Climate change raises cost of water production in Ghana

By Justice Lee Adoboe
As government of Ghana seeks to achieve universal water coverage in 2025, economic activities around sources of raw water in the country have been causing an increase in the pollution rate of these water bodies.
Some of these economic activities including unorthodox fishing methods, traditional farming methods illegal lumbering and stone quarrying which also trigger Climate Change impose a high cost of production the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL).
Manuel Tetteh, Water Quality Assurance Officer of the GWCL in Ashanti Region said some of these activities continuously pollute River Offing and other tributaries that feed into the Barekese Dam, near Kumasi, 268 km north of the capital.
In addition to these factors, Tetteh listed illegal mining popularly referred to as “Galamsey” as a major cause of pollution of the Oda River near Obuasi 270 km north-east of the capital and River Anunu in Konongo.
The official made this known to a group Of Water, Sanitation Hygiene (WASH) sector stakeholders including the Parliamentary Select Committee on Water Resources, Works and Housing at Barekese.
The group which included the Ghana Watsan Journalists Network (GWJN) had been in a five-day WASH Governance Workshop organized by the West Africa (WA) WASH under the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
Some of these activities expose water bodies to the sunshine, causing up to 25 percent reduction in the volume of water in these water sources, while siltation also increases the coloring of the raw water sources, while sealing up some of them.
“We have to keep increasing the volume of chemicals we use in treating water, due to the heavy coloring of the raw water from these rivers as a result of such activities,” the official disclosed.
The burning of weeded farmlands around the banks of these rivers make running water during raining season drive ashes and silt into the rivers, while exposing the rivers also to the hot sunshine, causing both coloring and reduction in the volumes of water in these water bodies.
In addition to that the running water also carries remains of chemical fertilizers used on farms into the water bodies, thus increasing the nutrient levels of the water.
According to Tetteh the cost of TREATMENT FOR every cubic meter of water treated, 0.45 Ghana cedis or 0.140 U.S dollars, with 60 percent of the cost being covering chemical use.
“In Barekese, the Hazen Unit (HU) of water in the 30 million gallons of water Barekese Dam is about 200, that of raw water in Obuasi and Konongo areas is over 5,000 HU.
To deal with this phenomenon, GWCL teams up with the Water Resources Commission (WRC) to sensitize these communities, as well as seek assistance from the security services to prevent such pollution activities in the catchment areas.
Lakhdar Boukerrou, Regional Director for the WA-WASH for Ghana, Niger and Burkina Faso urged governments in the sub-region to introduce Climate Change mitigation measures that would ensure sustainability of water production.
“The problem in West Africa is not the lack of water resources, but the lack of proper management,” he told Xinhua in an interview. Enditem