Editorial: To Splurge $35m To Clean Birim River? – Oh No!

The Chief Executive Officer of the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA), Prof Nana Ama Brown Klutse, has revealed that an estimated $35 million will be required to completely restore the Birim River, which has been severely polluted by illegal mining activities.

Prof Klutse, according to myjoyonline.com report, disclosed this in an interview during a pilot application of ionic nano copper technology at Kyebi-Adukrom in the Eastern Region on Tuesday, February 24, 2026.

The website quoted her as explaining that while the pilot intervention had already produced visible improvements in treated sections of the river, extending the technology across the entire length of the Birim River would require significant financial investment.

According to her, it costs approximately $200,000 to procure enough ionic nano copper technology to clean one kilometre of a flowing river. Given that the Birim River spans about 175 kilometres, she said the total cost of restoration is estimated at $35 million.

“It took us about $200,000 to procure an amount that will clean one kilometre of every flowing river body. The Birim River is about 175 kilometres, so you can do the mathematics, we are talking about $35 million,” she was quoted as saying.

To Prof Klutse, though the pilot project has delivered promising results within a short period, sustained funding will be critical to restoring the river to acceptable environmental standards. Water, as the adage goes, is life, therefore, raising substantial amount of money in foreign currencies to treat our water bodies polluted through illegal activities should not raise any eyebrow.

But the big question is – is this the path we, as a country, should choose now? In our opinion, the answer to this question is a big No. Producers all over the world are looking for markets to sell their products. Having, therefore, realised that our water bodies have been heavily polluted through illegal mining activities, producers of ionic nano copper will obviously be knocking at doors trying to convince us to patronise the product.

Unfortunately, officials at the EPA seem to have accepted the bait and now aggressively promoting the use of ionic nano copper to clean our water bodies. According to the EPA boss, her outfit had already splurged $200,000 to clean just a kilometre of the river. To cover the entire 175 kilometres stretch of the river, the EPA boss says they would need $35m, yes $35m United States bucks.

We believe officials of EPA will start convincing the government to ‘cough up’ this substantial cash to enable them treat the water in the river. Why should we be interested in lining the pockets of the producers of these products instead of looking for alternative solution?

To us at The Chronicle, the solution to the problem does not lie in the method EPA is proposing. The elephant in the room here is to stop the illegal miners from polluting our water bodies. NAIMOS, which has been tasked to stop illegal mining must intensify operations until their objectives are achieved. The root cause of the problem is the illegal miners and if they are dealt with decisively, the turbidity levels of our water bodies, including River Birim, will improve.

The Chronicle does not, therefore, support the ongoing campaign to obviously raise huge sums of money to buy the said products to clean the water bodies. The government must be smart enough to read between the lines. We must not gloss over the fact that it is not only Birim River that is heavily polluted.

Rivers Pra, Ankobra and Offin among others have all been polluted by illegal miners. Are we going to raise $35 million each or even more depending on the length of these rivers to clean them as well? Looking at the problems confronting the country, this not the time to be spending money in such a haphazard manner, in the name of cleaning our water bodies.

The solution to the problem as we have already indicated, is stopping the illegal miners from destroying the rivers. Otherwise we will spend billions of dollars to clean the water bodies, only for the illegal miners to pollute them again.

A word to the wise is enough!

 

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