8 whales die at Ghana beach in 3 years
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Xinhua, November 4, 2011
Eight whales have died since 2007 when foreign oil companies began oil exploration off the Ghana coast, an environmentalist said.
Mr. Kwodwo Kyei Yamoah, program coordinator of Friends of the Nation, an environmental non-governmental organization, has claimed on Tuesday that the persistent death of whales around the oil and gas operations at the West Cape Three Points had created fear and panic among the residents of Half Assini, Ankobra, Bonwire and other coastal communities along the jubilee oilfield exploration.
The residents of Ankobra in the Nzema East Municipality who revered the whales as gods performed rituals and buried them at a designated cemetery.
He said that the most recent death of a whale happened just last week, heightening fear among the six coastal inhabitants that are close to the oil exploration.
The death of whales could be attributed to the exploration of oil and gas at the West Cape Three Points that had seen pollution of the sea by some oil companies, he declared.
Mr. Yamoah alleged that some ships that berth near the oilrigs have been discharging ballaswater (wastewater from oil) into the sea that had subsequently affected the quality of the seawaters hence the rampant death of marine life.
He criticized the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for not often carrying out environmental assessment at the West Cape Three Point area hence the indiscriminate dumping of poisonous chemicals into the sea.
Yamoah appealed to the EPA and Ghana Maritime Authority to institute investigations into the sudden and persistent death of whales around the West Cape Three Points enclave to ascertain the cause of their death.
He referred to recent balls of bituminous substances at the beaches of some coastal communities at Jomoro and Ellembelle dsitricts as evidence of pollution of the sea by operations of the oil and gas sector that threatens the health and safety of the inhabitants.
However, when the Western Regional Director of the Environmental Protection Agency, Mr. Yaw Sarfo Afriyie, was contacted, he said though the agency discovered one dead whale at Ankobra, the death cannot be attributed to the operations of the oil and gas explorations.
He said it would be unfair to accuse the oil companies that are drilling oil at the West Cape three Points for the death of the whales since no research had been conducted to implicate them.
Mr. Afriyie noted that, whales have life spans as human beings and therefore the death of a whale should not be used as grounds to accuse oil companies operating at the jubilee oilfields.
He said his outfit would take steps to investigate the death of the whale in due course.
The America-based Komos Energy discovered oil off the Ghanaian coast in 2007 and oil production at the Jubilee Oil Field was officially began in December last year.
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