Some 42 facilities that were found polluting the water with untreated effluent upstream of the Athi River basin have stopped.
The National Environment Management Authority director general Mamo Mamo on Tuesday said good progress has been made.
“We have given them restoration orders. All the 42 factories have fully complied with putting up effluent treatment plants,’ Mamo said in his office.
Nema is also working with two factories tanning leather. The director says the authority is taking them through compliance assistance.
We are giving them compliance assistance to ensure that they fully comply with the provisions of water quality regulations of 2006, Mamo said.
The DG said the authority will continue doing routine monitoring to ensure that they keep the standards.
“If they do not keep the standards, we will get back to them,” Mamo said.
The clean-up of the basin follows orders by President Uhuru Kenyatta during his tour of Thwake Dam in July.
“We are going to ensure there is no pollution upstream because every Kenyan has a right to clean water,” President Kenyatta said.
The order by the president came days after auditor general Nancy Gathungu raised concerns about the safety of the water that will be fed into the dam.
The auditor said the Sh82 billion Thwake dam may turn out to be a white elephant because of polluted, unsafe water.
An environmental and social impact assessment of the project warned that the water would be hard to treat owing to the pollutants.
It cites problems of residual faecal and organic matter from pit latrines, graveyards and waste holding sites from displaced homesteads and social locations.
The situation undermines the health of people and animals drinking the water.
She said the dam’s main supply will be the Athi River whose main tributary is the Nairobi River is polluted with heavy metals.
About two million people from Lower Eastern plan to use the dam to end their water shortage.
The dam, which is being constructed downstream from Thwake and Athi River, covers 2,470 acres (10 square kilometres) to create a reservoir of more than 690 million cubic metres.
Following Uhuru’s directive, a multi-agency team was formed to clean up tributaries feeding into the Thwake Dam.
Nema had said the work will run for three months.
Mamo had said his officers will work closely with the Nairobi Metropolitan Services, the Water Resource Authority and workers from seven counties.
(Edited by Bilha Makokha)
