Water fight with cement factory leaves Senegalese high and dry

Aminata Ba has lived all six decades of her life in a Senegalese village - until now. She looks back sadly at the time before a new cement factory started pumping water out of ground wells, forcing the inhabitants – and the village – to relocate. “There we lived in peace and there was so much space,’’ the 67-year-old mother-of-five told Equal Times. “Animals had free range. Now it is like being in prison.”

Ba is amongst tens of thousands of people affected by a fight over water reserves between an industrial cement factory and local farmers and pastoralists. It’s a stark example of unsustainable development in a country known for net migration.

“Life is hard now,” says Oumy Ba, 55, a mother-of-six who was amongst the 400 people recently forced to leave the original village of Galane, some 40 kilometres east of Senegal’s capital Dakar.

“They moved our entire village. That is not an easy thing to be okay with,” she said. “That was the land of our ancestors, but we have been kicked off of it and now live in a new place, where the ground is dry and there are no watering holes for our animals.”

The cement factory owned by the Nigeria-based Dangote Group, dubbed “Africa’s king of cement,” began operations on the outskirts of Pout, a small town near Galane, in 2014. Since then, local activists say they have been pumping an estimated 4500 cubic metres of water per day to cool the coal-powered electric system that powers the plant.

In dozens of villages surrounding the factory, not only have wells dried up, but animals no longer have anywhere to roam for food and are corralled. Much of the remaining underground water has become salinised due to encroaching sea water from the nearby ocean, as the fresh water tables drop. Well-water can no longer be used for drinking or farming.

“Dangote came in here and they chose to use one of the worst technologies,” said Gnagna Sy, who runs an environmental and human rights association called Citoyens Vigilants. “They chose a technology that requires them to pump more than 1.5 million cubic metres of water per year, in a country where people already don’t have adequate access to water. Can you imagine?

“And so for us this is something that is criminal. When people don’t have access to water, the industry should not use the already limited resources for industrial purposes, for making cement. For us, this doesn’t make sense,” she told Equal Times.

The two other major industrial factories in the region use a more expensive, but less harmful, “dry process operations” method to power their plant. They rely primarily on fuel oil and diesel, as opposed to coal.

 
Imperfect relocation

Galane was originally located just metres away from the factory. In addition to decreasing water levels, noise and pollution were problematic.

To ease some of the negative impacts, Dangote offered to relocate the village, in April this year. They built 44 housing units, along with a mosque, a maternity unit, a health clinic and a primary school, about two kilometres away.

The new homes are built from cement and furnished, with two bedrooms, a living room and kitchen. But most now house 10 or more people and the space is too small. The school and health clinic have yet to open. Smoke can still be seen spewing from the factory on a near-daily basis. The ground sometimes rumbles in the night, locals say.

And while the homes are connected to running water and electricity, this is an added – and impossible – expense for families who prefer free water from ground wells and don’t mind lighting candles.

Adding to the challenges, the land where the village of Galane was moved to is now surrounded on all sides by farmland. Conflicts have been mounting in recent months between the pastoralists and farmers. At least four people from Galane have been jailed after their animals ate farmers’ crops and they were unable to pay for damages.

“Animals sometime escape and they are hungry,” said 40-year-old Abouta Ba, a cattle raiser from Galane. “They eat the farmer’s crops. Every day it is a battle. There is always conflict when the animals wander out of their enclosures. But they are just hungry.”

“Before, foliage was free. Now we have to buy feed from the market because they have nowhere to go eat naturally,” Ba told Equal Times. “That is an expensive cost. But the cows, if they can’t eat and grow, it will be a problem for us. How else will we survive?”

Food for the animals isn’t the only problem.

Cows drink approximately two basins of water each, every day. A basin costs 25 CFA (US$4 cents) to fill. Some people own up to 100 cows, in addition to dozens of sheep, goats, donkeys and other livestock. So the cost of water to hydrate them all from the tap adds up very quickly.

Mamadou Sow, an 18-year-old cattle herder, who has been raising animals since childhood, lamented:

“I live here in difficulty now. Here there is no grazing land for the cattle; there is no food. Everyday there is conflict [with the farmers]. The animals want to eat their greens, but there is no land left for them. Water is too expensive. We are not used to paying for water. Now we must use the tap water. So things are becoming more and more difficult.”

Sow says that at the same time his expenses have gone up, his cows have also been getting skinnier. This makes it harder to get a good price for them at the market. A few have gotten sick and died.

In the nearby village of Mainko, people face similar problems. During the dry season, many villagers used to farm crops as way of supplementing income. While their wells are still sometimes partly full during rainy season, the ground water is too salty to drink or farm with. Women must now walk at least three kilometres inland each day to find fresh water.

“Since the factory opened, every year the water level gets lower and lower,” said Moussa Sow, a former farmer. “I used to grow everything – tomatoes, onions, potatoes. But now you need a motor pump to water the land. Morale is low. Dangote does nothing. Not for anyone. They promised things, but they were never realised.”

 
A call for action

Since the opening of the factory a number of environmental and human rights activists have taken a stand against the Dangote factory in Senegal.

“Replenishing the water [tables] is something that will take generations,” Sy said.

“And this is why our association is trying to do our best to give people good information, to help them fight for their rights because access to water is a basic right. Everybody has the right to water.”

Moussa Fall, who is the secretary general of the Association Rurale des Agriculteurs de Notto, known as ARAN, says he fears for the future of the environment.

“[Cement] production at Dangote is based on financial motivation,” he said. “Over the past two years, the water level is already down significantly. Imagine what it will be like in 10 or 15 or 20 years. What will happen then? The vegetation will be completely destroyed. The land will be completely dry.”

Abdoulaye Seck, a local activist, expressed similar sentiments.

“This company is using a lot of water and also making too much pollution,” he said.

“This will, of course, affect agriculture and animal husbandry and also forestry. So we need to take a stand to save the future of small farmers.”

Dangote could not be reached for comment on the allegations and they refused entry into the factory, but according to their website their operations are “focused on enriching the lives of Africans.”

They claim to build schools and homes, while providing scholarships and creating jobs for young people, in villages that are impacted by their factories, amongst other development projects.

While some of these promises have been kept, others have not. Locals say less than 20 people were recruited from the affected villages and just eight of the young men received technical training.

“Dangote gave us some sheep for Tabaski last year, which kept people happy,” Ba said. “Sometimes they deliver sugar and other condiments. It helps, but how long will it last for? It is generous. But it’s only a symbolic gesture.”

According to Senegal’s Ministry of the Environment, the factory is currently complying with all regulations.

“There is not a problem with the Dangote factory,” said Aita Sarr Seck, who is in charge of the Ministry of the Environment’s Pollution Prevention and Control unit.

“The Dangote factory completed its environmental evaluations; it did an environmental study. It received a certificate of environmental conformity.”

Seck said, however, that their operations will continue to be monitored in coming years, to see what, if any, impact Dangote has on the local environment.

“If people are complaining of empty wells, this means there is excessive pumping,” she said. “Right now they comply with all regulations. But we will verify that, because if they pump excessively, that is to say, in years to come, there will be a lack of water in the zone.”

Despite the ongoing troubles, many people still believe the factory can do good things for Senegal – if it is done in an environmentally-friendly way.

“We have no problem with Dangote or its factory or the government,” Ba said. “The state is earning good money from exports. But we, the villagers, we need more favourable conditions for our animals. We just want the factory to respect the village and the environment.”

Everyone hopes that positive changes will come sooner, rather than later.

“Psychologically, when you see me today, compared to the past, I am different,” Oumy says. “I am wearier. Less certain about the future.

’’We grew up in a beautiful village and now we are here. It isn’t the same. Our wish for the future is that Dangote will give us some place to live where the animals can go out and eat and drink like before.”