COMMENT: Spare a thought for aquatic life

Recent reports on fish dying in Shagashe River allegedly to pollution of water by the discharge of raw effluent or sewage into the natural water body could be a sign of how aquatic life can be neglected by human beings who seem to be chief perpetrators of water pollution.
Quite a number of animal species use water as their habitat but human action continues to be detrimental leading to the destruction of that very habitat.
During the weekend of May 21-22, reports and videos of people scrambling for dead fish circulated on various social media platforms in Shagashe River though they disregarded what could have caused such deaths and resultant implications on their health.
For whatever reason could have led to such deaths, the onus is on responsible authorities to make sure cases of pollution are a thing of the past thereby ensuring water sources are free from any kind of pollutants.
The responsible authorities namely Masvingo City Council, its parent ministry that is Local Government, Public Works and National Housing as well as Environmental Management Agency (EMA) are taken to task in this case as failure to ensure the protection of water sources is solely their responsibility not taking away those residents who act irresponsibly by vandalizing sewer reticulation systems.
Initially had council and EMA acted swiftly to the reports of raw sewer flowing into Mucheke River which would then feed into Shagashe, the lives of these poor creatures could have possibly been saved and so is human health which became exposed after feeding on the fish. How can any responsible authority choose to argue that the flow of sewerage is due to vandalism instead of correcting the anomaly then address secondary issues of infrastructure maintenance?
EMA on the other hand could have swiftly moved into action and do what is expected of their management body and ensure water bodies are free of pollution of any kind or form.
If the death of fish could have been caused by any other discharge of chemicals into the river as some authorities would want to argue, again it is their responsibility to ensure such perpetrators are brought to book and held accountable of their actions and thus preserve precious lives of aquatic animals while at the same time the city’s major supplier of water is kept safe as well.
EMA and council should work closely with those stakeholders be it in the industrial area to make sure they won’t discharge chemicals into the river as it is hazardous to both animals that live in animals and human beings.
The ministry of local government is also called to task to ensure most of their local authorities put in place long lasting solutions to the perennial problems of liquid waste management that always lead to pollution of water sources which at the same time leads to high costs of treatment of that very water for human consumption. The House of Assembly as well could chip in and ensure stiffer penalties are imposed on those who deliberately pollute or cause pollution of critical human needs like water.
Moving away from blame-shift mentality would go a long way in addressing challenges people may face as that will entail bringing in workable solutions instead of identifying the root causes of such problems.