Tarkwa, GNA - Authorities of the Ghana Water Company Limited GWCL at Tarkwa  would close down its treatment Plant if illegal miners do not refrain from prospecting for gold in the Bonsa River.

The company presently uses more chlorine to disinfect the water for safe human consumption due to the high sediment load in the River.

Disclosing this in an interview with the Ghana News Agency, Mr. Mawuli Lumor, Ankobrah Basin Officer for the Water Resources Commission, said considering the rate at which illegal miners were operating in Esuoso and the Central Point at Bonsa,  the authorities at the Municipality needed to take urgent steps to stop the problems.

He said if those activities continued it would be difficult for the GWCL to treat water for the people of Tarkwa and its environs.

He said although the Forestry Commission had collaborated with the national security on numerous occasions to organize operations to arrest the culprits who mined on the river, their activities persisted.

Mr. Lumor recalled that about two months ago, one of GWCL’s treatment plants in the Eastern Region was because of the activities of illegal miners.

He, therefore, called on the leaders of the community to help fight the perpetrators and to save the only surface treatment plant that Tarkwa could boast of.

GNA