Ho sits on environmental "time bomb"

Ho, July 30, GNA - Mr Francis Abotsi, the Volta Regional Environmental Health Officer, has said the Ho Municipal Assembly should close its final refuse dumping site off the Ho/Aflao Highway to avert environmental disaster.

He told the GNA in an interview that the site was "very unsanitary" and could blast anytime. "It has become a time bomb waiting to explode and cause danger to communities living close to it."

Mr Abotsi said houses around the site had been invaded by flies and advised the Municipal Assembly to quicken its efforts at acquiring a new and permanent landfill site.

He said pollution from the site could affect the respiratory system of people living close to the site as well as the attendants.

He said environmental health standards demanded that organic materials should be separated from the inorganic ones but that had not been the case, a situation which needed to be remedied.

Mr Abotsi alleged that the Zoomlion waste management company was compounding the situation as its workers only dumped refuse there without observing any waste management procedures.

Mr Maxwell Zu-Cudjoe, Assistant Programme Officer of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), said every landfill site needed to be engineered and segregated for organic and inorganic materials to meet required health and environmental standards.

He said the Ho final dumping site in its current state exposed those in its immediate environment to great health hazards and expressed the hope that the Municipal Assembly acquired its new site in time to forestall any future mishap.

Mr Isaac Kodobissah, Ho Municipal Chief Executive, said a well planned final dumping site would be acquired early next year under a Ghana Urban Management Project.

He said the Assembly was also working with the City of Lahti, Finland under a sister city arrangement for technical assistance in developing such a site.