General News of Wednesday, 17 September 2008

Source: GNA

Unwholesome water flows again at La

Accra, Sept. 17, GNA - The unwholesome tap water that flowed through taps in parts of La last week has started flowing again this week after Aqua Vitens Rand Limited (AVRL) had said they had fixed the broken pipeline suspected to be the source of the problem. A visit by the Ghana News Agency to the area on Wednesday revealed that water flowing through the taps in at least three houses at La Olympia area, still had colour and was stinking as ever. Following reports on the problem by the GNA, AVRL moved in and fixed a broken underground pipeline within the community.

A fence wall of an encroacher broke a pipeline, that led to unwholesome water from a tie and dye factory in the area flowing through the broken pipeline and through taps in homes. Shortly after fixing the pipeline, clean and wholesome water flowed through the taps, residents confirmed, but that was for only a brief period. However, another leakage has been discovered very close to the spot where the previous one was found and the AVRL team says it has been fixed. Residents are charging that the water flowing through their taps was nowhere near wholesome.

However, Mrs Sandra Ollenu, a resident in the area, said, "fixing a broken pipeline is one thing and ensuring that we have clean water flowing through our taps is another. As far as we are concerned the problem is not solved because the water is still undrinkable".

Mr Stanley Martey, Communications Manager at AVRL, had earlier told journalists that even though the water had been restored to its drinkable state, the situation was being closely monitored over a period of two weeks. He said the two-week monitoring period had not elapsed yet and so AVRL was within its operational time table as far as addressing that problem was concerned. "We have flushed the pipelines again and we expect clean water to flow through the pipelines soon," he said.