Assessment of Environmental and Health Effects of Stone Quarry Activities at Buoku in the Wenchi Municipality

Abstract

Background Information: Quarrying comprises diverse activities and operations that produce high level of noise and dust particles in the environment within which it is practised. The main objective of this study was to assess environmental and health effects stone quarry activities at Buoku in the Wenchi Municipality. The study adopted a cross-sectional survey design. Probability sampling techniques such as; cluster sampling, stratified sampling, and simple random sampling techniques were used to select a sample of 323 respondents from the community for the study. Measurements were done for dust concentration levels in samples of air from various locations at the quarry site and the surrounding community. Eight sampling locations were identified where the Dust Measuring Device KM 3887 was mounted. Four of the sampling locations were at the quarry site and the other four were in the community. Structured questionnaires were used to collect data from selected community members at Buoku on some environmental effects and respiratory symptoms associated stone quarry activities at the Buoku quarry site. The environmental effects observed included cracks in buildings and plots of land near quarry site and air and water pollution by dust particles while respiratory symptoms assessed included chronic chest pains, difficulty in breathing chronic sneezing, and sore throat. Descriptive and inferential analysis were done using Stata version 14. Results: The results showed that the concentrations of dust particles within air samples collected from various locations at the quarry site were higher than the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) standard of 70 μg/m3 and ranged between 81.2 to 182.7 μg/m3. Also, the total suspended particles within samples of air collected from the various locations within the quarry site were generally, higher than the EPA standard of 230 μg/m3 and ranged from 239 to 632.2 μg/m3. The study also found that the various respiratory infections that were associated with the quarry activities include; cough, catarrh and shortness of breath. Other related respiratory infections that were observed also included frequent sneezing and sore throat. The study found a significant association (p<0.05) between exposure to dust particles from the quarry activities and respiratory symptoms such as; cough, shortness of breath and catarrh. Anther, observations from the study shows that, quarry activities in the Bouku community have adversely affected certain nearby farmlands and probably contributed to the reasons why they cannot support crop cultivation. In addition, the present study shows that quarry dust particles in the atmosphere make the environment cloudy, enter eyes of community members and make visibility poor. Conclusion: The results of the study noted that the dust concentration level in the community was slightly lower as compared to the EPA standard. In the quarry site, however, the dust concentration levels observed were higher compared to the EPA standards. The study also, found significant relationships between the dust emissions from the quarry activities and dust related health challenges, with exception of catarrh which was not significantly associated with amount of dust particles in the atmosphere. Finally, several buildings observed within the quarry community had cracks in them as typified by buildings occurring in quarry communities elsewhere. Therefore the study recommended that, regular environmental audit and monitoring of quarrying activities should be enforced in order to ensure adherence to the standards and limits of the concentrations of the dust generated from the different stages of their operations, the EPA need to visit the site of the quarry and put in place regulations to ensure that the level of noise and dust concentrations are within the allowed limits. Operating beyond these limits have consequences on the whole environments and especially the health of the workers in the quarry.