Business Daily (Nairobi)
Solomon Mburu
2 October 2007
Nairobi — Scientists are warning of a volcano risk if the proposed construction of a controversial soda ash factory at Lake Natron in Tanzania is allowed to go on.
A report released by the scientists said that Ol Doinyo Lengai, a volcanic mountain situated 14 kilometers from Lake Natron where the construction is planned to take place, shows signs of extreme instability.
"The area has experienced a series of earthquakes in the last few weeks and these do also represent a major hazard to the planned production site," said the report by Jurgis Klaudius, a volcanologist who has been studying the mountain.
Eruptions at the active volcanic mountain have in the recent past been causing a spate of earthquakes in Tanzania reaching as far as Kenya.
Ol Doinyo Lengai is the only active volcano in the East African region and it draws its name from a Maasai word that means 'Mountain of God'.
Lengai has been of particular interest to geologists since it is the world's only active volcano that erupts natrocarbonatite lava.
It rises about 2,000 meters above the Rift Valley floor to a height of approximately 2,886 meters.
In the report, Klaudius said that "the actual crater area shows signs of extreme instability and any hazard evaluation has to consider the sudden failure."
The report said that if an eruption occurs, at risk is a community of an estimated 10 to 20,000, which rely on their traditional life style entirely on cattle herding.
"A major explosive eruption, with the magnitude of events as documented repeatedly for the last 2000 years, threatens to annihilate the basis for Maasai persistence in the Natron rift area, the rift shoulders of the Crater Highlands and the adjacent Serengeti plain," said their report.
This revelation by the volcanologists brings a new angle to the controversial project that has faced strong opposition from environmentalists who see it as a threat to lake Natron's ecosystem.
With the new threat of the volcano it is not yet apparent what course the project will take.India's largest conglomerate of companies, Tata Chemicals, has set its sights on building a soda ash processing factory capable of producing 500,000 metric tonnes of soda annually at Lake Natron.
This has rubbed environmentalists the wrong way since they believe that Lake Natron is an important biodiversity that should not be disturbed with a project of such magnitude.
The environmentalists say that the lake which is in Tanzania and touches the border with Kenya is the only remaining significant breeding site for the lesser flamingo, a species that forms the majority of the world's flamingo population.
The Lesser Flamingo is listed in the 2006 World Conservation Union (IUCN) red list of threatened species.
The conservation organizations said that the proposed construction of the plant may decimate flamingo populations and adversely affect tourism in the three East African countries.
Despite the warnings from environmentalists, the Tanzanian government seems keen to go on with the planned construction and has already carried out an environmental impact assessment that gave the project a green light.
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