ISWSC MD, Chukwuma Cautions Against Pollution, Damage To Facilities …Lauds Uzodimma’s Support For Agency

By Ifeanyichukwu Ibe

The Managing Director of the Imo State Water and Sewerage Corporation, ISWSC, Engr. Peter Chukwuma, has urged residents of the state to imbibe right attitudes towards water bodies and the agency’s facilities, noting that the importance of water to humanity and other creatures makes its preservation and safety an obligation for all.

He made the remarks in his office along Okigwe Road recently, while interacting with our reporter during the commemoration of the 2025 World Water Day. According to him, the annual event instituted by the United Nations in 1993 is aimed at raising global consciousness on the need to ensure both availability and safety of water as a crucial resource without alternative.

Engr. Chukwuma, explained that humankind needs water everyday in certain quantity and quality, hence efforts should be collaborative in managing and preserving such special gift of nature. He encouraged the citizens to be conscious and intentional in managing water, stressing the gradual depletion of water reserves for both temperate and tropical regions.

The ISWSC boss, noted that his agency has always pursued its mandate vigorously by ensuring consistent supply of safe water to the Imo urban residents among other things, thanking Governor Hope Uzodimma for prioritizing safe water needs of the citizens through massive investments in water production and supply through the agency.

He, however, decried abuse and pollution of water by some citizens through dumping of refuse, open defecation and channelling of sewage pipes into water bodies. He noted that such negative behaviours, including damage to the agency’s network of pipes, threaten water sources, safety and the operations of the agency in the areas of cost and ability to distribute safe water and needed quantity to the consumers.

Engr. Chukwuma said: “We’re calling for social behavioural change in the interest of the public. It costs us a lot to treat water and when the quality deteriorates, more money is required to treat it. And then our quality control and assurance become more stringent, making such operations more difficult and expensive. So, I urge the public to help us serve them better by not polluting water sources and causing damage to our facilities.

“I also encourage citizens to inform us when they see leakages on our water distribution pipes, because such if not handled would cause shortfall in safe water supply, as well as expose the treated water to the infiltrations of impurities into our distribution network. Our primary duty as an agency is to make available water from nature suitable for intended use.”

“Let me inform you that before treated water supplied from our facilities gets to various homes, resources had been deployed, monies spent, chemicals applied, pumping and hydrolic systems deployed, including engineering processes that took place like raw water extraction, raw water treatment, treated water storage and transmission and then distribution.”

He also called for concerted efforts towards ensuring that ISWSC pipelines are not harmed as a result of physical development, insisting on proper coordination and adherence to building regulations by stakeholders to avoid causing damage to the agency’s facilities, including distribution pipes, as this, he said, would save the corporation the loss of no revenue water.

The exercise witnessed a road walk and a lecture with the theme: Glacier Preservation” delivered by Prof Luke Uzoigwe of the Imo State University. It had in attendance members of the Rotary Club of Owerri Metropolitan, led by the President, Rtn. Surv. Onyinye Okafor; students and workers from the Nigerian Bottling Company, Owerri Plant.