The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has begun an emergency effort to clean up Ghana’s heavily polluted water bodies, citing the impact of illegal mining as a major crisis.
The agency says it has already begun collecting water samples and is reviewing proposals from companies to undertake the clean-up and rehabilitation process.
According to EPA Chief Executive Officer, Professor Nana Ama Brown Klutse, the initiative has the full backing of the President and is expected to cost billions of cedis.
“We see this as an emergency situation to clean up our water bodies, which have been polluted by galamsey. The EPA is going to clean up our water bodies. We have been picking samples already and have proposals from different companies to rehabilitate them,” she stated.
The clean-up effort aims to restore water quality for continued treatment by the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL), which has struggled to process contaminated water for public consumption.
“We hope to get the water cleaner for the GWCL to continue its treatment. We want to do the first level of cleaning,” Prof. Klutse added.
Beyond restoring water bodies, the EPA is also looking to reclaim degraded lands affected by illegal mining. The agency says the process has already started, and with the necessary funding in place, the full-scale operation will be rolled out.
Ghana has been grappling with severe water pollution due to illegal mining, popularly known as galamsey, which has rendered several water sources unsafe.
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