Illegal Mining: GWCL’s inability to filter heavy metals from drinking water is of grave concern – Engineer
A Researcher at the Material Engineering Department of the College of Engineering, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology has raised concerns over Ghana Water Company Limited’s (GWCL) inability to completely eradicate heavy metals from the water it supplies for household consumption.
According to Engineer Dr Bennetta Koomson, the ingestion of water containing heavy metals poses potential health risks to individuals who consume it, however, these substances are not completely removed from the water.
Speaking in the concluding part of JoyNew’s yet-to-be-aired hotline documentary, titled POISONED FOR GOLD, she explained that for iron-polluted water to be safe for household purposes, all iron particles must be removed after which it undergoes a treatment process.
On the back of this, she said the treatment process the GWCL applied merely killed bacteria, implying that there is still some amount of metals in the water and was therefore unsafe.
“So once these are the suspended solids that we have in the system, it will interact with the heavy metals in there and would certainly undergo some sort of absorption in the system.
“So when they remove these suspended solids which are iron oxides (FeO2), you are sure that some level of heavy metals would have been removed but typically removing those metals does not clean the water of heavy metal presence.
“Currently what Ghana Water is doing does not take care of that, it takes care of bacterial, microbial stuff in the water but with respect to heavy metal, I can give you samples of water containing heavy metals, they may be as clear as you can imagine but then they have high levels of heavy metals,” she told PAV Ansah Journalist of the year, Erastus Asare Donkor.
In the documentary, the Ghana Journalists Association Journalist of the Year delves into an examination of the water quality derived from rivers tainted by illegal mining activities.
The full documentary airs at 8:30 PM on the JoyNews channel on Multi TV, Monday.
Source: Ghana News
