Minister for Sanitation and Water Resources, Cecilia Abena Dapaah has expressed anger over the level of pollution of rivers by illegal miners in the Eastern Region.
The Minister who toured some of the illegal mining sites during an inspection of the Water Treatment Plants at Kyebi, Bunso, and Osino on Monday expressed worry that though the Kyebi stretch of the Birim River is clean, the downstream stretch from Bunso to Osino is heavily polluted increasing the turbidity of raw water to an alarming level.
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The Minister moved to Bunso and Osino Water treatment plants and intake points where the water turbidity had reached alarming levels due to the activities of illegal miners.
The situation has led to low production of water and intermittent shut down of the two water treatment plants managed by Ghana Water Company Limited.
Addressing the media, Ms Dapaah expressed worry over the devastation of lands along the Birim River and the muddying of raw water by illegal miners at Osino after visiting a galamsey site.
She said “So, we are here and we’ve seen the devastation of the land as well as the complete muddying of our water body called Birim. The three places we’ve been to, the projects are all on the Birim river, and as we all saw Kyebi has the cleanest water source with a turbidity of 11NTU which is within the acceptable international unit’’.
She added that ‘’Then we came to Bunso, and you all heard from the manager there that when they took the sample in the morning the turbidity was 1900NTU then in the afternoon -mid-morning getting to the afternoon they took it and it was 330NTU. This means from the explanation, they have that indeed when we were asleep some people were working on the river body hence the deepening of the muddy and rising of the turbidity levels”.
She continued that “We’ve come here and am very sad. Honestly, very very sad looking at the fact that some people dared to divert the Birim river to form pools for washing their metals and using chemicals which seep through the river”.
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The Minister and her entourage visited the Kyebi Water treatment plant and intake points.
She called on Ghanaians to support President Akufo-Addo’s fight against illegal mining to help protect water bodies in the country.