This is how some Chinese illegal miners have cut the land to divert a stream water to be used for their galamsey activites in the Atiwa District of the Eastern RegionThe increasing number of people mining illegally across the country can best be described as alarming, leaving in its trail, massive environmental destruction.
Apart from the destruction being caused to the environment, these illegal mining (galamsey) activities continue to pose a threat to water bodies in most parts of the country and unless steps are taken to arrest the situation, many of these water bodies would be extinct in the near future.
Joe Okyere and Shirley Asiedu-Addo report from Cape Coast that water bodies in the Central Region have had their fair share of heavy pollution as a result of the activities of illegal miners.
Until recently when they extended their operations along the banks and the valleys of the Offin and the Pra rivers, small streams and rivulets which served as the major sources of drinking water for communities, the impact was not on a large scale.
Diversions of streams and rivers by the miners, who usually use mercury to extract the ore, have posed serious environmental challenges to the people in their areas of operations.
A visit to Sekyere-Hemang, where the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) has an in-take and treatment plant, revealed that apart from operating in the Pra River bed and polluting the river, the galamsey operators have also caused damage to one of the filters at the in-take point.
Besides, the miners have dug trenches along the valley of the Pra River and cleared large tracts of the vegetative cover along the valley in search of gold.
According to the GWCL, it costs so much in terms of chemicals used in the treatment of water at the plant since these activities were extended to the area and thereby soaring their overhead cost.
Much of the chemicals used and the clearing of the vegetative cover along the banks have led to extensive pollution and silting of the river bed. The siltation of the river bed has also led to the decrease in the volume of water in the river due to the shallow nature of the river bed.
Whereas at the initial stages the colour of the treated water from the plant was very clean and odourless, the same cannot be said today. The colour of treated water supplied to consumers has assumed a brownish colour.
Another source of pollution to water bodies is the unrestrained activities of farmers who clear land along the banks for cultivation.
Once the cover, which serves as a check against evaporation, has been removed, rapid evaporation affects the volume of the water in some rivers. A clear example in question is the Kakum River which supplies water to a section of Cape Coast and its environs.
The Kakum River recently dried up causing acute water shortage in Cape Coast and its environs.
The Ammisah Okyi River, which feeds the Baafikrom treatment plant near Mankessim, is suffering as a result of the activities of sand winners.
The discharge of waste and over fishing in the Fosu Lagoon in Cape Coast has prompted, the Environmental Protection Agency to declare the lagoon as heavily polluted and the main fish species (tilapia) in the lagoon as unfit for human consumption.
The Benya Lagoon at Elmina has also become a refuse dumping ground for communities along the lagoon.
From Koforidua, A. Kofoya-Tetteh reports that of all the rivers in the Eastern Region, the Birim, one of the largest and longest, was until recently, the main source of drinking water for the inhabitants of the big towns, villages and hamlets in the area.
However, because the river and its tributaries span the forest belt of the region where gold abounds, it has attracted a lot of illegal miners to the area.
The galamsey operators apply dangerous chemicals such as cyanide and mercury to wash the mineral in its waters.
Some of the tributaries have also been diverted to make way for the extraction of gold on the river bed after which the river is restored to its original course.
As a result of these practices, water from the river is now very dirty and muddy to the extent that it is even unsafe for cattle to depend on let alone human beings.
The level of chemical concentration is so high that it is almost impossible for the Ghana Water Company to carry out any form of treatment to make it wholesome.
The people, therefore, depend on either wells or boreholes for water supply
Other communities, especially the big ones such as Asiakwa and its surrounding villages in the East Akyem Municipality as well as Begoro, capital of the Fanteakwa District, which are also hard hit, rely on small town water supply systems.
It is a process whereby treated water from smaller streams or rivers are pumped into overhead tanks for distribution to taps to be drawn by the people who are made to pay token fees for the maintenance of the system.
Big towns affected include Anyinam, Abomosu, both in the Atiwa District, Bunso in the East Akyem Municipality and Oda in the Birim Central Municipality.
The Densu, which takes its source from the Atiwa Mountain Range, near Kyebi and drains parts of New Juaben, East Akyem, Suhum and Nsawam/Adoagyiri municipalities, is also polluted but not by “galamseyers” but other human activities.
These include dirty water and animal droppings finding their way into the river, particularly, at Nsawam.
Although the level of pollution of the Densu River, according to hydrologists, is not as high as that of the Birim, they recommend treatment before consumption by humans.
In view of that communities along the Densu Basin also rely on other sources such as wells, boreholes and rivulets, for their water needs.
Kwame Asiedu Marfo writes from Takoradi that the Western Region has four major rivers and other water bodies flowing across the length of the region to join the Atlantic Ocean.
The rivers are the Pra, Tano, Ankobra and Bonsa, all of which are sources of raw water for the Ghana Water Company to process and distribute in the form of pipe borne water to communities in the region.
Unfortunately, these rivers have been seriously polluted through the activities of galamsey operators.
Water is said to be colourless, according to chemistry. But the same cannot be said of water from the rivers in the Western Region, whose colour has become brownish and sedimented with high turbidity.
River Ankobra, which runs through Prestea is the worse of all, as the aquatic life of the river is almost dead and the river finds it difficult to flow. The colour of this river is beyond description as a result of the intensity of illegal gold mining along the basin of the river.
River Pra which runs through Bosomase and Daboase and serve as the main source of raw water for processing and distribution to the Sekondi/Takoradi Metropolis, is another casualty of the illegal gold mining activities in the region.
The irony of the situation is that most communities in the region depend on the rivers and streams as sources of drinking water and nobody knows which diseases will affect the people in the long term.
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