EPA introduces new standards

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has designed new environmental quality standards in line with international protocols to ensure consumer safety and public health.

According to the Head of Environmental Quality Department of the EPA, Emmanuel Appoh, the said document is a baseline for quality standards development.

In an interview with African Editors, on the sidelines of a training programme for journalists on Environmental and Persuasive Reporting, Mr Appoh charged Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) and religious bodies to apply the new standards.

“We have come out with standards for ambient air quality and stationary or point source emissions. We’ve also come out with noise control, we also have guidelines for measurement of this noise. We have come out with standards also on effluent discharges into the environment. All these standards are meant as a benchmark,” he said.

Key on the list of activities by the EPA is the need to reduce noise pollution to levels aimed at minimising harmful effects on human health. Hearing loss, high blood pressure, heart diseases and low academic performance particularly in children are diseases associated with noise pollution.

Mr. Appoh further explained that the EPA is developing regulations on motor vehicle emissions, ambient air quality and point source/stack emissions, effluent discharges and ambient noise control to be presented to the Attorney General in order to draft a fresh bill for enactment.

The EPA has also called for a scale up in efforts to minimise factors that fuel global warming as studies reveal that 16% of ozone layer depletion causes 7% reduction in fish yield leading to loss of 6 million tonnes of fish per year, an important component of protein in diets for many people across the world.

Principal Programme Officer-in-charge of Energy Resource, Climate Change and Ozone Department at the EPA, Michael Onwona Kwakye, noted that production and usage of some imported chemicals lead to radiations and breakdown of the ozone layer amounting to harmful impacts on humans such as blindness, skin cancers, reduction in crop yield and damage to aquatic life.

Mr Kwakye is advocating awareness creation on implications of ozone destruction. He also wants strict enforcement of clearance procedures at the country’s ports to stop the influx of chemical substances that deplete the ozone layer.

Source: africaneditors.com