Michael Njuguna
19 October 2008
Nairobi — The signboard used to read: "WARNING: Dangerous Chemicals Buried Here. Keep Off!" The signboard no longer exists.
Villagers are burning charcoal at the site on the floor of the Menengai Crater, where the defunct Kenya Grain Growers Cooperative Union (KGGCU) buried tonnes of toxic chemicals 20 years ago.
A Nation team found three freshly harvested charcoal spots.
The grain growers' union dumped more than 10 metric tonnes of herbicides, acaricides, veterinary drugs, tyres, sprayers, bicycles and other property that was damaged when its Nakuru Town store was destroyed by fire in 1987.
The union then erected a fence and put up the signboard. Both have since disappeared and villagers, unaware of the dangers they are exposed to by the deadly chemicals buried there have settled on the site for burning logs into charcoal.
A few pieces of broken bottles and burnt plastics litter the site, probably dug out by the charcoal burners.
Cattle belonging to farmers from the nearby Wanyororo B Farm have now been joined by hundreds more belonging to Maasai herders who have driven their cattle to the floor of the crater in search of pasture.
A resident, Mr George Muthama asked an ecologist who accompanied the Nation, Mr Jackson Raini, whether the animals grazing on the site were in any danger of poisoning.
"That can only be answered after tests. This place ought to have been fenced off to keep away people and animals," Mr Raini said.
Mr Muthama said after the grain growers' union bulldozer that used to bury the chemicals left the site, villagers helped themselves to the damaged sprayers, herbicides, acaricides, bottles -- anything they thought was useful.
Chemicals damaged at Sotik, where another KGGCU godown was burnt down in another mysterious fire, were also transported to the crater and buried.
It appears not many environmentalists were consulted. The choice of Menengai was made by the Nakuru District Commissioner's office; the immediate concern at the time was how to remove the dangerous chemicals from town.
The grain growers' union initially buried about six tonnes of the toxic chemicals at a farm on the outskirts of Nakuru, but the farm owner wrote to Environment permanent secretary Mr E. C. Langat, demanding the removal of the waste.
Mr Lang'at wrote back to the farmer informing him that the material would be removed, and KGGCU later dug out the poisonous material and carted it away to the Menengai.
"I think we're just lucky the chemicals have not killed the charcoal burners," Mr Muthama said.
Mr Raini cautioned the villagers that some chemicals took long to break down or get biodegraded. He cited the organo-chlorines, which were widely used in the 1980s, and which could still pose a serious risk through leaching.
Organo-chlorines that find their way into rivers affect the endocrine glands in both humans and animals, resulting in stunted growth of children, and inability to give birth among the adults.
The whole of the floor of the Menengai Crater is heavily fractured and no water is retained on the surface even when raging floods sweep into the caldera.
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