WASTE WATER MANAGEMENT WORKSHOP IN KUMASI (PAGE 29)

A four-day capacity building workshop designed to sensitise Ghanaians on the need to manage water more effectively and efficiently to reduce waste is underway in Kumasi.
The workshop, which is on the theme, "Improving waste water management in coastal cities”, is being organised by the Ghana government, in collaboration with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
About 25 representatives drawn from the Hydro Services, World Vision International (WVI), the Ghana Health Service (GHS), Friends of Rivers and Water Bodies, the Ghana Water Company (GWC), the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA), the Ejisu-Juaben District Assembly, the Obuasi Municipal Assembly and the Ghana Tourist Board (GTB) attended the workshop.
In an address read on his behalf, the Ashanti Regional Minister, Mr Emmanuel A. Owusu-Ansah, said ecosystems had come under increasing stress because the struggle against poverty often left no ready alternatives to the over-exploitation of natural resources.
He said over 25 per cent of the total population of Ghana derived their livelihoods from the coastal and marine ecosystems and resources, indicating that those resources were over-exploited.
He said every human activity in the hinterland, such as the discharge of toxic effluents, inflow of nutrients, wasteful use of water, damage of water organisms and the depletion of the vegetation cover through deforestation, impacted negatively on the coastal environment.
Mr Owusu-Ansah further said other human activities in the hinterlands eventually had “repercussions on the coastal areas and not only diminished fisheries and recreational values of water bodies but also cause disturbances to the natural habitat in humans in various communities and also of animals in their ecological zones".
The regional minister stressed the need to build the capacity of the people for them to appreciate the need to manage the environment in a more effective and efficient way to enable them to "become better managers of our environment".
A Senior Lecturer at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Mr Ellias Aplaku, expressed concern over the quantum of waste discharged into water bodies and oceans, making them heavily polluted.
"Untreated water and waste products discharged into water bodies eventually end up in rivers and oceans, making them highly polluted," he noted, adding that "the chemicals have the ability to accumulate, eventually becoming toxic and harmful in the future".
He said as populations increased world-wide, there was the need to initiate measures that would reduce the impact of human activities on water bodies to prevent any form of epidemic.