Limestone mining causes widespread disturbance in the environment. Myriad impacts are observed as changes in land use pattern, habitat loss, higher noise levels, dust emissions and changes in aquifer regimes. This process is called dressing of stones.
It is preferable that the stones should be dressed at quarry site which reduces cost of transportation. The weight also gets reduced which is easy for transportation.
Stones contain soft surfaces at fresh stage directly after quarrying, so, dressing can be easily done. The materials produces by quarrying are essential to our everyday lives, providing the construction materials to build roads and buildings, delivering vital minerals to agriculture and supporting the generation of electricity — to name just a few uses.
Comparative results of PM 10 concentration from January to October. The highest concentration of Oterkpolu, N 4 the control site had On the whole, the dry season values are higher than the wet or rainy season results Figure 2. Also, areas closer to the quarries recorded higher results than those farther away.
This is evident from the fact that, Bueryonye, N 1 and Odugblase, N 2 have recorded higher values both in January and June than Klo-Begoro, N 3 because they are closer to quarries operated by Love and A. Klo-Begoro, N 3 showed lower results than N 1 and N 2 since the nearest quarry to this community which is operated by Kasad is not as close as observed for the other two cases.
Figure 2. A survey of the communities and the quarries revealed worrying issues concerning the impacts of the mining activity on the environment which included impact on buildings, farmlands, crops and water systems.
Several buildings were observed to have developed different degrees of cracks with some near collapse. These cracks were basically due to strong vibrations coming from rock blasting. Farmlands are usually lost to flood waters which are water pumped from the quarry pits and runoffs. Figure 3 shows a photograph of one such river system that has been affected by water pumped from mine pits. Dust from rock processing and unpaved dusty roads have settled on crops and other plants as a result of sedimentation.
High concentrations of dust on the plants result in poor plant performance and yield. Figure 4 shows crops on farmlands near a and far away b to a quarry site. It has not been possible to separate the health records of the people from the control community, N 4 from those of the study area, N 1 , N 2 and N 3 because all residents attend the same health facilities.
The study could therefore not compare the health records of the two sets of communities. It could be observed that health records obtained from the health centres have shown a noticeable increase in dust related diseases in the study area. Ear infection and acute respiratory tract infection ATI are. Figure 3. River Tetewu polluted by quarry run-off. Figure 4. The effect of dust from mining activities on crops in the study area.
Cases of cough are also slightly on the increase with pneumonia and eye infections noticeable among the people. Water related sicknesses, noticeably malaria infection rose significantly from onwards and cases of diarrhoea also rose slightly. Schistosomiasis and typhoid infections were rather insignificant as can be seen in Figure 6. There is an observed rise in cough, pneumonia, chest pains, common cold, eye problems and other respiratory tract infections ATI like catarrh, sore throat from to at Oborpa clinic Figure 7.
Headache, eye infection, ear infection and asthma have also increased significantly as portrayed in Figure 7. The increase in respiratory tract infection from can be attributed to patients suffering from the effects of quarry dust.
Records of some water-related or borne diseases obtained from Oborpa clinic show an upsurge in malaria cases from to Figure 8. Diarrhoea cases also increased gradually since Cholera cases are rather low with no records of Schistosomiasis and dysentery during the period.
The high malaria infection could be attributed to flooded lands as a result of quarrying leading to mosquito breeding in stagnant waters created by the quarrying activities. All dust related diseases have risen sharply from onwards.
The most observable diseases are cough, chest pains, common cold headache, pneumonia, asthma, ATI and eye infection which rose steadily from to date as can be seen in Figure 9. The rise in ear infection may be due to the high levels of noise from machinery and trucks especially among quarry workers. As can be seen from Figure 1 0 , there has been a steady rise in malaria and diarrhoea cases since to from the records obtained from Obenyemiclinic.
Typhoid, cholera, schistosomiasis and dysentery have not been noticed among the water related or borne diseases at this clinic. The upsurge in malaria and diarrhoea cases could be attributed to flooding of lands which often create stagnant waters which serve as mosquito breeding grounds. The questionnaire sort to gather information on the health health status respectively. The apparently poor health status of the people could be attributed to the high concentration of particulate matter dust generated from the quarries, drinking of unclean rain water and perhaps status of the residents before and after the inception of the quarrying activities.
These residents are engaged in farming or other forms of livelihood with some working. Figure 5. Atua government hospital out-patient morbidity returns dust related Source: Atua Government Hospital. Figure 6. Figure 7. Oborpa clinic out-patient morbidity returns dust related Source: Oborpa Clinic.
Figure 8. Oborpa clinic out-patient morbidity returns water related Source: Oborpa Clinic. Figure 9. Obenyemi clinic out-patient morbidity returns dust related. Figure 1 0. Obenyemi clinic out-patient morbidity returns water related Source: Obenyemi Clinic. The health status of the people could be generally classified as excellent before the start of quarrying. The respondents indicating that all of them had very good or excellent conditions of health before the start of quarrying activity show some possibility of bias.
Nonetheless, it is still fair to accept their stated current condition of health given the observations made from the health data collected from the health facilities after the start of the quarrying activity.
From Figure 1 2 , it would be observed that the health status of the people has declined. On the whole, the present health status of the people can only be judged as fair. As can be seen from Figure 1 3 , there has been a significant rise in the percentages of respondents who suffer currently from the dust related diseases.
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Introduction Mineral deposits are finite and will eventually be exhausted Jowitt et al. The present study was designed with the following objectives: 1 To analyze the physicochemical properties of solid waste from the limestone quarry.
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