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EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

Nairobi looks to filthy dam to keep business flowing

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As residents of Nairobi’s largest slum look for new sources of water amid lingering drought, they have seized on an unlikely one: an old 88-acre water reservoir full of sewage and trash, draped in water hyacinth.


The Nairobi dam has been the capital’s spare water reservoir in times of drought since the 1950s, but not a drop of it is usable now, as a result of heavy pollution.


“The dam is situated on the edges of Kibera, yet we cannot even use it for our car wash businesses,” said Mathew Mbuvi, 30, who lives in the sprawling Nairobi slum.


But residents of Kibera, backed by a Kenyan business firm, are now trying to clean the fetid dam, to make its water available for use in businesses — even if it won’t ever be drinkable.


Mbuvi, who has collected rubbish in Kibera for four years, is one of about 300 young people in the slum who have been offered contracts to help clean up the dam.


They have begun collecting plastics and paper around the dam, ready to sell to a new recycling plant which is expected to open in August.


Ultimately, the aim of the recycling project will be to clean the dam’s water enough so it can be used by the slum’s laundries, public toilets, car washes and other businesses.


“The recycled water can also be used in the city’s growing industrial sector and reduce the use of clean water in factories,” said John Paul Malawi, the Nairobi County environmental officer.


Kenya’s drought has left at least 2.6 million people in need of food aid across the country, and caused a drop in water volumes in reservoirs serving the capital, Nairobi.


The city needs about 740,000 cubic metres of water a day, which is normally met by the Ndakaini reservoir in central Kenya. Now, however, only 462,000 cubic metres of water are being pumped from the reservoir each day, according to the Nairobi City Water and Sewerage Company (NCWSC).


The Nairobi dam, if improved, could supply some 98,000 cubic metres of the city’s demand, according to Leah Tsuma, the Chief Executive Officer for the Agency for Science and Technology Information Communication (ASTICOM), the Kenyan company building the recycling plant in Kibera.


The plant will recycle trash and produce biogas from solid and liquid waste, producing as much as 32 megawatts of biogas energy a year, Tsuma predicted. — Thomson Reuters Foundation


Kagondu Njagi


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