Angels told to beware

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32777, 30 November 1971, Page 24

Angels told to beware

(By

PETER NIESWAND,

SALISBURY,

The founder of Rhodesia Cecil Rhodes wrote after he first saw the mighty Victoria Falls: “Scenes so lovely must have been gazed upon by angels in their flight.”

In the future angels may well be advised to give the scenes a wide detour, or at least hold their noses when passing over the mile-wide, 300-foot-high spectacle. In spite of a public outcry, the Victoria Falls town council intends to pump raw sewage from their rapidlyexpanding community into the gorges of the Zambezi River, to add to the sewage from smaller villages and towns upstream. “Mosi-o-Tunya” is the African name for the 1000foot clouds of spray that rise from the falls—“ The smoke that thunders.”

Suggestions from ecologists that the name might soon have to be changed to “the foam that thunders” have not been well received by the Rhodesian Government.

The Minister of Health (Mr lan McLean) hinted in Parliament recently that the ecologist’s outcry might be a conspiracy to damage the country’s rich tourist trade. “I do not exclude the possibility of subversive forces at work, such is the seriousness of such talk in relation to the nation’s economy,” Mr McLean said. A Rhodesian newspaper commented sadly: “It seems likely the scheme will go ahead, and the time may not be too far distant when tourists are driven away by the stench.” Deaths From Typhoid Downstream from the falls, eight persons have contracted typhoid after drinking polluted water. Elsewhere in Rhodesia, pollution is increasing. In a country which still prides itself on wide open spaces and clean air, the situation is causing serious concern. Salisbury’s drinking water comes from Lake Macilwaine, which in turn is fed, partly filtered, from the capital’s sewerage works. The state of the water has caused the growth of acres of rapidly-spreading water

United Press International correspondent through N.Z.P.A.)

: hyacinth, which in its turn ■ has brought an increase in ■ bilharzia infestation—a parai sitic disease which enters i the bloodstream, attacks the liver and can be fatal. To destroy the water i hyacinth, the Government—- ■ against widespread public i opposition—is spraying the ■ lake with the chemical, 2, 4-D, which is suspected of - causing damage to unborn : children. 1 “Detergent-Clean** Water Salisbury’s water, together 1 with bits of sewage, water ' hyacinth, bilharzia and 2, 4-D, then goes through a purification plant and comes , out of the taps tasting ter- ■ rible. A local firm is success- • fully selling pure water at 20c a bottle. Salisbuiy’s medical officer iof health (Dr Timothy ■ Stamps), whose advice on 1 pollution problems has > tended to be ignored, saves his money. “Personally, I • avoid paying for drinking- , water by boiling tap-water r for my whisky. ; “Salisbury’s water is perhaps the cleanest in the ; world because of the i measurable amount of de- : tergent in it.”