents list the Voëlpan sewer pump station as non-operational, flooded and vandalised, with sewage discharging into the pan.

Official inspections and court action

A 2023 Free State High Court in Bloemfontein judgment records that water had been discharged into Voëlpan Dam by Harmony’s Target Operations from 2019. Harmony acknowledged the discharge in correspondence with the department of water and sanitation, which later investigated.

The department received a complaint in September 2022 and conducted an inspection on 20 October 2022. Officials observed water overflowing from Harmony’s operations into the dam and the department issued a directive on 30 March 2023 requiring measures, including the preparation of a rehabilitation plan. Harmony challenged that directive and the court suspended its operation pending the specified legal process. The court did not make a finding that Harmony had caused all of the pollution experienced by residents.

Human cost and community response

The crisis has coincided with tragic incidents that renewed concern about unsafe mining-linked water bodies: two boys, Thabo Diloko, 9, and Lethabo Abrahams, 8, drowned at Harmony Gold’s Target 2 rock dump in Welkom, the reporting says.

Residents say promises of relief have gone unfulfilled.

“The relocation process was supposed to be completed last December, but to date people are still forced to live on the verge of death,”

said resident Annah Kunene, who added that she and others will “believe it when they see it” after repeated unkept assurances. Kunene said the tender would likely be awarded after the local elections in November.

Planned refurbishment but no completed fix yet

In July, Vaal Central Water advertised a tender for the refurbishment of the Nyakallong/Allanridge wastewater treatment works. The tender covers civil, mechanical, electrical, control and instrumentation refurbishment of a plant with an estimated treatment capacity of 3.5 megalitres a day. According to the tender document, the facility receives sewage from Nyakallong, Allanridge and surrounding areas through gravity and pumped systems and is intended to treat wastewater to general standards before treated effluent is discharged into Voëlpan.

The scope listed in the tender includes refurbishment of the treatment process and inlet works, screening equipment, biological treatment infrastructure, sludge pumping, chlorine dosing and contact facilities, electrical and control systems, building works, roads and stormwater improvements, testing and commissioning, staff training and preparation of an operations and maintenance manual.

Where things stand

Multiple documented actions a department inspection, a ministerial directive, court proceedings and a tender for plant refurbishment outline steps taken to address the Voëlpan crisis. However, reporting says those interventions have so far seemingly failed to stop ongoing pollution and flooding that continue to affect nearby communities.