Dear Editor,

Thank you once again for keeping tabs on the possible pollution of the Haieka River. The release by the Ministry of Health is very inadequate. Sure there are natural causes of toxins, but the belief that they came from dead and decaying worms will remain a belief unless the ministry officials say how they came to their conclusion.

Don’t worms die all the time in the ecosystem? If there is an epidemic of dead worms it might be symptomatic of something else. There is not a single report of what tests were made of the water (as distinct from the people). Not a single one of the detailed concerns I raised in a letter, which you published two months ago (SN, Nov 20, 2011) and passed on to the GGMC, have been answered.

Why is no one testing for mercury in the waters? Inorganic mercury poisoning can also kill fish and cause the symptoms of gastroenteritis. If without using a retort miners burn off mercury from the amalgam with gold above 300°C then it can form mercury oxide, which though sparingly soluble in water, can wait to react with water of low pH (caused, eg, by nitrates generated by thunderstorms), or salt (eg, from disposed cooked food). This is distinct from the formation of methylmercury, which is a chronic neurotoxin and a bigger problem.

If they are indeed testing for mercury why is the result a secret?

If the newly ‘confirmed ‘commissioner and newly ‘appointed’ deputies are not answerable to the public via your newspaper, then what is the need for their offices? If they feel that they are only answerable to the new Minister of the Environment, then the thing to do is to return to their previous status, do those jobs for which we read they are well qualified, and let the Minister do the job of a commissioner and answer the public.

I do not like writing letters with so many ‘ifs’, but I like walking around my country and hate to have it messed up when my taxes have paid for a government.

Yours faithfully,
Alfred Bhulai