‘KOFPOCALYPSE’:  Was It Or Was It Not?

Gordon Offin-Amaniampong examines
In August 2014 Toledo Ohio in the United States snatched the headlines An estimated 500,000 metro Toledo residents scrambled for bottled water because the municipal water had become ‘undrinkable’ and even ‘unusable’ for bathing due to contamination by dangerous blue-green algae. The incident happened in Lake Erie the source of Toledo’s water.

Remember theirs was blue-green algae. Ours was blood-red!

Nsukwao the stream in Koforidua that turned blood-red on Saturday is the main source of drinking water for over a million people in that part of the region. Residents were stunned when they woke up early on Saturday morning to find their drinking source of water bleeding. The cause of the crimson colour for a while remained an enigma or mystery until the police said they’d the answer.

The major question on my mind today is: What‘s been the residents’ reaction following the confirmation by the Police Chief that it was a ‘powdered substance’ that caused the stream to turn blood-like image?

Chief Inspector Ebenezer Sekyi told Ghana web said the substance was poured into the stream by a tie and dye manufacturer. “We’ve been able to gather some evidence from the tie and dye factory. And we’re still looking into the matter and will take the appropriate action in due course”, he said.

What kind of exhibits did the police gather?
Do they include chemicals such as sulfuric acid, chromium, copper and other metallic elements? These are all chemicals used by tie and dye factories and they could be harmful to human health if they aren’t properly disposed.

And that leads me to my next questions: How long would it take the police to look into this powdered substance? What kind of water will the residents in Koforidua and its environs be drinking? Is it from this contaminated water body? Or there’s an alternative source?

Is this company registered? How long has it been operating in this area?

Where have they been dumping the factory‘s waste over r the period of its existence?

And I also I like to find out whether the Ministry of Environment Science & technology and EPA have commissioned an investigative body or yet to set up one to carry out its own investigations?

Kofpocalypse was it or was it not?
I think we can all heap a deep sigh of relief now. Why?

Armageddon is not here yet. As matter of fact no one knows when this will occur.

But the inevitable question is: Are we safe considering the way some selfish individuals or group of persons are destroying our environment –lands, water bodies, soils and the rest?

Indeed what happened in Koftown isn’t peculiar to her. There had been similar occurrences in China, Russia and in the United States. In September 2016 Russian city of Norilsk had similar experience. And as usual residents ascribed many reasons as to the course of the phenomenon.

Unlike Koforidua, Norilsk is a heavily polluted industrial city and it’s home to Norilsk Nickel, a mining giant that has a nickel smelting plant upstream. Thus the Russian authorities immediately launched a full scale investigation looking for a possible culprit that might offload the substance into the water, whe the incident occurred.

Soon Russia’s natural resources and environment ministry said that the blood red color was possibly caused by a "break in a Norilsk Nickel slurry pipe," according to The Guardian’s translation of the Russian press release.

Also in August 2011 when a Lake in Texas turned blood like Indiana preacher Paul Begley and his followers were quick to attribute it to a sign of apocalypse.

By early morning on Saturday 7 October 2017 residents of Koforidua the eastern regional capital (76.9km from Accra) had lined the banks of Nsukwao --a river that possibly takes its source from the Atiwa range to catch a glimpse of the surreal scene.

The blood-red images of the river by mid-day Saturday had stormed all recognised social media platforms amid speculation that there was a tie dye waste dumped into the river. That assertion would later be confirmed. Others also believed it was the sign of End Time.

Often industrial waste or pollution and mining are sources of such contamination. But that did not appear to be the case in Koforidua. Besides, there’s no mining, quarrying or fishing in the Nsukwao River, my checks revealed. It’s however, the main source of drinking water for the people in the locality according to the indigenes.

So what exactly is this so-called ‘powdered substance’ and itshealth implications to the people who live along the stream?

Ronald Cohen, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the Colorado School of Mines gave a perspective in the aftermath of Norilsk’s incident. He said it was possible that the ore processed for the nickel contained high amounts of iron, which was then discarded as waste. And it also suggested that, the iron-rich waste could have ended up in the river, turning it red, Cohen further remarked.

According to him the same had happened multiple times in Sudbury, Ontario, where a local nickel factory had sometimes turned a nearby river a very similar bright red.

“If it’s really a chemical leak, the town is in danger. Water with high concentrations of mine waste or any waste can be toxic, depending on what types of chemicals seep into the water and at what concentrations. When that color is that red, then that isn’t water that you want to drink and that is not water you want to use for irrigational water, and you don’t want your livestock to drink it either," , said Cohen.

History of Dyes
Dyes are used primarily in the production of consumer products, including paints, textiles, printing inks, paper, and plastics. They add colour and patterns to materials. Natural dyes extracted from vegetables, fruit and flowers have been used since 3500 BC to color fabrics and other materials. These dyes were replaced by chemical dyes that bond with the fabric, providing and retaining richer color throughout washing and exposure.

Many different types of dyes consisting of varied chemical compounds are used in production, depending on the type of textile or product being dyed. There are more than 3600 different types of textiles dyes alone. Other dye types include acid dyes for coloring animal fibers, basic dyes for use on paper, direct dyes for use on cotton-wool or cotton-silk, and pigment dyes used in paint and inks.These dyes are manufactured out of a number of different chemicals, but most notably, sulfuric acid, chromium, copper and other metallic elements are used. Dyes are mixed, synthesized in a reactor, filtered for impurities, dried out and then blended.