Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State on Tuesday appealed to residents to guard against the indiscriminate sinking of boreholes.
The governor gave the advice at a workshop organised by the Lagos State Water Regulatory Commission in Ikeja.
Fashola said it was difficult to divorce human activities, such as the drilling of multiple boreholes, from the frequent cases of building collapse in the state.
He said that sinking of many boreholes, without expert advice on a street, posed threats to the environment and grave implications to health and safety.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the theme of the workshop is: “The Environmental and Health Impact of Ground Water Abstraction in Lagos State.”
He said: “We are not saying residents should not drill boreholes but we are saying it is possible that one could be enough for a whole street or two streets.
“Drilling too many boreholes leads to the over extraction of water from the ground and this has a negative impact on the environment.
“Indiscriminate drilling should stop for the sake of health and safety.”
The governor noted that indiscriminate disposal of refuse and waste water also posed great health risks and urged residents to ensure proper management of wastes.
He added: “We have to be careful how we dispose wastes because wastes could generate poisonous products.
“So, we must continually tell ourselves that we must control and manage how we get rid of wastes or else they will come back to us in forms that may be poisonous to our well being.”
The governor said the government was building new water works and expanding the capacity of the existing ones, to ensure sufficient water supply to the people of the state.
Yewande Adeshina, the Special Adviser to the Governor on Public Health, said effective disposal of waste water was very strategic to the health policy of the state.
Adesina urged residents to ensure the proper disposal of waste water, to guard against environment-related diseases.”
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