Improved sewerage systems restore life in Eldoret village

By , May 12, 2023

Most towns are overwhelmed with the ever-growing population of people moving from rural to urban areas in search of employment.

This coupled with growing infrastructure in the towns has resulted in a huge demand for proper sanitation.

With the majority of these towns’ sewerage system still using initial designs, the authorities cannot meet the ever-growing need for proper sewerage management.

According to WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP), only 31 percent of urban residents have access to good toilets while waste treatment and fecal sludge treatment services remain inefficient.

The JMP indicates only five percent of Kenya’s towns sewerage is effectively treated due to failures of the sewerage system and inadequate wastewater treatment process.

Impediment to growth

Esther Kimaiyo, a resident of Kipkorgot in Eldoret, Uasin Gishu says sewerage management has been an impediment to the growth of the estate which is just few kilometers away from the town center, posing as a better dwelling place for people working in the town.

Kimaiyo was among the first people who bought land on the busy Eldoret-Kaptagat-Ravine road back in 2002.

 “I came to this village while it was just trees and a plantation. There were very few people living in this area,” Kimiko says.

Within a short period, Kipkorgot started becoming popular with investors purchasing lands especially due to its proximity to the Eldoret town centre.

The village was ideal for development of rental houses targeting people working within the town centre. But despite potential investors trickling down to this village, there was an obstacle that stood between the sleeping but potential village and its development.

“Water was the biggest issue that locked out the majority of the people who bought land in this area. They would buy land and leave, hoping to come back when the village is connected to water,” she says.

With lack of water, people who had invested in the area by building rental houses incurred losses as potential tenants would not dare step in an area that faced water problems.

Majority of the land owners resorted to sinking boreholes which however proved to be an equal challenge to them since the area has a bedrock of stones. The village was lucky to be connected to piped water in 2015, pulling back those who had initially bought land in the area but left.

Sinking borehole

With a growing population emerged new challenges, among them being lack of proper sewer management which saw the residents resorting to putting up pit latrines and underground septic tanks.

Wesley Kipkurui, the secretary for Kipkorgot resident association says with unclear guidelines on how best to manage sewer, the residents would sink holes unnecessarily as they sought to put up pit latrine and septic tanks.

“These toilets and septics have been a menace especially during rainy seasons. When the rain water flows into these holes, the waste overflows and ends up on the roads and walking paths. The entire village is filled with odour and one cannot comfortably sleep in their houses, ‘he says.

The overflowing sewer would also flow into the boreholes that provided water to some of these households. In an attempt to evade all these troubles, they would be forced to dig deep into their pockets and hire waste exhausters to empty their latrines and wastes.

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