HUMAN ACTIVITIES ENDANGER NATURAL WATER SOURCES

It’s the dream for every human being to own a good living house and every person would make all efforts to source for the best building materials available to come up with the best structure possible.

Sand and stones are common in every construction site but what people don’t realize easily is that quarry activities can be quite harmful and they affect the everyday lives of thousands of people.

Mazeras area in Kilifi County is among the places where the best sand is sourced at the Kenyan Coast.

Many trucks make their way to this part of the country to source for sand, construction stones and ballast.

However, despite these mining activities in this area, there lies in the quarry a natural source of clean, fresh water.

According to the residents, the water sourced from here, commonly known as “Mwakatama”, has played a pivotal role particularly during the dry season.

They say initially, green vegetation, big natural trees and heavy rocks symbolized the area before the coming up of the mining activities over the past two decades ago.

“At one time a there was a conflict between the residents and pastoralist communities who wanted to have their cattle to feed on the dense vegetation and drink the water from Mwakatama.

By that time, every person was watchman over the forest and the water was clean,” revealed Mzee Juma Kalume, a 72-year-old man who now spends most of his time at the quarry harvesting sand to earn a living.

This sign post is an indication how important the water point plays to the community

He said that in the old days there was a procedure that would be followed to maintain the water led by Kaya elders who were responsible for cleaning the environment surrounding the water.

Mzee Kalume says that one day an old man went missing with his sheep in the forest for what the local said was failing to comply with the customs associated with the place which was considered to be sacred.

Kilifi County is largely occupied by the Mijikenda community and such areas where natural water source were found were treated with the high dignity.

A girl fetching water at Mwakatama

In such water sources there were special containers made of either coconut shells or baobab husk known as “kaha”. No plastics were used, instead, locals made use of items moulded out of clay to ferry the water to any home.

However, such believes have been gradually finding their way to the grave as now plastic containers are mostly used for fetching and ferrying water, save for a few old men and women who still have the kahas in their homes. These vessels, however, are hardly used by their children and grandchildren.

Among the areas where such water sources are gradually becoming history is Forodoyo at Kasemeni location in Kwale County.

According to the residents, the people were not supposed to construct any structure in the area including residential houses.

“ we are made to understand that people were not supposed to build houses in this area, but the increase in population and demand for land made many to do away with the believe. After the coming of piped water people invaded the area and constructed houses; though am not sure if that was the real reason for the drying of the water.” Said Esther Mbua, a Kasemeni resident.

A similar story is shared in a place Located at a place where Christianity and modern learning is believed to have started over 150 years ago, a few meters from the famous St Paul ACK Church in RabaiKilifi County.

The place earned the name “Migombani”. It was initially characterised by the green vegetation, plenty of banana trees and people with water storage containers due to the famous springs.

However, the area now lies down innocently and deserted, with no activity seemingly going on except for children who now use the constructed pump as their playing ground. Some even answer their call of nature at the then only source of water for Rabai residents.

According to the community and the locals whom we spoke to, the improvising of the spring by constructing a bore hole at Migombani was itself a curse to the place, and that’s why it stopped producing water.

But, according to one Mzee Peter Masha, the problem started after residents were asked to pay a fee to access the water for maintainace of the pump.

“Community negligence and lack of willingness for the community to co-operate in maintaining the borehole well is the genesis of it drying up. It pains to see a borehole which we expected will serve the people of Rabai ward which carries approximately 43,000 people is now drying up. It is worse now with the people of this area facing a lot of water shortage,” he says.

Such superstitions have accompanied such scenes in among the Mijikenda communities and area where natural water sources were found and treated with a lot of respect. Many of these places are dying up with this phenomenon being attributed to the failure of the communities to comply with the traditions they are associated with.

However despite impact of climate change experienced globally Kaya elders in Rabai warn of the loss of the heritage the Mijikenda community as locals have turn against the forest destroying the environment.

 According to Mzee Daniel Mwawara, from Kaya Rabai, locals have turned to destruction of the sacred environment by cutting down the indigenous trees in the forest.

He said the mining of building stones along Kombeni River and Mwakatama is negatively affecting the forest and called on the need for measures to be taken to curb such activities.

Being among the little natural water source remaining, Mwakatama may dry up if human activities are not controlled by the required authorities both from the central and county government.

Scientists, however, have dismissed believes among African communities that are seen as cause of drying of natural ware sources saying there are not proven scientifically adding that there are number of reasons that may lead to drying of springs.

Ibrahim Wangila, an environmental scientist with Eco-Ethics, a nongovernmental organization dealing with environmental issues, said the construction of the infrastructure may be a cause if there’s no expertise involved in the installation process.

“In a spring the flow of water is natural and if construction of pumps is not done correctly, the pipes may be inserted wrongly, thus sealing off the outlet,” says Wangila, adding, “throwing of unwanted materials in the water way can also badly affects the water flow. If the problem is not infrastructural the water would still come out.”

Wangila adds that change in weather pattern has also affected the amount of surface and storm water reducing water infiltration. He says that lack of rainfall has resulted to drying of aquifers leading to lack of enough water for human consumption.

Dilapidated Migombani pump at Rabai

According to him, the drying of springs and other natural water sources will continue to affect human beinghuman activities endanger natural water sourcesHuman activities endanger natural water sources as climate change is real and much is needed to reduce its impact.

“Water consumption is growing every day, leading to the reduction of water reservoirs; and climate change has affected the water cycle in that the increased heat in the atmosphere has amplified evaporation rate hence reducing the surface water,” asserts Wangila.

 He explains that fresh water for consumption from lakes, springs and rivers are drying while ocean water is increasing in volume due to melting of ice.

The environmental scientist called on the need to have the State come up with methods to purify salt water for human consumption.

Wangila also stressed on the need for public private partnership for desalination technology to have more bottled water for consumption as well as increasing employment opportunities to Kenyan youth.

He urged the Kenyan population to protect the wet lands as their destruction has led to infiltration of salt water into fresh water systems.

“Climate change means increase in salt water and reduction of clean water for drinking. It is almost impossible to have a fresh water bore hole in Mombasa as all the reservoirs are destroyed, which means we need to narrow our use of fresh water to human consumption and use salty water for other domestic duties,” concludes Wangila.