Environmental pollution Definition Environmental pollution is the build-up and concentration of toxic levels of chemicals in the air, water,

and land, which reduces the ability of the affected area to support life. Pollutants may be gaseous- ozone and carbon monoxide, for example; liquiddischarge from industrial plants and sewage systems; or solid-landfills and junkyards. Description Where water exists, life is possible. Where no water exists, no life is possible it cleans, transport, irrigates, cools, fuels, and stabilizes the functioning of everything from a single cell to the entire planet. It is what distinguishes Earth from the rest of the known universe. Water is the most precious commodity- but paradoxically abundant enough for its true value to be overlooked or under appreciated (about 80% of the Earth surface is covered by water) in those areas of the earth where water is scarce, issues surrounding Its use is a matter of life and death oftenly leading to conflicts between the riparian and any interested party. Eg.the pastoral communities and in the Middle East over the use of the River Jordan waters. Lake Naivasha is in Naivasha municipality Naivasha Division, Nakuru District in Rift Valley Province in Kenya. The spatial extent of the municipality is approximately 941km2, which includes the 241km2 covered by the lake, making it one of the largest municipalities in the country. Naivasha is located 90km north-west of Nairobi and 70km from Nakuru town. The Trans-African Highway serves it from MombasaNairobi-Kisumu to the Uganda road and the Old main road from Nairobi through the Longonot-Kijabe route. This has ensured a heavy traffic of buses and heavy trucks passing through the town. The main railway line from Nairobi to Kisumu, Kitale and

Eldoret passes through Naivasha Station. The Council lies between latitude 00 09` and 0055` South and between longitudes 35050` and 36042` East. Lake Naivasha drainage basin River Malewa and River Turasha are the only rivers in the drainage basin. The Malewa River drains off Sattima, its headwaters reaching up to the highest upland valleys. It plunges down the Sattima Escarpment onto the Ol Bolossat plain through a magnificent steep walled gorge, with walls nearly 1,000 feet high, the Malewa ndogo gorge. The river cuts a deep trench across the Ol Bolossat plain passing very close to the south end of the lake and separated from it by a divide of very low relief probably not more than 30 feet. The river turns south and cuts another deep gorge, the lower Malewa gorge, along a fault line, to its confluence with the Turasha River just south of the Malewa Water Scheme Intake. The Turasha River like the Malewa is a permanent stream. It drains the north Kinangop plateau and the mountain range to the east of it. It follows a u-shaped course, flowing northwards towards Kinangop plateau collecting tributaries from the forested massif of Kipipiri, before curving right round to join the southward flowing Malewa. Like the Malewa it has excavated a deepwalled cut several hundred feet deep in the flat-topped tuff plateau, and its tributaries are similarly incised. The deep steep-walled incisions of these river valleys appear to be due to the sudden lowering of base level in the floor of the rift valley consequent on the major fault movement of the Pliocene period. The Malewa ndogo gorge is related to movement on the Sattima fault at the same time. The two streams after being united flow southwards to feed Lake Naivasha.

Environmental changes over the last ten years The ecosystem of the lake is under threat due to the rise in human population density leading to intensive irrigation, farming, land subdivision, and intensive use of agrochemicals and deforestation around the lake. The growth of the township has also led to more runoff, siltation and nutrients being discharged into the lake via inflowing rivers and drainage channels along roads and the other infrastructure. Inadequately treated effluents from the ton's sewage treatment plan are also finding their way into the lake. The intensive agriculture to the south of the Township is itself a grave environmental threat. This is because intensive agricultural practices are concentrated on the riparian of the lake whereby we have large horticultural, floricultural and vegetable farms drawing enormous quantities of water from the lake for irrigation. The study area is located on an ecosystem that is of low carrying capacity and as such this has necessitated excessive use of agro-chemicals to enhance productivity. The effects from these practices is that the chemicals find their way into the lake through runoff from the agricultural parcels of land. Because the land generally slopes towards the lake. Poor tillage practices often result in soil erosion and the loose soil is carried awash into the lake. All these result in increased eutrophication of the lakes waters. The lake has no river outlet except for underground outlets in the southern part of the municipality. This is around Longonot and Olkaria Power Generation), and the importance of this is that storm water and urban or agricultural run off finding its way into the lake should not have any deleterious effects. Poor waste disposal practices, given the topography of the area would result in enhanced cultural eutrophication of the lake, a threat to aquatic life and water contamination. Urban runoff from roads, laden with soil particles, garbage and petroleum products from petrol filling stations

within the municipality, ends up in the lake. This further increases eutrophication and water pollution.

List of proposed actions or solutions The author has put forward the following recommendations: Terracing the sloppy areas: This will reduce the speed of run off by giving it time to infiltrate into the soil.this will reduce the rate of soil erosion which inturn will reduce the rate of siltation of the lake. Afforestation and conservation of vegetation cover: trees are very important in reducing the impact of raindrop on the soil through interception storage. The roots help in holding the soil particles together. When trees die or shed their leaves they increase the humus content of the soil hence improving the soil structure. Digging dry wells: dry wells are pits dug on the ground to harvest run off.they increase the rate of infiltration of the run off into the soil. Rain water harvesting: this should be done by use of gutters to collect water from buildings and then stored in tanks.this will provide fresh clean water for domestic use and if well managed will reduce over dependency on boreholes and surface water sources which must be treated before consumption. Town planning: the municipal council should come up with sound development plan for the area around the lake to get rid off of the unplanned mushrooming slums where the fishermen reside. Naivasha Municipal Council (NMC) needs to improve its revenue collection so as to boost the capacity to manage environmental degradation problems occurring within the area. In order to tap all the available revenue sources and

counter financial management problems, the council needs to ensure adequate supervision and accountability in the revenue collection exercise; modernise its water and sewerage billing so as make it more efficient and eliminate illegal connections; and lastly reduce the amount of debts owed to the council by individuals, organisations and the government departments and agencies present in the municipality. Other suggestions would be to make improvements in staffing and on accounting. This could be through staff training and computerisation of operations especially putting up a management information system for the budget, and register of all clients, creditors/debtors and a license register when funds become available. There is need to diversify urban-development activities within the

municipality. An outward spread of these development activities and the creation of satellite towns in areas such as Olkaria, Sulmac and Sharlimar would minimise the pressure on the natural environment, land, forests, air and water resources, as well as on the capacities of socio-economic infrastructures such as sewerage and water supply facilities and roads. This will also result in a reduction of land use conflicts, which is a major cause of environmental degradation in any given urban scenario.

Proper planning and provision of infrastructure is the responsibility of the local authority, non-governmental organisations and the community in the area and this ought to be improved upon. The general public should also utilise and maintain the services offered more efficiently. The Physical Planning Act provides for the preparation, approval and implementation of physical development plans irrespective of whether they are on

government, trust and/or private land. Participatory planning approach should be applied in planning and development processes for a more sustainable urbandevelopment in the lake Naivasha basin. Otherwise, physical planning risks being rendered irrelevant to the landowners, the community and other stakeholders in land development. This is very important bearing in mind that with the current scarcity of land almost all towns now can only expand into private land or land earmarked for other activities like wildlife conservation and agriculture. Monitoring settlement growth around the lake should be carried out regularly. In the study, Impact of Urban Land use in Naivasha, M.Mbathi (1998), it was surprising that some settlements in the area grew without proper documentation and planning. The example given was the Karagita settlement, which covered an area of approximately 200 hectares and had a resident population of more than 15,000 people but did not have a layout plan. Many other settlements continue to grow under the same circumstances. The situation could go out of hand if left unchecked. The local authority and other key-players in the development of Naivasha, especially the riparian owners association and the flower growers, should always consider the proper planning and maintenance of the settlements as a priority.

Provision of basic services in Naivasha town itself and other considerably large urbanised area in the municipality will help reduce the amount of wastes released into the environment. A point in hand is the case of the towns sewerage treatment plant. From the Project Information Sheet, Naivasha Municipalitys 2000-2004 Local Authority Development Plan (LAPD), pg. 92, the new treatment plant has

been rendered inoperational due to vandalism of the electrical components in 1994. This has meant that the facility is currently being used as a lagoon and that untreated municipal effluents are being discharged directly into the lake thereby raising serious concerns over contamination of Lake Naivasha. The lake is an important and reliable source of fresh water. The disposal of untreated sewage into the lake has serious ecological implications particularly relating to cultural eutrophication (nutrient enrichment), increase in biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) and toxicity of available chemicals to biota. It also raises public health concerns relating to the spread of water-borne diseases such as cholera, dysentery and typhoid. The sewage system should be rehabilitated and guarded to avoid incidences of vandalism in future. A greater concern and that ought to be addressed urgently is the location of the sewage treatment plant a mere 500 meters only from the lake. This is in spite of the towns topography that slopes towards the lake. Measures should be put in place to ensure that the system is not used beyond its capacity and also insuring against urban runoff overflowing and carrying awash raw sewage from the plant into the lake. The local authority and government agencies responsible are proposed to take up this responsibility. The large and financially capable horticulture and floriculture firms should put up their own sewage treatment plant so as to increase the overall capacity of the municipality to treat and dispose of wastes properly.

The role of the community is an important one indeed. These are the people who suffer most in the event of the environment being degraded beyond its carrying capacity. It is important therefore to involve them in various decision-making

processes and also educate the general public on the impacts of environmental degradation and how their actions can contribute to or help reduce this.

The development of an urban information system as well as the use of GIS in Environmental Planning and Management, right from decision-making support to policy formulation, implementation and monitoring, is necessary in Naivasha town just as it is in other urban areas in the country. This would provide a good base for monitoring specific trends that may be associated with environmental degradation. The lack of readily available data hampered this research and this led to much time and resources being spent on data collection. This is an indication that the town planners could also be lacking updated information for most of their decisions. Making appropriate decisions in future depends entirely on the data that is collected now and placed in a system in which it is easily accessible for manipulation and regular up-dates. However, it is understandable to the author that this may be a difficult proposition given the financial and other technical implications. This thus calls for the need by the municipal council to approach donors and other charitable organisations for assistance.

The Environmental Management and Co-ordination Act (1999) should be applied and enforced by the concerned parties. This will discourage polluters and others who may practice activities that are likely to lead to environmental degradation. Other legislature like the Water Act and the Public Health Act must be enforced to ensure compliance and a more efficient use of water and the riparian of Lake Naivasha. Means could be devised to ensure that the flower farmers, who currently draw the largest proportion of water from the lake at no cost, aid the

council in service provision. The local authority should develop ordinances aimed at restricting or prohibiting developers within Naivasha Municipality from putting up buildings if proper sanitation and waste disposal is not provided.

Bibliography Gleick, Peter H. 2001. The world's water 2000-2001.Washington, D.C.:Island Press. World health Organization.2000 .Global Water Supply and Sanitation Assessment.Geneva: WHO. Web sites www.world water.org General information on the Word's water resources. www.wri.org World Resource Institute. Earth Trends: The environmental information portal

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Map Number and Title(s): 1 LAKE NAIVASHA TOWNSHIP Copyright Attribution:--Kihiu 2002 Contact Name: ANTHONY GATHAMBO Signature: AKG Organization Name : MOI UNIVERSITY Address: 3900 Eldoret Kenya Telephone: 0733 234238 E-mail kihiu2002geo@yahoo.com Date:29th May 2002