The Air in Obuasi is clean

Ashanti Goldfields Company (AGC) says it has improved air quality in the Obuasi area significantly, making arsenic trioxide pollution a thing of the past.

This follows the installation of a seven million dollar Arsenic Recovery Plant (ARP) at the Pompura Treatment Plant (PTP) in the town, which makes arsenic trioxide, a white smoke from mining operations, disappear completely from the atmosphere.

Speaking to members of the Institute of Financial and Economic Journalists (IFEJ) at Obuasi, Mr Samuel Azuah, Environmental Manager at the Obuasi Mine on the environmental impact of the company's activities, said "AGC has made air in the town even more cleaner due to the closure of the previous plant, which required burning and created smoke"

He said it was not true that AGC has destroyed the environment completely as has been rumoured in certain quarters. "The fact is that we (AGC workers) also live in this community; so if we pollute the place, our families will also be at risk and be infected."

He stressed that AGC was conscious of the socio-cultural and physical environment in which it operated and was well informed in its activities toward improving the quality of life on the mine and its surrounding communities through comprehensive environmental strategy of waste minimisation, recycling of waste, cleaner disposal and proactive mitigation measures.

"Ashanti's investments and continuing improvements in social infrastructure including housing projects, schools, sport facilities, air strip, hospitals and sewage treatment plant bear ample testimony to this," he said.

Azuah said liquid discharges directed from the PTP into the Kwabrafo River have virtually been eliminated due to the installation of internal sumps at the plant to capture spillage and overflow from process tanks.

"Other liquid discharges which used to carry solids into the river have also ceased," Azuah added. Azuah noted that communities, whose traditional source of water was once affected, have been provided with alternative water supply including 95 pump-fitted boreholes valued at 980,000 dollars.

Under AGC's re-vegetative programme, currently in its seventh year, about 900,000 teak trees have been planted.

"The re-vegetation exercise involves planting selected seedlings on sites previously mined, in some cases, after the pits have been backfilled with mine waste materials. Besides the company has two nurseries with a combined capacity to produce 1.5 million seedlings a year," Azuah said.

On environmental projects planned for this year, Azuah said a full-scale cyanide detoxification plant would be installed at Dokyiwa tailings dam site at 1.5 million dollars.

He explained that a pilot scale cyanide detoxification plant using bacteria to treat effluent from the tailings dams commenced in May 2000 with Whitlock and Associates of the USA, saying, "results to date are very m encouraging."