Recent moves by the National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA) handling the dredging of the lower River Niger to share the spoils generated from the scheme have attracted the reaction of the head of research, Africa Environmental & Economic Peace Mission (AEEPM), Dr. Chinedu Ntigbu.

The environmentalist in a telephone interview with Daily Champion in Lagos warned that "before any portion of the dredge spoils would be shared, it should be treated and detoxicated to reduce the risk of top soil contamination".

He said "under normal conditions, every material from the dredge is toxic and should be detoxicated before being deposited on another entirely different surface", stressing that the idea is to limit what he described as destabilization of the biological composition of existing normal soil.

Ntigbu further warned that using the evacuated salty sand for construction purposes may be counter productive as salty sands are naturally acidic and could cause structural collapse over time.

It would be recalled that penultimate week, the Minister of Transport, Alhaji Ibrahim Bio, said in Patani, Delta state, that sand dredged out of the lower River Niger would serve community relations needs.

Bio had told journalists that the sand, dumped at identified sites, was clean, sharp and useful for building purposes but was silent on the toxicity and the possibility of counterbalancing the soil structure any proposed dumpsite or point of use.

Continuing, the minister noted that "the intention of government is to use the sand for community relations in areas dredged and where dump sites are located".

"We are going to work out a partnership, whereby the sand will belong to both the communities and the National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA).But we have not concluded that yet.

"We are going to work out the relationship, particularly for the sand in sites within cities, so that both NIWA and the communities can benefit from it. Bio also said that sand dealers were already making enquiries on how to dispose of the sand.

"You can see the one in Onitsha is being fenced because we know that the people value such sand and might end up packing it without authority. "That is why the companies handling the project have secured the sand that has been dumped by the river side.