A Researcher at the Material Engineering Department of the College of Engineering, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology has raised concerns over Ghana Water Company Limited's (GWCL) inability to completely eradicate heavy metals from the water it supplies for household consumption.

According to Engineer Dr Bennetta Koomson, the ingestion of water containing heavy metals poses potential health risks to individuals who consume it, however, these substances are not completely removed from the water.

Speaking in the concluding part of JoyNew’s yet-to-be-aired hotline documentary, titled POISONED FOR GOLD, she explained that ion oxides or ion oxide-based materials can be used to remove heavy metals from water to make it safe for household purposes.

However, she said the treatment process the GWCL applied merely killed bacteria, implying that there is still some amount of heavy metals in the water and was therefore unsafe.

“So once these are the suspended solids that we have in the system, it will interact with the heavy metals in there and would certainly undergo some sort of absorption in the system.

“So when they remove these suspended solids, which are ion oxides then you are sure that some level of heavy metals would have been removed but typically removing those once ones does not clean the water of heavy metal presence.

“Currently what Ghana Water is doing does not take care of that, it takes care of bacterial, microbial stuff in the water but with respect to heavy metal, I can give you samples of water containing heavy metals, they may be as clear as you can imagine but then they have high levels of heavy metals,” she told PAV Ansah Journalist of the year, Erastus Asare Donkor.

In the documentary, the Ghana Journalists Association Journalist of the Year delves into an examination of the water quality derived from rivers tainted by illegal mining activities. 

The full documentary airs at 8:30 PM on the JoyNews channel on Multi TV, Monday.