Ghana Water Limited has been forced to turn to a mining pit at Anglogold Company to supply its Bonsa Water Treatment Plant, the lifeline of potable water for the Tarkwa Municipality.

The plant has been completely shut down after illegal upstream mining turned the Bonsa River into a thick, choking sludge just three weeks after a costly dredging exercise, the plant’s raw water intake has already been buried under layers of mud and silt, rendering it unusable.

Speaking on JoyNews' Prime News, GWL’s Public Relations Officer, Stanley Martey, warned that the company is racing against time, conducting feasibility studies to find an alternative water source before the municipality faces a full-blown water crisis.

“There are a few more boreholes in the system which we had to depend on, but that isn’t the best because it isn’t enough for the people. So, currently, we are looking at the mine lake pit with AngloGold. And so we have met with the management of AngloGold, we have had various discussions, and we are sending consultants into the area to do feasibility studies.”

Mr Martey added that GWL is working to determine how quickly pipelines can be laid to divert water to the Bonsa plant. “We’ll see how quick we can lay pipes from the place to our treatment plant, then we can treat the water from the mine lake pit,” he said.

He explained that the mining pit contains large volumes of clean water because it taps directly into underground aquifers. “There is a lot of water that is coming out of the aquifers, and they have to pump it. They even have to treat it before pumping it back into the Bonsa, but it is downstream of our plant. So what we want to do now is to set up a booster station where we can direct this water into our treatment plant,” he said.

Mr Martey gave further details about the quality of the water available at the AngloGold pit. According to him, “AngloGold has dug close to 200 metres down to the earth's crust, and beneath the earth's crust are aquifers that contain a lot of water. They always pump the water out into the Bonsa River so that they can have a way to break the rocks.”

He said preliminary assessments show the water is safe. “The water is clean; turbidity is below 5 NTU and there haven’t been any traces of any dangerous chemical. So why can’t we divert that water into our treatment plant? Whatever they pump out is even more than we require for our treatment plant to produce water in a day.”

Mr Martey assured residents that treating the water will be both safe and cost-effective. “Because turbidity is low and there hasn’t been any identifiable dangerous chemical in the water, it is possible for us to treat it even at a lower cost,” he said.

“Now the people of Tarkwa and its surrounding areas should rest assured. If we are able to treat heavy metals like cyanide and mercury, why can’t we treat water without dangerous chemicals?”

He said that initial tests show “no dangerous chemical” and that the compounds present “are not harmful,” adding that GWL will proceed with its plans to move the water to the treatment plant.