Residents of Sunyani and its environs in the Brong-Ahafo Region will have to resort to the use of boreholes, among other alternative sources of water, following the closure of the Abessim water treatment plant.
The Ghana Water Company has said the plant had to be shut down because of the reduction in water levels in the Tano River.
[contextly_sidebar id=”py3x6S0Hv4txeiEXgnFO3JvoEvCLp0FI”]Explaining the situation on the Citi Breakfast show, the regional engineer for the company, Charles Brobbey said his outfit was working to bring some relief to the situation.
“Somewhere at the end of last month [January], we realised our water level was going down so we decided to cut down on production. So we did that for about two weeks and we cut down from 1.6 million gallons a day to about 800,000 gallons and day.”
Mr. Brobbey recounted that the company resorted to the cuts for about two weeks whilst halving the power production capcity intermittently until last Monday when they realized that there was no flow at all hence the shutdown of the Abessim water treatment plant.
He noted that company’s visit to the area indicated that harmattan had contributed to the dire situation but a usual suspect in issues like this, illegal mining, also reared its head.
In addition, “what we also saw was a lot of farming activity. They are a lot people now going into dry season farming and they are also competing with us for the water we also use for our production,” Mr. Brobbey added.
To remedy the situation, the Ghana Water Company has made available some boreholes, a few of which have been mechanised.
Mr. Brobbey also said the company has “tried to construct hydrants and some pipes so that people can go there and fetch with their containers. We went on further to procure some few Polytanks and site them at vantage points in town.”
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By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana