Three in four documented chrome operations in Rustenburg–Brits have no water-use licence

Community activists have painstakingly documented 66 chrome-mining and wash-plant operations spread across the Rustenburg–Brits corridor — many visible from public roads, running excavators and lorries in plain sight. But the Department of Water and Sanitation confirmed to Daily Maverick that it has issued only 16 water-use licences for such operations in the region, leaving at least 50 sites drawing on and polluting scarce water resources without any authorisation. With just three compliance inspectors covering the entire Bojanala District and only seven criminal cases opened from 30 confirmed unauthorised plants inspected province-wide, the evidence points not to an enforcement backlog but to a structural collapse of regulation.