The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has launched an emergency initiative to clean up the heavily polluted water bodies in Ghana, highlighting the severe impact of illegal mining as a major crisis. The agency has already started collecting water samples and is currently reviewing proposals from companies to carry out the cleanup 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 to enable continued treatment by the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL), which has faced challenges in processing contaminated water for public consumption. “We hope to improve water quality so that the GWCL can continue its treatment. Our goal is to complete the first level of cleaning,” said Prof. Klutse. In addition to restoring water bodies, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is also focused on reclaiming degraded lands impacted by illegal mining. This process has already begun, and with the necessary funding secured, a full-scale operation will be implemented. Ghana has been struggling with severe water pollution due to illegal mining, commonly known as galamsey, which has made several water sources unsafe for use.
