Spillage of oil into the Chemu Lagoon at Tema in the month of May has landed the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) in a legal suit, the refinery having been served with a summons to appear before the Tema High Court. The summons of the High Court follows an action commenced at the court against TOR by the Centre for Public Interest Law, a legal non-governmental organisation (NCO) devoted to litigating on behalf of disadvantaged communities with no ready access to legal services. A second plaintiff in the writ is Mr Richter Amarfio, a resident of Tema. The plaintiffs are seeking a declaration by the High Court that TOR was negligent in allowing the oil spillage from its pipeline into the Chemu Lagoon. The plaintiffs are also seeking a declaration by the court that the spillage was "a violation of the rights of the inhabitants of Chemu, particularly those who have settled along the banks of the lagoon, to a clean and healthy environment under the Constitution and under international law". The plaintiffs are further seeking an order of the High Court enjoining TOR to clean up the Chemu Lagoon, under the supervision of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In addition, the plaintiffs are seeking an order of perpetual injunction restraining the defendants from "further polluting the aforesaid lagoon through oil spillage or other means". They are also seeking legal costs and damages from TOR. In a related development, a group of environmental activists in Tema has told the Daily Graphic that it is considering seeking the help of the Centre for Public Interest Law to start litigation procedures in court seeking to compel industries in the Tema municipality whose operations have led to the severe pollution of the lagoon to fund its ecological restoration. According to activists of the Corporate Social Responsibility Movement (CSRM) who are campaigning for the restoration of the Chemu Lagoon, the discharge of effluence from the industries into the lagoon had polluted and killed all aquatic life in the water body. "The lagoon is now one of the most polluted water bodies in Ghana," they told the Daily Graphic. The activists said they intended to argue that before its pollution, the Chemu Lagoon was a source of fish, crabs, oysters and other sea foods for communities along the lagoon. "It was also a source of table salt. The pollution of the lagoon by industries and factories in Tema has, therefore, deprived communities along the water body of income from fishing," they said. Some of the manufacturing companies along the lagoon which the activists said they intended to sue are Leylac Paints, GIHOC Paints, the Volta Aluminium Company (VALCO), the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR), Unilever Ghana Ltd, Pioneer Food Cannery and the Cocoa Processing Company. According to activists of the CSRM, the government of Ghana commissioned the Canada-based environmental consultants, Acres International, to conduct feasibility studies into the ecological restoration of the Chemu Lagoon in 1998. The consultants, in their report; recommended an immediate ecological restoration of the water body. The CSRM attributed the long delay in the ecological restoration of the lagoon to the lack of commitment on the part of stakeholders in the proposed restoration project. The Head of the EPA in Tema, Mr Lambert Faabeluon, told the Daily Graphic that the agency and other stakeholders had held not less 12 seminars and meetings, since 1999, to explore means of halting further pollution of the lagoon and explore means of obtaining funding for its restoration. He said nothing worthwhile had come out of the many meetings held by the stakeholders since 1999 and agreed that it was because the various stakeholders lacked commitment to the implementation of the proposed project. Credit: Daily Graphic