Dear editor,
I SYMPATHISED with President Sata when he expressed deep sorrow and
regret at the death of asthmatic Mufurila district commissioner Beatrice Mithi, after she allegedly inhaled sulphur dioxide emissions while officiating at a church function at Chawama Hall.
Death, they say, is inevitable but when it happens against the backdrop of environmental degradation caused by toxic emissions it becomes a more painful loss.
Just imagine the district commissioner suffocating to death in front of a prayerful crowd in Chawama Hall! The scene does not speak well for Mufulira.
Needless to say the sulphur dioxide (senta) emissions have a strong association with respiratory tract infections, which may be the common killers of asthmatic adults and children under the age of five in this mining town.
Reportedly at present, over half of all sulphur dioxide emissions are captured and turned into sulphuric acid at the first acid plant, which was opened in 2006, as alleged by Mopani Copper Mines (MCM).
While the work that the mining company is doing in this area is laudable, there is one significant drawback that doesn’t receive enough consideration.
Sulphuric acid is a key ingredient in the production of fertilisers.
MCM’s senior managers are hopeful and confident that with greater local community co-operation, the town can become another producer of fertilisers.
The two common ingredients in fertiliser production are phosphate, which Zambia has in abundance, and sulphuric acid.
Strangely, sulphur dioxide emission is so abundant in Mufulira that the bulk is just released into the atmosphere instead of turning it into sulphuric acid as claimed.
There could have been more such deaths which could have gone unreported because of the low status of the victims
CONCERNED CITIZEN,
Lusaka.
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