Residents of Garissa town and its environs have been told to brace themselves for water rationing in the coming days.
Garissa Water and Sewerage Company (Gawasco) managing director Mohamed Dolal said on Wednesday several factors have necessitated the action and urged residents to conserve the available supply.
“Due to the Tana River bursting its banks, our water intake plant has been flooded, affecting operations. To protect our pumps from damage, we have suspended intake activities and removed the equipment for safety,” he said after visiting the water intake plant.
Dolal further said the move was taken as a cautionary measure to prevent electrocution, following advice from Kenya Power.
“The water has increased to a level where all our pumps have been submerged. And so it was advice from the KPLC because our main transformer and some of our pumps have already been submerged,” he said.
Dolal said turbidity in the raw water is high, which largely contributes to the reduction of the amount of water produced at the plant to 50 per cent.
He said they are monitoring the situation closely, saying the company will resume normal supply once water levels in the river drop.
Garissa county director of meteorology Samuel Odhiambo said several places in the county will receive between 66 per cent and 100 per cent of rainfall. Others will get between 33 per cent and 66 per cent.
Garissa County Commissioner Mohamed Mwabudzo urged residents to heed the advice and explore other alternative means of getting water until normalcy returns.
He said the government will ensure no deaths are reported as a result of floods.
“We have been there before and we all know what it means to have floods. As a government, we don’t to have any casualties as a result of floods, like has been the case in the past. Let people adhere to the guidelines that have been provided and do what is required of them,” Mwabudzo said.
In the past during the March-May rainy season, floods displaced people and destroyed property.
In other instances, humans and livestock lives have been lost and crops destroyed.
At least 10,000 small-scale farmers spread across Balambala, Garissa and Fafi subcounties are worried about the spillage from Seven Forks dams, which finds its way into River Tana, leaving a trail of destruction.
Last week, Garissa Governor Nathif Jama hit out at the national government over what he termed “lack of seriousness to find a permanent solution to the problem”.
“It cannot be every year when we are blessed with rains, for us in Garissa, it turns out to be catastrophic, particularly for our farmers who incur heavy losses as a result of the dams spilling,” he said.
“We are telling the national government it cannot be that for 60 years, since independence, we are unable to get a permanent solution to this problem. It is really nothing but the lack of goodwill from the national government,”.
by STEPHEN ASTARIKO
