The Sunday News
LACK of co-ordination among various regulatory organisations have curtailed efforts to come up with a firm and final position over the status of farms surrounding the Umguza District which are linked to the heavily contaminated Umguza River that experts say should be treated as a crisis.
The responsible authorities have also failed to come up with a common position whether produce watered using irrigation water from the river was safe for consumption or not, leaving people especially in Bulawayo who consume the bulk of the products, panicking over possible health consequences.
Last week the Environmental Management Agency (EMA) banned farmers dependent on Umguza River and water sources near the river from producing vegetables while villagers’ boreholes next to the river were sealed after a discovery that the water contains high levels of metals and other pollutants that can cause chronic illnesses.
Most of the produce from the farming area which includes cabbages, lettuce, carrots and tomatoes is sold in Bulawayo, raising serious fears that a number of people could possibly be suffering from chronic illnesses or could have died as a result of consuming contaminated vegetables.
The farmers have since been advised to grow grains such as wheat, maize and sorghum.
While EMA, through the Minister of Environment, Water and Climate, Cde Saviour Kasukuwere, has announced their intention to increase fines for environment polluters, no solution appears to be in sight from other responsible authorities, who have not spoken with one voice on the matter.
“We are changing the fines that are being charged by EMA and companies are able to pay and not feel the pinch but now we have resolved to increase them so that when a firm goes against the law they will feel the effects on their finances.
“A firm can pay $5 000 but the damage they will have caused to the environment is way more than that amount so we have come up with a Statutory Instrument that will see the fines going up,” said Cde Kasukuwere during a tour of the river.
In an interview, EMA provincial manager for Matabeleland North Province, Mrs Chipo Mpofu Zuze, said as an agency they had done their part of advising the authorities that there was an environmental problem that had to be addressed as a matter of urgency and it was now up to those responsible to act and further accept that this was a realistic problem, which could even have a bearing on the health of people.
“Our role is to go to a place and identify whether there is an environmental situation or not and in this case we did just that, there are now supposed to be specialists who will come and draw up the wholesome impact of this situation, we must honestly stop developing excuses but simply accept that we have a situation on our hands and deal with it accordingly.
“As EMA it would not be our duty to say that the crops are safe or not because there are specialists doing that and it is these that should now say what should be done, as EMA we have done our job,” she said.
Zimbabwe National Water Authority (ZINWA) Gwayi catchment manager Mr Fortune Musoni acknowledged that issue was giving them sleepless nights but revealed that they had resolved to meet various technical partners tomorrow where they would analyse the researches carried out at the river, test the water and resolve on whether the produce was safe to consume or not.
“At the moment people should not necessarily panic, what will happen is that on Monday (tomorrow) we will meet as technical partners where we can then say what is happening. We now have to speak with one voice.
“What people should note is that there are a number of researches that have been done, the National University of Science and Technology and the Zinwa research, some of these researches even contradicting each other. We need to come together and draw a clear way forward, people should be made aware whether produce from these farms is safe or not,” said Mr Musoni.
He said they now needed a biochemistry perspective, which would assist them be able to know which steps to take next. Minister of Provincial Affairs for Matabeleland North Cde Cain Mathema who last week expressed concern over the safety of people consuming vegetables from Umguza area in his province has clarified that he had not had sight of the Nust research report on the environmental problems in Umguza as implied in last week’s report.
Matabeleland North provincial agricultural extension officer Mr Dumisani Nyoni also acknowledged the crisis at hand noting that they taken samples of water to experts who were analysing the concentration of the dangerous chemicals to determine whether they were a danger to human health or not.
He said in the meantime as Agritex they were advising consumers of produce from Umguza to thoroughly wash the produce before consuming it.
“For now we are working with a number of experts who are carrying out the scientific tests on the water and the produce that is being watered using the water. Until we get the results from those tests our best advice is that consumers should thoroughly wash this produce and if possible boil them,” said Mr Nyoni.
Asked for comment on what they were doing to also assist in curbing the problem Bulawayo City Council’s senior public relations officer, Mrs Nesisa Mpofu said their hands were tied as they were awaiting government approval to grant them borrowing powers to source funds to rehabilitate sewage treatment system that was spewing sewage into Umguza river.
BCC was fingered as the biggest polluter of the river.
“Our position is simple, we applied for borrowing powers from the government that will see us addressing this problem, until such a time that we get these there is not much we can do,” said Mrs Mpofu.
Mr Charles Teta, an Environmental Toxicologist and Research Fellow in the Ecotoxicology Research Group under the Department of Environmental Science and Health at the National University of Science and Technology said the levels of contamination in Umguza River were alarming, with need for it to be treated as a crisis due to its effect on people and animals downstream.
“According to our research findings, the level of pollution in the Umguza River is alarming. The fact that Bulawayo is in a semi-arid region, with low erratic rains, means that extremely high strength effluent is replenishing the Umguza River and Dams. There is little natural water available to dilute pollutants to levels that are environmentally safe.
“The authorities should engage all industries operating in Bulawayo and inform them on the repercussions of negligent effluent disposal and this coupled with tight monitoring and revamping of the aging sewage treatment infrastructure could help reduce pollution. EMA fines alone may not be deterrent enough and may not be the solution because some industries may prefer to pay the fines than to meet the costs of effluent pre-treatment,” he said.
He revealed that the level of chromium in water is usually low, but the most toxic form of chromium was chromium (V1) (hexavalent chromium) which causes DNA (Deoxyribonucleic acid) damage.
DNA is the one which makes up genes, hence its damage leads to mutations of the genetic material.
Other known effects are cancers (which result from DNA damage), and weakened immune system. On the skin it may include ulcerations, dermatitis, and allergic skin reactions.
Last week it was also discovered that the water in Umguza could not sustain common aquatic animals such as frogs raising fears how people were surviving using the water.
