Save Lake Victoria from contamination

A health disaster is looming due to the high rate at which solid waste matter is being disposed of into Lake Victoria. This week, the National Water and Sewerage Corporation asked government to take urgent measures to stem the high rate of waste matter disposal into Lake Victoria which is increasing the cost of water treatment. The water authority says if government reins in encroachers, it would in turn minimise costs of water treatment and improve the quality of water drawn from the fresh water lake.

Currently, NWSC is extending pipes deeper into the lake with the hope of drawing cleaner water but the quality of water drawn is continually deteriorating and NWSC is incurring more costs in water treatment.
Lake Victoria is the world’s second largest fresh water lake by surface area, after Lake Superior in North America and this destruction of the fresh water lake will relegate Lake Victoria to another narrative. A quick tour of the suburbs and slum areas surrounding Kampala will shock one on how waste is disposed of.

The poor communities around the lake dump solid waste directly into the water, while some solid waste pours directly into the lake following the degradation of wetlands which previously filtered waste matter.
For lack of toilets, some use buckets and polythene paper as lavatories which they keep waiting to dump in the drainages channels when it rains. This human waste and other garbage disposed of wrongly runs straight into the fresh water lake choking it with pollutants. Thus, having contaminated water flowing freely into Lake Victoria.
This is because National Environment Management Authority, the body mandated to safeguard wetlands to ensure that the water going into Lake Victoria is clean and not contaminated, is not enforcing their mandate effectively, leading to high costs of treating water.

When it rains, solid garbage comes directly through from all directions into the lake, including the waste from the toilets not connected to the NWSC grid.
Many wetlands have been encroached on, which are supposed to help filter the waste before it makes its way into the lake. Factories and industries too are dumping waste in Lake Victoria, hence worsening the already deplorable situation in the lake.
The resultant from a ‘dead’ lake is lack of clean fresh water for domestic use which is recipe for incubation of diseases to the detriment of human life.