Ghanaian Scientists Tackle a New Scourge: Illegal Gold Miners

In September 2016, Edjah, a PhD student at the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission, was sampling groundwater in the lower Tano River basin, near the border with Ivory Coast. She uses a research reactor here in Accra, Ghana’s capital, to probe isotopes in the water to assess how contaminated it is. Scattered across the basin are scores of artisanal gold mining operations, which in Ghana are called “galamsey.” Many of these operations are illegal, and nearly all are unregulated. Pollution – especially mercury and other heavy metals – seeping from those mining sites has become so pervasive that scientists held a workshop here over the summer entitled the “Galamsey Menace.”
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