The
communities of Gunjur and Kartong have recently joined forces and embarked on
beach cleaning exercise in celebration of World Oceans Day 2017. They gathered a huge amount of rubbish that
had been littered on the beach.
Involved
in the exercise were members of Gunjur, Madina Salam and Kartong communities
including environmentalists, youth, teachers, students, nurses, volunteers from
America, UK and Holland, humanitarian activists, Gambian and Spanish
journalists, hoteliers, catering staff and security workers.
With
so much concern about the health and wellbeing of the people and environment of
Gunjur, the KG taskforce has been proactive in raising awareness and arranging
action to create positive change in the area.
The
taskforce has raised concerns about the negative impacts of the indiscriminate
littering of waste on the beach and the possible health implications of Golden
Lead factory’s operation in the area.
The
taskforce had met every relevant government department both in person and by
formal letter. However, the communities
of Gunjur and Kartong are still patiently awaiting formal feedback and
reassurance from these departments. In
the meantime, the factory – Golden Lead – continues to operate.
During
the beach cleaning exercise, a pipe from the factory into the sea was found
buried in the sand. We were told that
the pipe is not in use; however, there was liquid discharge from the pipe at
two different places that have been observed at different times over the past
few days which suggest that the pipe is still in use.
The
pipe should be moved immediately to restore some confidence at the very least.
The protected lagoon at the community bolong fenyo reserve has already been
completely destroyed and everything dead as direct results of an unknown
substance discharged through the pipe into the waters. It will take years to reverse the effects of
the damage.
The
KG taskforce is very disappointed that Golden Lead factory continues to ignore
a letter we sent them more than two weeks ago regarding the waste being thrown
outside of the factory ground and into bolong fenyo, the poorly maintenance and
dangerous boreholes situated near the community nursery school, and the
releasing of unknown malodorous fluids by the tanks of the company into our
bolong. With this in mind, we were not
surprised that the factory workers did not come and join the community activity
to clean the beach which took place almost outside of the factory door.
However,
the group for the south coast which amounts to several hundreds of concerned
people are not deterred in continuing to protect the local area and raising
awareness. Monitoring groups have been
established.
