Copper wastes a danger in Kasese

Kiiza Mustafa, 16, leaves near one of the huge heaps of stock piles at Road barrier village in Kilembe in Kasese District where copper mining was stopped more than 30 years ago.
He studies in Primary Seven at Kasese Primary School but every morning as he goes to school, he stares at the heaps of wasted minerals; looks around and sees the greenery, the gardens and grasses fading. He cannot stop wondering.

“Shall we, the people who stay around these stock piles, survive?” This is the question Mustafa put to participants in a climate change study tour who visited the sites in the district in June.

“Young man, tell your fellow children to keep away from the stock piles. These are heaps of soft-like powder of minerals that may be toxic to your lives. Studies are still going on to establish whether they can affect man because they have already affected the flora,” one of the participants, Eng. Edward Tumwesigye, responds.

Participants, however, observed that there is always bad smell from the stock piles especially during rainy seasons. During dry season there is too much dust that can affect people’s health.

Grasses drying up
There are about 10 heaps of stock piles around the district, the drying grass around is a sign of the alkaline content of the piles being high. The group also observed that there are more than 13 elements including cobalt, copper sulphate, copper chloride, and copper oxide among others.

“There is a lot of erosion taking place here into river Nyamwamba and finally into Lake George which may lead to the Lake extinction. If no action is taken, then there will be no fish,” Kasese District Information Officer John Thawite says.

Mr Thawite, who moved with the climate change class, added: “Lake George used to be the largest producer of fish in Africa but now the stocks are steadily dwindling.”
Asked what plans are in place to stop any further erosion of the stock piles by rain water, Kilembe Mines General Manager Fred Kyakonye Weraga said: “Where can we put them?”
Posed with the same question, Kasese District Environment Officer Augustine Kooli said: “We have nowhere to put them but we only need to routinely check the water quality (down stream in Lake George) in order to detect any coming hazard.”

This reasoning is similar to what Lavemp was doing with the water hyacinth by waiting for it at Jinja instead of blocking it at Kikagate Bridge in Isingiro District where it entered Uganda through River Kagera. The river carries it like a conveyor belt from Burundi into Uganda at Kikagate.

The NEMA western region focal person and awareness officer, Mr Jeconious Musingwiire, says the impact of the Kilembe stock piles is already felt in the flora and fauna in and around Lake George Ramsar site.

“The minerals have heavy metals which have an accumulation effect in the food chain of the aquatic flora and fauna. If not controlled, the side effects are transferred to people who depend on these biodiversity for food” Musingwiire says.

He adds: “Lake George is the second designated Ramsar site for Uganda and was designated because of being the breeding ground for birds and fish species especially the crested crane and also has the wetlands to buffer the pollution loads from mining and surface run-off from the spillages from cobalt smelting plant at KCCL.”

Musingwiire says: “River Nyamwamba empties directly into Lake George and George connects to Lake Edward through Kazinga Channel. Lake Edward connects to River Semuliki which empties into Lake Albert.”

But Mr Weraga is so defensive: “You should know that there are inert and active materials, there is no proof that there is harm so far,” he says. However, Mr Kooli refutes this position. He says that before the coming of Kasese Cobalt Company limited (KCCL), there was already bare land in the lower side of the Queen Elizabeth National Park with less vegetation due to the residues from the Kilembe stock piles that used to be swept by running rain water.

“This problem has now been checked by KCCL’s intervention and the parts below the deposits centre for KCCL can now be seen regenerating with vegetation,” says Mr Kooli. “If KCCL did not intervene at their coming, the stock piles along the Kasese-Ishaka road would end up choking all the vegetation in the Queen Elizabeth National Park,” observes Mr Kooli.

KCCL is recovering cobalt from stock piles left behind by Kilembe Mines in the 1970s.
Mr Kooli adds: “The water quality in the nearby Lake George is still safe according to the timely tests that are always carried out.”

He says the only surprise during one of the tests was seeing a blue fish in the lake whose fate the scientists have not yet known. However, some experts believe that the blue colour on the fish could have been an indicator of copper sulphate presence in the lake.

Water testing
Mr Kooli says KCCL carries out tests on the water quality every month which is counter checked by NEMA twice a year. But District Fisheries Officer Boniface Bwambale says his office has no facts about the impact of stock piles on the water bodies but admits that some of the piles are eroded into River Nyamwamba.

“We have never carried out water quality tests as a department but I believe some iron is being eroded into Nyamwamba and then to Lake George but comparative water quality tests must be carried out to establish the real facts of the impact,” Mr Bwambale says.

The Climate Change Unit (CCU) Coordinator in Uganda’s Ministry of Water and Environment, Mr Paul Isabirye, says: “We need Environmental Impact Assessment specialists to find out solutions, these stock piles at Kilembe are soft and when they are eroded can silt all the water bodies around, also children can step on them and die of slide.”

Mr Isabirye adds that climate change is affecting all sectors of the economy, including people’s livelihoods and the ecosystem, which is a big threat to the environment as well as social and economic development of the country.

“Urgent but guided action by all stakeholders at all levels is therefore important for both climate change adaptation and mitigation in order to climate proof all planning processes and climate sensitive socio-economic activities for sustainable development,” Mr Isabirye observes.