The government was on Tuesday, February 18, forced to take action after a series of exposés by NTV unearthed rot in the Lakeside city of Kisumu.
From Sunday, February 16 through Tuesday, February 18, the Kimathi street-based station ran a feature, Rotting from The Deep, in which they exposed how raw and untreated sewage was being channelled into Lake Victoria, hence endangering its aquatic life.
In its story, one company, Kisumu Water and Sanitation Company (Kiwasco), stood out in that it was releasing the dangerous pollutants into the lake, estimated to serve a better part of Northern African countries.
The report further pointed out that as Kiwasco releases the affluence into the lake, it somehow pumps water from a different section of the lake which it hastily cleans and sells to the region's residents.
In the wake of the revelations, the County Government of Kisumu ordered tests into the areas that were affected by the untreated sewage.
The county ordered the Water Resource Authority (WRA) to carry out independent lab tests on the sewage that Kiwasco claimed was treated before being discharged into the second-largest freshwater lake in the world.
The county's Cabinet Executive Committee Member (CECM) in charge of Water and Environment Solomon Orimba explained that he would not contest the results.
"National government agency in charge of water pollution is Water Resource Authority and it has the mandate to check the quality of water that is discharged to the environment.
"They are at liberty to take samples at each and every time. Locally, we also have a lab where we carry out these tests," stated the CECM.
The exposé also disclosed that miners in the region were contributing to the impurities found in the lake, because they cleaned their gold using mercury.
"Fish from Marenga Beach in Kenya, Masese and Gabba in Uganda and imports from China, were found to have lead at levels far above the recommended minimum.
"A fish sample obtained at Dunga Beach had mercury at levels beyond the recommended minimum," read a section of the report.
