News14 Boreholes drill holes into future of environment
Recently the federal government raised alarm over the indiscriminate digging of boreholes across the country without requisite approvals. The Minister of Water Resources, Engr. Suleiman Adamu, pointed it out at the National Borehole Master Drillers Conference, organised by the Association of Water Well Drilling Rig Owners &Practitioners (AWDROP) in Abuja, said the situation was becoming worrisome and needed to be checked.
Daily Trust Saturday’s checks showed that only 57 percent of Nigerians have access to potable pipe borne water as provided by water ministries both at state and federal level across the country. According to the federal government, “A worrying challenge is the declining percentage of Nigerians that are getting their water supply through piped networks, from 31 percent in 1990 to less than 7 percent in 2017.”
“With these statistics, this is to mean that 43 percent of Nigerians are left with no access to water,” Adamu said at an event to mark 2018 World Water Day. This leaves a huge gap for the people who now depend on water from rivers, streams, and wells, which are often impure for consumption and as a result many fall back to borehole digging.
Adamu, while noting that it was unfortunate that the industry was for allcomers, said it was surprising that even in urban centres like Lagos, Abuja and Kaduna, the digging of boreholes was being done indiscriminately. He however called for the urgent passage of the Water Bill by the National Assembly to address the situation.
No doubt, drilling of boreholes provides succour to people where there is no pipe borne water. However, there seems to be some environmental issues associated with it.
Abdulwahab Suleiman told Daily Trust Saturday in an interview that when he started erecting a building in one of the Abuja satellite towns, he realised that there was no source of water nearby. The nearest, he said, was other neighbour’s boreholes, which were not open for public use. “I decided to sink a borehole in the premises of my building. And because I didn’t have much funds, I opted for the type done using a small machine. At the end, the borehole project failed after three separate attempts led to a hard rock,” he said.
Suleiman said even his neighbours that have boreholes were having bad water. “I really don’t know why the minister is complaining. If government were up and doing in its responsibility of providing potable water for the people, no-one would be wasting money drilling boreholes,” he said.
However, some experts have said that drilling boreholes could lead to landslides, earthquakes or tremors in the foreseeable future. They also said it is easily contaminated by metals and microorganisms.
Daily Trust Saturday spoke to experts on the issues raised by the minister. A professor of Climatology at University of Lagos, Prof Emmanuel Oladipo, said his contention is that while indiscriminate borehole construction could be having some impact on the hydro-geological conditions of the underground water system, the exact impact and potential for generating subsidence and even earthquake may not be known until they are able to do an intensive and focused study.
“The only thing I can say is that Nigeria is not in the earthquake-prone areas of the world and borehole drilling cannot trigger earthquake, but maximum localised subsidence, he said. The challenge for the country and the people is that since the government is not in position to provide potable water to the people, there is no alternative to drilling boreholes for individual use. In that regard, you may advise the government to commission a technical team to undertake a comprehensive technical analysis of the challenge.”
A professor at the Faculty of Environmental Sciences, Nasarawa State University, Keffi, Prof Nasiru Idris, said borehole-drilling has significant implications on the environment in several ways including reducing soil moisture and soil fertility in the immediate environment where the boreholes are dug. “It also adds stress and pressure on the area. Plants within the area will have to compete for water especially when the water table goes down further,” he added.
“Researchers have been sending warnings against indiscriminate sinking of boreholes, saying it could cause earthquakes, but this assertion is not scientifically proven to a large extent. Therefore, it is just advisable to regulate the number of boreholes in an area before scientific evidence. As you may know, when a borehole dries up, it has created a hole or a vacuum and it may collapse and thus create a tremor.”
On pollution, Idris affirmed that domestic boreholes pollute the water because of indiscriminate use without regulations. “Most domestic boreholes are not properly utilized for maximum capacity. Therefore it will pollute the water within the aquifer. The way forward to this is to have an industrial borehole for each neighbourhood or community instead of individual households,” he said. He however advised government to regularly checkmate the construction of boreholes for sustainable water management and protection of the environment.
A lecturer at same varsity, Adana Yusuf Mohammed, said the argument that borehole drilling in Nigeria cannot result into earth tremor (earthquake) due to the fact that Nigeria is not around the earthquake region can be termed as “green washing”.
Mohammed said each drill sends specific seismic waves along fault lines and can over time cause collapsing of the bedrock. He noted that studies conducted in Nepal suggested that notable earthquakes of about 7+ magnitude were caused by abstraction of huge ground water in indo-gangetic plains.
Meanwhile, the Director of Economic Geology at Nigerian Geological Survey Agency, Dr Abdulrazaq Garba told Daily Trust Saturday that excessive extraction of water from the ground is not part of what they consider to cause earthquakes, most especially in basement terrain like Nigeria where you have hard rock like granite and others. In sedimentary environment when you have excessive water extraction sometimes depending on the setting there could be ground subsidence but not tremor,” he said.
Garba said excessive water extraction can also cause decrease in ground water level. The director, who did not rule out the possibility of earthquake in the future, said: “For now the tremor we have in this part of the world is so mild that I don’t think it has anything to do with ground water extraction.” On contaminating underground water, he said that can only happen when you use unwholesome practices or when you have it close to sewage.
“For example if you have too many boreholes and you punch the ground, your soak-away pit will be realising some materials into the water and thereby contaminating the water,” Garba concluded.