Nairobi Star (Nairobi)
Samuel Otieno
25 April 2011
The cost of clean water treatment has shot up three fold following the invasion of water hyacinth and other water weeds within the Lake Victoria water service board catchments areas.
The Lake Victoria Water Services Board CEO Michael Ochieng’ said yesterday that the board has been forced to use extra money to treat the water.
Speaking at the board offices yesterday, the CEO said effects of water hyacinth though has not affected the level of water.
Ochieng’ said the board is currently incurring a lot of expenses in treating the water from the lake saying new water supply projects will target only rives as a source.
He added that the board has initiated a programme to source water from rivers which he said are less costly in terms of treatment since they are less polluted.
“We have new designs that will source water from the rivers ostensibly to reduce cost and efficiency in supply, we will cut cost of electricity since river source will be driven by gravity and we will reduce treatment cost”, said Ochieng.
The CEO however assured locals that the board was working round the clock to ensure that locals get clean water at the lowest affordable cost.
“We will not increase cost of water, what we are doing is to look for alternative water source with less cost so that we don’t pass the heavy burdens to the consumers”, he added.
Water hyacinth has been a menace to residents around Lake Victoria with water clogged with algae bloom and transport activities paralyzed.
The sh178 million project is scheduled to take over four years before the entire lake is ridden off Hyacinth.
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Continued here:
Cost of Water Treatment Affected By Hyacinth