The Water Resources Commission is worried about human activities that directly affect the quality of underground water.
When the Head of the White Volta Basin at the Water Resources Commission, Jesse Kazapoe, spoke to A1 Radio’s Mark Smith on the Day Break Upper East Show, he mentioned open defecation, improper disposal of ‘black water’, general household waste, among others, as human activities directly polluting underground water.
Mr. Kazapoe made these comments in light of the revelation that more than 177,000 households in the Upper East Region rely on boreholes for drinking water.
“The issue that worries us about groundwater is the quality. Unfortunately, we are polluting surface water, and surface water is what recharges underground water. When it rains and you look around, you would see so much waste. We are discharging even black water without treatment. Black water is that water from our toilets and KVIPs. We are discharging all these into the environment. We have these septic tanks that dislodge our waste and there is no treatment for it. They pump this waste into the environment. It rains and some of this gets into our groundwater systems. Consider all the people who are defecating in the open, contributing to the pollution as well,” he said.
Mr. Kazapoe added that because of the lack of proper planning, there are times when boreholes are dug close to buried sewage tanks, popularly referred to as manholes. There could be seepages that could pollute the water.
“Now plots are very small and you have to build a house on that same space, build a septic tank, and you need a borehole as well. If that borehole is not done very well by professionals, you have water from the septic tank going into the groundwater system,” he said.
The majority of households in the Upper East Region rely on boreholes/tube wells for drinking water, according to the 2021 Population and Housing Census (PHC).
The 2021 PHC identifies 16 sources of drinking water, categorized into two groups: improved sources of water and unimproved sources of water.
Improved sources of water include public taps, boreholes, protected springs, pipe-borne water inside dwellings, rainwater, protected wells, sachet water, bottled water, pipe-borne water outside dwellings but on compounds, and pipe-borne water outside dwellings but in neighbors’ houses/compounds.
Unimproved sources of water include rivers/streams, unprotected wells, unprotected springs, tanker-supplied water, dugouts/ponds/lakes/dams/canals, and others.
According to the data, 254,237 households rely on improved sources of water for drinking, while 9,281 households rely on unimproved sources.
Of the households that rely on improved sources of water for drinking, 177,790 households use boreholes/tube wells.
See full table here.
Source: A1Radioonline.Com|101.1MHZ|Mark Kwasi Ahumah Smith|Bolgatanga|
