BAREKESE DAM TO BE CLOSED DOWN

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Barekese Headwoks in Ashanti risks being closed down by the Ghana Water Company Limited if urgent steps are not immediately taken to halt illegal artisanal mining popularly known as galamsey, currently ongoing at Nkwantakese in the Afigya Kwabre District, which is upstream its catchment. 

According to the Water Resources Commission, the Barekese water intake facility should be designated as a security zone, as has been done in the Weija catchment since August 2015, an initiative that is already producing positive results.

 The Board Chairman of the Water Resources Commission, Agyewodin Adu Gyamfi Ampem, raised the concern at a news a conference in Kumasi. 

He said the attention of National Security has been drawn to the situation, for the needed security intervention, adding that water is now a national security concern. 

Agyewodin Adu Gyamfi Ampem, who is also the Paramount Chief of Acherensua said the Ghana Water Company has within the past two weeks closed down three of its water intake facilities all due to the effects of illegal artisanal mining.

 The closure of these facilities, he noted, implies the absence of good drinking water and the search for alternative sources, which may be expensive and not safe for use. 

Agyewodin Adu Gyamfi Ampem said since 2015, the Water Resources Commission has been monitoring the quality of water bodies and categorize the quality of an entire water body as either good, fairly good, poor, or grossly polluted. 

He announced that the Barekese reservoir from 2005 to 2015 had fairly good water quality, but this had deteriorated to the poor water quality category from 2013 to 2014.   

Agyewodin Adu Gyamfi Ampem mentioned major factors for the gradual deterioration of the water quality as uncontrolled infrastructure quality such as the siting of domestic dwellings at unauthorized locations within the catchment, indiscriminate harvesting of wood along and around the watercourse and the reservoir and use of agrochemicals in farming. 

He urged the District Assemblies that share the Barekese catchment to collaborate to prescribe local remedial interventions to reduce pollution not only from illegal mining, but from other contributory sources.

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