There is no hiding the fact that waste management is and has remained a daunting challenge to the Abia state government but the current waste situation around Ugwunchara, Umuagu ibeku down to Ohuhu area calls for urgent intervention by the authorities to avert a possible outbreak of epidemic which is likely to erupt any time soon.

Travelling along Ugwunchara, down to War Museum road between Holy Rosary College and states CID one must notice an unmistakable presence of weeks of uncleared refuse and the ooze of foul stench polluting the air along the Umuagu Ibeku axis. At the Isi okata, Umuda and Umuawa junction, the dump has spilled over to the main road and has taken over a quarter of the narrow one lane road leading to the NNPC mega station through Umuawa Alaocha while the acidic substances being emitted from decayed waste keeps softening the tarred section of the road thereby causing underground damage to the road and assisting the heavy gully erosion that has eaten up a large portion of that road to keep expanding.

The mountainous heaps of refuse being piled daily and left undisposed for over 8 weeks and counting is not only an embarrassment but has become hazardous and health threatening to Umuyota, Umuawa, Umuda and the surrounding communities.

The mounds of solid waste being deposited at Isi Okata junction has taken a threatening dimension with the discharge of poisonous or radioactive substances from the decayed refuse into the streamlet which runs directly into Ikwu Umuyota and Onu iyi Umuawa streams; the only sources of domestic water available to those communities, while the reek emanating from the refuse is capable of poisoning the air around the Ohuhu axis.

There have been repeated appeals to the authorities in ASEPA and the ministry of environment by the affected communities to intervene and rescue them from the impending epidemic that is likely to befall them if the pollution arising from the debris persists, but all that has not received the needed attention from the authorities in ASEPA and ministry of environment.

Ohuhu is environmentally threatened and the health of the people are endangered.

There has been reports of strange ailments afflicting the residents, especially children and pregnant mothers. ASEPA, Ministry of Environment, the house committee on environment and Abia state government should please intervene and save the people from the imminent disaster staring the people in the face, ASEPA has become a big embarrassment to the state and the people.

Aguoru
Writes From Umuahia