For the past couple weeks I've been trading e-mails with Bill Lovelock, an American stationed at the U.S. Consulate in Lagos, Nigeria who saw our Ocean Symphony PSA on the Armed Forces Network. We worry about our coastal waters getting fouled, but he paints a picture of truly horrific water pollution in Lagos. Keep reading below for the really disgusting details of what he sees. Warning: it's pretty shocking to read.
Also, here's a travel item he has written for a website.
Lagos is the nastiest place on the planet. For all the plastic and trash that you see floating in the photos, there is just as much or even more that doesn't float, but just drifts around submerged. Normally we have to stop our boat and reverse the propellers at least twice on the 10 minute ride home after work, just to clear the trash off the propellers. The area in my photos is clear of trash in the mornings, but by the afternoon, the trash is backed up again. Occasionally, we see dead bodies floating in the water, so we try not to look too close at it-especially the big pieces. This, of course, ruins your whole day and makes you feel terrible that people could toss bodies in the water, but I guess most people are so poor here, there are no other options for burial. Also, the crime rate here is unimaginably high. They claim dozens of people disappear in Lagos every night, many of them courtesy of the local police. They simply knock people in the head and throw them in the water.
In Lagos, there are open sewers everywhere, no public toilets, and Nigerians are peeing and pooing everywhere you look in open view. Nigerian women have perfected a way to spread their legs apart and pee while standing up. We ride a shuttle to work in the morning and we cross a half-mile long bridge called Falomo Bridge. There's a catwalk for pedestrian traffic on both sides of the bridge, but only one side is used for walking on. The one on the opposite side is a "toilet" where everyone takes a dump. When our shuttle is in the lane next to his catwalk, you can look up the side of the bridge and see thousands of piles of shit! Amazing, and almost unbelievable, right? Meanwhile, fishermen are happily dropping their handlines over the side of the bridge and catching sardines. Delicious!
Official Americans live on small compounds here with 5-6 housing units on
each compounds. We have septic tank trucks that come several times a week to empty our septic tanks. These trucks are all over Lagos and they discharge their loads directly into the waterway. Their is an 8-ft high wall alongside the roadway that runs parallel with the waterway. The trucks line up single-file and plug their 4-inch hoses in a hole in the wall and discharge their loads. As far as I can see, on the other side of the wall is a concrete culvert that runs downhill directly into the waterway. They always empty our septic tanks at night, so I'm thinking they don't even bother to go to this wall, but instead just drive down to the water and discharge into the waterway.
In spite of all the nastiness, there are many rivers emptying into the ocean here and most of the coastline is a gigantic delta. There is abundant sea life all around in spite of the conditions.
Nigerians do not seem to notice or be bothered at all by trash and pollution. There is oil here and the country has the resources to prevent this from happening if they just had the desire to do so. Billions (not millions) of dollars are "scraped off the top" of the country's oil revenues each week by crooked politicians and government officials.
I'm sure there are many government environmental organizations here that are supposed to be looking after the environment. I'm not really sure what it would take to get them to actually do their jobs, but I think education and perhaps a little coercion from international environmental groups might help. Also, perhaps if world attention were focused on the pollution here, the government might be embarrassed into cleaning the place up.
Posted by Randy Olson at May 20, 2004 10:45 AM