THE Volta River Authority (VRA) has organised a workshop on Environmental Management Plan (EMP) for stakeholders of the Akosombo and Kpong generating stations to determine the key social and environmental impacts of the construction of the dams and their operations.
The Deputy Chief Executive of VRA, Mr Kirk Koffie, in his remarks, noted that his outfit had implemented a number of environmental, social and public health measures to reduce or compensate for adverse impact of the dams.
He said VRA now operated a medical boat to provide health care services to people along the Volta lake and had embarked on a gorge afforestation project as well as periodic dredging activities at the estuary.
Mr Koffie said VRA was preparing an EMP in accordance with the best practices to ensure that the dams were operated in an environmentally sustainable manner and also ensure that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) requirements were complied with.
The Special Assistant to the Chief Executive of VRA, Major John Gyasi (retd), stated that the preparation and implementation of the EMP for the two dams was to fulfil a key legal requirement of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as required by the environmental assessment regulation.
He said the EMP would identify the total impact of the construction of the dams both upstream and downstream and outline measures to be taken to mitigate them.
A consultant to the project, Mrs Margaret Hartman, observed that the overall objective of the EMP was to ensure continuous improvement in environmental performance in reducing or compensating for the adverse impact.
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