Sanitary aspects of groundwater supplies in Ghana

In the past few years, government and several Non­governmental Organizations (NGOs) have carried out major borehole drilling projects in the rural areas of Ghana to increase water supply coverage which is as low as 50%, presently. Although the quality of groundwater in the country is generally good and usable for most domestic, municipal and industrial purposes, recent evidence has, however, shown that human activities have caused contamination of aquifers in some areas. These activities include the indiscriminate disposal of refuse and human wastes around dwellings and the injudicious siting of gardens around well fields. Leachate from these diffuse sources probably, therefore, constitutes the most important source of pol­lution of groundwaters in the rural areas of the country. The concern here is that groundwaters, once contami­nated, are not easily restored as the source of contamina­tion may not be easily traced because of the complexity of flow of groundwaters in the fissures of the Basement Complex Rocks. Insanitary well-head conditions resulting from poor drainage and the scouring of storage containers and drinking utensils with dirt are also some of the secondary causes of contamination of the groundwater supplies. Several measures have been evolved to eliminate the contamination problem and these are discussed in this paper.