Fikremariam Tesfaye
2 February 2008
Addis Abeba — An estimated 4.88 million cubic meter of waste discharged from industries each year in to Akaki River, a river located at the eastern gate of Addis Ababa, among which 95% is untreated waste was placing the river's groundwater at danger, said Ethiopian Country Water Partnership (ECWP), an international NGO working on Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) and Water And Sanitation Hygiene (WASH) sectors.
Presenting a research conducted on the river at a training on IWRM and the role of media in water sector held from 30th of January-1st February here, ECWP Coordinator Kidanemariam Jembebre said Akaki catchments was extremely polluted and with all weak enforcement mechanisms to cleanup, it would become a threat for the surrounding groundwater.
"Untreated liquid waste from industries, municipalities, health centers, fuel stations/garages, more than half communal and private sewerage systems of Addis people are in direct contact with the River".
"After sometimes the pollution may affect the Akaki groundwater deep well" The river starts from Entoto and Gulele hills and drains via the city of Addis Abeba to the downstream households, where many use it for drinking, animal watering, washing, cleaning, vegetable growing, etc. Its impact goes even up to Afar region through Awash River, he explained.
"The water is unhealthy for these purposes there at the downstream." The ecological system of the river is at danger. Concerned bodies should give a due attention to it, the coordinator urged.
Federal Environmental Protection Authority representative Eyesuswork Bekele, a Senior Microbiologist Expert, also present at the training session, on her part indicated that the aforementioned pollution problem of the river was undeniable fact.
"The river carries infectious, pathological, hazardous chemical wastes. At downstream household's uses for various purposes that exposed them to water born diseases, soil contaminated with chemicals, environmental degradation, shallow ground water source pollution killing the aquatic life and bad odor and test are some of impacts." She said it was difficult for the authority to take an immediate enforcement action on the like polluted environments because most of the industries in the country have technological capacity challenges.
But, the representative said, her authority was gradually striving to reduce the problem.
Last year alone, organizations and industries who have worked on environmental protection and conservation were awarded, she said.
Ethiopia has plan to achieve the Universal Access Program by 2012 and the Millennium Development Goal by 2015. The policy objective included to conserving, protecting and enhancing water resource and other overall aquatic environment on sustainable basis.
The three-day training workshop was jointly organized by ECWP and Research-inspired Policy and Practice Learning in Ethiopia (RiPPLE)
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