After a detailed Process Audit of all Used Lead Acid Battery (ULAB) facilities and a series of tests carried out on soil, water, air, and blood tests on residents of the Industrial town in the aftermath of the alleged lead poisoning, the Ogun State government has flagged off a Remediation Exercise aimed at freeing the Industrial town of any form of Lead contamination.

Flagging off the remediation exercise, the General Manager of the Ogun State Environmental Protection Agency, OGEPA, Hon. Kehinde Bello, said the state government, as part of the exercise, has begun to evacuate slag dumped in various communities within the town due to their hazardous nature, which will free residents of the communities who are not aware of their hazardous nature from any contamination.

Hon Bello said, “The evacuation of this slag will take us weeks to complete because lots of them are illegally dumped in many communities surrounding the ULAB facilities, as the state government determined to evacuate them in the overall public interest and well-being of the residents.”

He therefore assured those living in those communities and the entire Ogijo residents that the era of illegal dumping of slag is over, as the state government has directed all the ULAB facilities to upgrade their technology by deploying automatic battery breakers to their system, which will reduce slag generation to the barest minimum, as well as obey the state government’s standard procedures on slag management.

Also speaking, OGEPA’s Director of Hazardous Material Management, Mr Babatunde Lawal, said aside from the evacuation of slag in those communities, there will be a bioremediation exercise through planting of planting materials that will take off the Lead that might have gone into the soil so that the places where the slag was dumped and has now been evacuated will be free from lead contamination.

He, however, urged ULAB facilities to operate responsibly and sustainably in the interest of environmental protection and public safety.

For the Director, Inspectorate and Compliance, OGEPA, Mr Tunde Bolarinwa, the Agency will continue to monitor the ULAB facilities to ensure compliance with the state government’s new standards and operational guidelines, with severe sanctions against defaulters.