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Nkumba landfill: Experts warn over pollution of Lake Victoria
Garbage trucks stopped from proceeding to the Nkumba landfill park by the roadside yesterday. Photo | Paul Adude
What you need to know:
- They say effluents from the garbage will flow into the adjacent swamp, drain into Lake Victoria, and pollute the country’s largest freshwater lake and source of safe water supplies.
Environmentalists have warned that the emergency move by Kampala city authorities to dump garbage at the 14-acre Nkumba-Bufulu landfill in Entebbe Municipality risks polluting Lake Victoria.
Dr Colin Sentongo, a special advisor and representative of the Global Bridge Consulting Corporation, who carried out a feasibility study to develop the proposed Kampala Refuse Burning Power Plant for the Kiteezi landfill 15 years ago, said it would be catastrophic for 2,500 tonnes of waste to be dumped at the landfill which borders Lake Victoria.
He said the effluents and leachate from the garbage would flow into the adjacent swamp, drain into Lake Victoria, and pollute the country’s largest freshwater lake and source of safe water supplies to several districts, cities, municipalities, towns, and settlements bordering the lake.
Dr Sentongo, who spoke to Daily Monitor yesterday at his home at Bweya, Kajjansi Town Council, said: “I express my sympathies to the families that lost their loved ones in Kiteezi. Our project [at Kiteezi] aimed to eliminate all the garbage as soon as possible, not having hills of rubbish building up.”
“I understand my friend, Ronald Kalema Basamulekerere [mayor Katabi Town Council], has allowed these people to pour the garbage there. But I want to assure my friend, I don’t think that request will be for one month, it will be extended,” he said.
Dr Sentongo warned that by the time dumping garbage at Nkumba would be done; there would be another hill of garbage. He called for custom-made incinerators to handle garbage in cities across the country.
“Garbage from Kiteezi is going to get into Lake Victoria and hell will break loose. The community living close by is condemned although it’s not their fault. Apart from the people living with this, we have already lost lives. In other responsible countries, the people responsible [for the loss of lives at Kiteezi] would be relieved of their duties,” he said.
The huge garbage dump at Kiteezi in Kasangati Town Council, Wakiso District, which absorbs wastes from Kampala City, Mukono and Wakiso municipal and town councils collapsed on Saturday.
The police have so far confirmed 30 bodies have been retrieved, with more than 14 victims rescued and several more feared buried under the sludge. Several livestock were also killed, and properties worth millions were lost following the collapse of the landfill.
Mr Julius Mwesigye, an educator at the Uganda Wildlife Conservation Education Centre, said the increase in the garbage dumped at Nkumba would lead to its effluents and leachate flowing into the wetland that sieves water into Lake Victoria.
“That wetland has a full ecosystem that is going to be affected by the wastes from the garbage, if we increase garbage here we are going to destroy the wetland which will also greatly affect people’s lives,” he warned.
Second halt of dumping
Mr Fabrice Rulinda, the mayor of Entebbe Municipality, who visited the landfill on Wednesday, halted further dumping of garbage in the area since KCCA didn’t seek permission from the municipality, which owns the landfill that sits close to Lake Victoria, to dump garbage.
“We learned from the media that there was an agreement reached between KCCA and Katabi on this matter. But we want to put it clear that this is our dumping site, and courtesy demands that the leadership of KCCA should have talked to us to have an agreement to see that we preserve this little space. Much as we sympathise with our brothers and sisters in Kampala City, we have decided to stop any dumping being done here henceforth until there is a comprehensive solution,” he said.
Rulinda added: “Our dumping site is right next to a water body, and that isn’t healthy for the environment. We have been looking for proper and long-lasting solutions for this dump. We can’t receive the garbage from Kampala City. We want to do this with precaution for the environment and the people of Entebbe.”
Efforts to get a comment from Ms Caroline Kirungi, the Entebbe Municipal health inspector, about the potential health hazards likely to result from the increment of the dumping were futile after she told this publication that she had been stopped from divulging any information about the issue by the office of the town clerk. Our calls to town clerk Emmanuel Mugisha and Nema executive director Barirega Akakwansa went unanswered on the likely hazards from the landfill posed to Lake Victoria.
