WHEIN TOWN, Paynesville City – Last year John F. B. Flumo’s dream of educating the children of this community died. Toxic gases and smoke coming from the neighboring Whein Town landfill had been pouring into the Liberate African Rescue Mission School which he has been operating since 2013 making children and teachers sick. By the start of the 2023 school year he knew he had no choice but to shut down.
By Nemenlah Cyrus Harmon with New Narratives
The school – made up of makeshift classrooms – operated up to junior high level and had 50 students enrolled.
“I can’t keep children in suffocation,” Flumo said on a recent afternoon outside the former school site. “I can’t keep children in a health hazard because of the odor of this dumpsite.”
This week the problem got even worse as city authorities announced a fire had started within the pit sending more smoke across the community. Experts say it will be very difficult to put out.
Air pollution is a leading silent killer in Liberia. Data on air quality in the country is almost non-existent – a major problem in itself say experts – but the data that is available points to big problems. Air pollution is not just responsible for obvious illnesses like respiratory diseases like pneumonia and asthma. Tiny particles of pollution get into the bloodstream where they can cause heart disease, stroke, diabetes, blindness, infertility and cancer. Experts say when motorbike riders die of heart attacks or stroke at relatively young ages – in their 30s and 40s – air pollution is likely a factor.
The World Health Organization’s 2023 health and environmental scored-card found “52 percent of death from stroke and heart disease are caused by air pollution.” On average air pollution is seven times higher than WHO guidelines recommend.
Vehicle emissions are a major part of the problem. So are waste burning and smoking and cooking over coals, wood and tires. The WHO scorecard found 100% of the population has no access to clean fuels and technology for cooking.
Unlike Ghana and several other African countries, there are no advanced sensors to measure air quality in Liberia. But experts say there is no doubt it’s taking a toll.
“A lot of people die from respiratory related illnesses, heart attack, high blood pressure, stroke, as a result of air pollution that comes from inhaling toxic air,” says Nathaniel Blama, former executive director of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Parts of Liberia are heavily polluted according to the only expert working on clean air in the country, Rafael S. Ngumbu, Manager for Environmental Research and Radiation Safety at the EPA, and the Liberian focal point for the global the Climate and Clean Air Coalition, a global body.
“Especially in certain areas that are along road corridors from vehicles emission and near industries and even at homes that have to use their small generators for power generation,” Ngumbu says.
Whein Community likely has the most polluted air in the country. Home to 13,000 people the community became host to the 25-acre landfill – the country’s largest, in 2005 after the closure of previous disposal site in Fiamah, Monrovia.
Flumo, 48, said he knows that the consistent smoke and gases from the landfill have not just closed his school, but are also killing him and his family slowly. The only solution Flumo has found is to abandon his house by day returning only to sleep.
“The moment the smoke begins, when I inhale it, it dries my throat and pains my heart,” he said. “That’s what happening to me.”
Respiratory infections represent the second highest number of illnesses being treated at the Bengee Medical and Maternity Clinic, one of the most visited health facilities here, accounting for “almost 25 percent,” according to Marie F. Paye-Byepu, a registered midwife and chief of the clinic. Staff expert things to get worse as the fire rages out of control.
Town leadership are angry at the ongoing problem.
“Our living condition in this community is so pathetic,” says Myers F. Gibson, chairman for Whein Town. “You can even see my little daughter is suffering from the cough from the smoke. From the quality of my voice, tell you that I am suffering from cough.”
Gibson wants the site closed. “It’s unbearable. We are calling on international community, we calling national government to immediately close this place and see how best they can quash this fire.”
Michael A. Thomas, who represents the community at the Legislature, recently wrote to the House of Representatives calling for the immediate closure of the site. “Our people are dying from water borne disease, from smoke, from a lot of other hazardous health situations. I am optimistic that in the future we can have that place closed.”
Liberia joined the Climate and Clean Air Coalition in 2014 to combat short-lived climate pollutants, especially in the waste, household energy and cooling sectors. Most of the gases that cause air pollution also contribute to climate change. But Africa only contributes about 4 percent of the world’s global greenhouse gas emissions so the impact on people’s heath is far more pressing.
The EPA’s Ngumbu says little funding has been received from the Coalition for the development of two key strategies: the first is the development of methane roadmap. The second is for black carbon, which is particularly hazardous to human health.
“Black carbon which is emitted from open burning of wastes and also methane which is also emitted from the improper management of waste,” he says.
Ngumbu expects up to $100,00 will be provided for each strategy by the global body, but, he says, “it’s a drop in the ocean”.
Ngumbu says there is no data available on the number of premature deaths attributable to air pollution in Liberia each year but in Ghana the number is 28,000. The comparable number given Liberia’s population would be at least 4,600. Far more are sickened. According to the WHO, 99 percent of the world’s population lives in places where air pollution levels exceed WHO guidelines, with air pollution causing 6.7 million deaths each year.
Mr. Amos Gborie, Director for the Division of Environmental and Occupational Health at the National Public Health Institute of Liberia, turned down several requests for comment on the issue.
Even without sensors Ngumbu says there is no question that people in communities like Whein Town are living with dangerous levels of air pollution.
“I will recommend it’s closed,” says Ngumbu.
Blama is frustrated by government inaction.
“I normally say it’s lack of understanding of the issue,” he says. “A lot of people sit in high policy making office, when they talk about allocating resources, they think, those things don’t matter, but imagine the threat it poses. Soon you have people just dropping and dying from stroke and pressure and we don’t understand the reason why, but this is what we are supposed to tackle policy wise.”
“One way is to make sure that the petroleum imported into the country, the diesel, the gasoline, the PMS, and kerosene meet minimum standards,” Blama says. He hopes the new Boakai administration will start a massive public awareness campaign in schools and the community. He also said deploying air quality sensors is essential so people and experts know the real danger.
In the meantime Blama advises people to protect themselves. “Wear nose masks, especially those that sit on motorbikes in the day when the traffic is intense.”
Dr. Chris Dougbeh Nyan, a leading infectious diseases expert, agrees that Liberians are at great risk from air pollution. He wants to see controls on waste burning and safer waste dumping facilities.
“If that is done, I think Liberia being part of that kind of statistic will help to reduce that huge health burden that air pollution places on the population,” Dr. Dougbeh Nyan says.
This story is collaboration with New Narratives as part of the “Investigating Liberia” project. Funding was provided by the US Embassy in Monrovia. The funder had no say in the story’s content.
