More than 60 per cent of the country's waterbodies are polluted by illegal mining activities, exposing the country to environmental, health and livelihood hazards, according to a research scientist at the Groundwater Division of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research-Water Research Institute (CSIR-WRI).

Dr Franklin Obiri-Nyarko said it was even more worrying that the myriad of contaminants would make the water bodies difficult to recover, even if illegal mining stopped at once.

"If you look at the state of our water resource now, it is clear that we are not doing enough to protect this valuable resource and going forward, there is the need for urgent steps to be taken to sustainably restore the polluted rivers to save lives," he stressed.

Dr Obiri-Nyarko explained that sustainable restoration of polluted water bodies required an integrated approach that addressed the sources of contamination, the removal of contaminants and the treatment of rivers and other water sources.

"This will require dedicated investment into the restoration of water bodies through sustainable funding. If not, we will not go anywhere," he added.

Mid-year review

Dr Obiri-Nyarko made the call in a presentation at the CSIR-WRI mid-year review yesterday.

The presentation was dubbed "Can Ghana heal her water? Toward Sustainable Remediation of Polluted Water Bodies".

The three-day workshop, which coincides with the 30th anniversary of the institute, is on the theme: "Water-environment-food-health nexus: building resilience for the future".

For his part, the acting Director of CSIR-WRI, Dr Kwadwo Ansong Asante, stressed the need for a paradigm shift from the silos approach to a more collaborative effort to address the challenges confronting the country's environment, water and health sectors.

He said there was interconnection among those sectors, for which reason an integrated and coherent approach that leveraged partnerships was critical to their sustainable management.

In particular, he said, the debilitating impact of illegal mining, popularly known as galamsey, cut across the environment, water and health sectors, so "we need to work together to fight this common enemy".

 Socio-economic impacts

Another Researcher at the CSIR-WRI, Dr Prosper Bazaanah, who studied the impact of illegal mining on the Volta River, said there was ample evidence that polluted rivers occasioned by illegal mining activities had serious socio-economic impact on communities.

He explained that the community members depended on the polluted water for farming, which had long-lasting effects on their lives and livelihood.

"In terms of health, one of the key issues we saw is that miners complained of skin rashes, diarrhoea, cough and other health complications," he added.

Again, Dr Bazaanah said communities in the northern sector which were exposed to the effects of mining complained that if they left cooked food for a while, it went bad.

In terms of the social issues, he said many children abandoned school for mining, while uncovered pits endangered people and animals.

Touching on the way forward, Dr Bazaanah underscored the need for the government to strengthen transboundary water management to help tackle illegal mining and secure water bodies, especially those in the northern areas of the country.

Study result

Presenting the results of a study dubbed "Socio-economic impact assessment of illegal mining on the Volta River System in Ghana", a Research Scientist, Zita Abuntori, said although the Volta River was relatively safe, the activities of illegal miners could compromise its quality in the near future if proactive steps were not taken to protect it.

"That is why I see the proposal made for the government to strengthen transboundary water management of water as a crucial one.

If we do not stop galamsey in the tributaries of the Volta River, we will eventually lose it the way we have almost lost our rivers across the country," she said.

Mrs Abuntori stressed that it was important for state institutions in the water and environment sectors to work in a coordinated manner to restore the quality of water bodies.

She also called on the government to support the CSIR-WRI with the resources needed to conduct further research on the country's water systems.