Thika residents have been urged to use water sparingly because of a looming shortage due to siltation from rivers Chania and Thika.
Thika Water and Sewerage Company (THIWASCO) managing director Moses Kinya said on Wednesday operations at the firm have been dealt a huge blow because the intakes at Thika and Chania rivers have been overwhelmed by silt which has extended to the treatment plant. The company has now started water rationing.
Siltation has been caused by the heavy rains pounding most parts of the country.
"This has forced us to halt operations for hours per day to remove the silt and it has reduced our daily production by five million litres,” Kinya said.
Production has declined to 5000m3 of water per day, Kinya told journalists at the company's offices in Thika town.
The firm, which serves a population of over 300,000 residents in Thika and a section of Gatanga and Juja constituencies, produces 36,000m3 of water per day against the demand of 46,000m3 per day.
The current situation has caused a crisis and most residents have been going for days without water.
The MD said staff at the firm were working round the clock to desilt, especially the treatment section, to restore normalcy.
“We are working indefatigably to ensure that our consumers get water in their homes. However, we urge them to use the little they get sparingly because at the moment pressures are very low,” Kinya said.
He also appealed to residents to harvest rainwater. “We don’t know when the heavy rains will stop,” he said.
The MD, however, said the firm is undertaking a project upstream to prevent the current siltation problem from recurring.
Kinya said that the Thika 3A intake project, whose feasibility study is underway, will ensure an injection of 50,000m3 of water in the system per day.
“The project will hold silt upstream and thereby avert such incidents from recurring. Upon completion in about two years to come, the project will ensure that we get sufficient water to supply to our consumers," he said.
Edited by A.N
