The Water Resources Commission (WRC) has called on Ghanaians to be conscious about their activities that harm the environment, particularly water resources.
If water within the country is not protected and kept safe for consumption, the country might, in the coming years, struggle to get clean water.
When the head of the White Volta Basin with the Water Resources Commission, Jesse Kazapoe, spoke on A1 Radio’s Day Break Upper East Show, he mentioned that because of the current human activities, it is becoming increasingly difficult to treat water.
“If we don’t manage the water resources very well, and they end up being polluted, then we would end up having a big problem. These water basins, once we get them in a state where we cannot use them, it is a big challenge because the government of Ghana doesn’t even have the resources to be able to construct treatment plants to be able to treat water. But if they have, we are polluting the water so much that it becomes impossible to treat the water.”
“It is our responsibility as human beings of this country to make sure that the water that we get is in a state that would not cause harm to us, but we are not doing so because we believe water is available to us. This is not true; water is actually finite,” he explained.
Additionally, it would be recalled that Jesse Kazapoe, Head of the White Volta Basin at the Water Resources Commission (WRC), drew attention to the adverse effects of human activities on the accessibility of clean water to households across Ghana. According to Mr. Kazapoe, the country over the years made strides to improve the standards and supply of potable drinking water.
However, he mentioned various factors, including illegal mining, logging, sand winning, and pollution from liquid and solid waste, as significant contributors to the degradation of water quality and availability in the country.
“Even though we are doing our best to provide our people with water, we are the same people who are putting in the same efforts to erode these gains. So it will be difficult for us to say we are making gains when we are at the back and eroding the same gains,” he lamented.
The Head of the White Volta Basin at the Water Resources Commission (WRC) pointed out that illegal mining, commonly known as galamsey, has emerged as a major threat to water resources in Ghana, particularly in river basins like the White Volta.
He said the indiscriminate mining activities have led to the contamination of water bodies with toxic chemicals such as mercury and cyanide, rendering the water unsafe for consumption and other domestic uses.
Source: A1Radioonline.com|101.1Mhz|Mark Kwasi Ahumah Smith|Ghana
