Sasol faces charges of water pollution in Secunda

Sasol is facing charges of water pollution and one of Sasol’s representatives appeared in the Secunda Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday, September 20.

This comes after a former worker of Sasol, Ian Erasmus, finally managed to get the petrol giant in court. Erasmus said he has been fighting this battle internally with Sasol for many years.

He worked for Sasol since 2005 and was a senior process controller. Part of his duties in 2012 was to report broken equipment on the plant.

“I noticed a big valve was leaking and I reported it to my manager and three years later, when I was working in that area again, I noticed that the same valve was still broken,” said Erasmus.

According to him, this caused high levels of vanadium, diethanolamine and potassium carbonate to end up in the dams surrounding Sasol West.

“I reported it again, but months later I noticed that it was still broken.”

By 2017 the valve was still not fixed and by this time, Erasmus was already sending e-mails monthly to senior management, expressing his disappointment with Sasol to get this valve fixed.

He later went as far as to contact Sasol’s ethics line to report the matter.

This was when his managers allegedly began victimising him and one allegedly even shoved him and gave him the middle finger.

Sasol suspended Erasmus in 2017 on the day that his manager allegedly shoved him.

Throughout this process, Erasmus learnt that Sasol actually had a waste licence and there is a certain way in which they are supposed to get rid of the waste, but the waste in the plant where Erasmus worked, was just thrown down the drain.

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“The water of the leaking valve, eventually ends up in our taps as drinking water and also flows to the Vaal Dam,” said Erasmus.

He was disappointed when the Environmental Affairs Department investigated the valve in 2018 and said in their report there is nothing wrong.

Erasmus then contacted the Human Rights Commission because he saw they were investigating issues at the Vaal River and he knew the rivers from the Secunda area also eventually end up in the Vaal River.

The Crime Investigating Division of the Department of Water and Sanitation took the matter further and asked Erasmus for all the evidence he collected over the years.

A criminal case was finally opened by the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment.

“More than 10 million people’s drinking water is affected by this. People have been suffering and getting sick for many years, it could be as a result of the drinking water.”

The case has been postponed to January 13 next year.

Ridge Times asked Sasol’s spokesman for their comment on the matter and Nomia Machebe, Sasol’s manager of Communications and Media, said Sasol was served with a summons instituting criminal proceedings on July 27 and the charges relate to historical aspects of environmental management.

She confirmed that no Sasol employee had been charged, but rather Sasol as a legal entity.

“The summons follows an investigation by the National Environmental Management Inspectorate as an agency of the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, and Sasol is fully cooperating with the authorities in this investigation,” said Machebe.