The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, Water Research Institute has called on the appropriate authorities and agencies of ensuring that illegal mining is stopped to be up an doing.
The Institute agues that the menace which is destroying Water bodies is also contaminating fishes in them.
In Ghana, small-scale mining (SSM) has been carried out for many years, generating employment and income. Currently, illegal artisanal mining (‘galamsey’) has impacted the environment negatively, resulting in land degradation and water pollution. The government of Ghana, responding to public outcry against the negative effects of ‘galamsey’, placed a ban on illegal small-scale mining activities in March 2017. This ban stopped both ‘legal’ small-scale and the illegal artisanal miners from carrying out any such activity. In July 2018, this study was carried out to examine the status of water and sediment quality in eight endemic regions of illegal mining to ascertain the outcome of the ban on the water quality of the rivers. Methodologies in the Standard Methods for the Examination of Water and Wastewater were followed. Results of the study indicated that the rivers were high in total suspended solids (TSS), turbidity and colour, suggesting inflow of wastewater from the illegal mining activities and some run-off.
Colour had a strong correlation with turbidity (r = 0.95) and TSS (r = 0.94), suggesting that the pollution originates from the same sources. Low levels of metals were found in both water and sediment. However, very high concentrations of Fe were detected in both water and sediment. Mercury concentrations were low in the water column but relatively higher in the sediment. A comparison of the general water quality status of the water bodies in the Pra Basin in 2013 and 2018 using the Water Quality Index (WQI) showed a marginal improvement in quality in 2018 over 2013 in the Pra Basin. The improvement of water quality in 2018 is attributable to the ban.
Speaking to some journalists on the sidelines of an Aqua-culture development workshop in Accra, Head of CSIR Water Research Institute Dr. Seth Koranteng Agyakwa stressed that if illegal mining is not halted immediately there will be a lot of contaminated fishes on the market.
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