Polluted wetland may hike water treatment costs

By Gilbert Sendugwa The cost of water treatment by the National Water and Sewerage Corporation (NWSC) has gone up during the last few years. This is largely because the Nakivubo wetland that helps to clean the water entering Lake Victoria has been seriously degraded. The wetland filters water by trapping sediments and allowing time for chemical and biological processes to take place. A degraded wetland cannot effectively clean and treat water. In the case of Nakivubo, both the rain run off and the human activities in the wetland are slowly polluting Lake Victoria's Murchison bay. A polluted wetland has limited capacity to trap substances and filter the water. This means NWSC has to use more chemicals to treat the water, making it very costly. With high treatment costs few people may be able to afford clean water in the future. This may lead to an increase in water–borne diseases. The Nakivubo wetland lies between Lake Victoria and Kampala City. It filters all the semi treated sewage from Bugolobi sewage treatment plant and untreated sewage from the city before it is discharged into the lake. It is from this lake that NWSC pumps water supplied to the city. Wetland degradation has continued unchecked even in Kampala and its suburbs despite the sensitisation activities undertaken by government and non-governmental organisations. Government, businesses and private developers continue to abuse this vital resource. They behave as if there was no policy or law in place. The dredging and enlargement of the Nakivubo channel is going to make the situation even worse. Water will run faster through the channel instead of moving slowly. This means the wetland will not be able to filter the water. The proposed area to be left between the channel and Lake Victoria is not enough to hold the amount of waste. The writer is an Awareness Officer, National Wetlands Programme Ends