QUANTIFICATION OF HEAVY METALS IN WETLANDS IN BATEREN AND ENVIRONS (OIL BEARING COMMUNITIES) WARRI NORTH DELTA FOR CAGE AQUACULTURE ADOPTION FOR FOOD SECURITY IN NIGERIA

Oil exploitation in Nigeria most often than none leave on it trail of environmental degradation of varying quantum resulting sometimes to unrest in oil producing communities of the Niger Delta. This study was an ex-post facto research that investigated the content of heavy metals in Bateren and environs oil bearing communities for their suitability for the adoption of cage aquaculture for food security. The study answered 6 research questions and tested a hypothesis. In achieving these, the water samples were collected from research area bAteren, Tebu, Tisun, Ugbege and Nana wetlands were mapped into 5 sampling sites and water samples were collected at the depth of 10cm with 125mL. plastic bottles from 5 spots and these were bulked and composites drawn and fixed with HNO3 and stored in cooled flask for analysis. The analytical standard adopted was USEPA 72000 and the instrument for determination does for the metal was Agilent ICP-MS model 7900. The results obtained were; Pb 0.06±0.01 mg/l, Mn, 0.57±0.00 mg/l, Cr, 0.04±0.00 mg/l , V, 0.06±0.10 mg/l and Cd, 0.07±0.01 mg/l . the means of the heavy metals measure were subjected to test of significance using SPSS model 29 and the p value was 0.042 thus rejecting H0. The study concluded that the wetlands were polluted with heavy metals measured above WHO 2018 MPC for the metals investigated. This the wetlands will not be suitable for cage aquaculture adoption as the produce will neither be suitable for human consumption nor be used as concentrate (fish meal) for animal feeds. The produce will also not be exportable. The study recommends that oil companies operating in Bateren and environs should adlpt world best practices in their operation. NESREA and NOSDRA should step up their surveillance roles and the impacted ecosystem should be remediated to allow for cage aquaculture adoption for food security in Nigeria.