CHAPTER ONE

1.1     INTRODUCTION

Environment is a surrounding atmosphere or condition for existence. Some environment are cleaner than others and that is a healthy environment, sadly some places are not. This is cause by pollution and littering.

One of the major pollutants which affect the environment is water pollution. A great number scientific paper deal with water pollution and changes driving from it. They speak for the fact that the “sewage- question” has become a central problem of humanity.

The expression “water pollution” seems to be clear to all. Nevertheless, it is worth determining its real meaning as this has charged in the course of time. Felfoldy’s (1972) precise definition is the following: “Water pollution is every impact which changes the quality of our surface and subsoil water to such a degree that is suitability either for human consumption or for the support of man’s natural life processes will decrease or cease”.

As such the tobacco industry which comprises of people and companies engaged in the growth, preparation for sale, advertisement and distribution of tobacco and tobacco related products waste discharge can add to the pollution to the environment.

The tobacco plant roots absorb essential element (Cr, Fe, Zn, As, Cd, Al, Mn and others) from the soil and diffused them up to the leaves. (Hosseini and Amirabdi Nucl. Meth. Phys Res. B190/11O/(1996). (Curtis and Rabl, 1996).the tobacco industry in Zaria discharged different pollutants in to the environment, but here we are limiting our work on the impact of the liquid waste discharged in to the environment from the company. During the preparation some of these elements contained in the tobacco leaves are being washed away together with the disposed liquid waste, from the industry in to the environment.

This liquid wastes pass through different drainages in to the Kubani Kabama and Galma rivers which form the major sources of water supply to Zaria township. It is suspected that over the years, the quantity of water from the river had gradually deteriorated as a result of domestic and industrial discharged in to a river leading to increase incidence of water related diseases (e.g typhoid) in Zaria.

The availability of nuclear research facilities,  (NNRR-1)in CERT offers unique possibilities for the determination of the elements contain in the liquid waste discharged from tobacco to the environment.

1.2     The nature of the environmental impact assessment

The team “environmental assessment” describes a technique and process by which information about environmental effect of a project is collected both developer and from the sources and taken into account by the planning authority in forming their judgements on whether the development should go ahead.

1.3     ENVERONMENTAL IMPACT ASSESSMENT (EIA)

In essence, EIA is a process, a systematic process that examines the environmental consequences of development actions in advance. The emphasis, compared with many other mechanisms for environmental protection, is on prevention. The processes involve the following steps which are describes below:

·       Project screening narrow the application of environmental impact assessment to those projects that may have significant environmental impact. Screening may be partly determined by the EIA regulation operating in a country at the time of the assessment.

·       Scoping seek to identify at an early stage, from all off a projects possibly impacts and from the entire alternative that could be addressed, those that are crucial significant issues.

·       The description of the project or development action includes a clarification of the purpose and the rationale of the projects and understanding of its various characteristics include stage of development, location and processes.

·       The description of the environmental baseline includes the establishment of both the present and future state of the environment, in the absence of the project, taking in to account change resulting from natural events and from other human activities.

·       The prediction of impacts aims to identify the magnitude and other dimensions of identified change in the environment with a project/action, by comparison with the situation without the project/action’

·       The evaluation and assessment of significance assesses the relative significance of the predicted impact to allow a focus on the adverse impacts.

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