An ideal image should be created by the waterfall flowing into the river below.
But if you take a closer look, everything is not right.
In Kenya’s capital, the Nairobi River has become a sewer conduit.
As it passes through slum areas and industrial hubs, its waters change from being clear to becoming dark.
One of Africa’s fastest expanding cities, with a population of over 4 million, is battling to strike a balance between the need to create jobs and safeguard the environment as pure water becomes scarce.
Isa Musa, who lives in the Dandora slums, recalls how different this river was in the past.
“When we were young we would cross the river into this other estate and go have some fun out there, and then come back to the same river and cross, you know? But right now considering the amount of pollution that is inside this river it is difficult for someone to cross this river,” he says.
He attributes the river’s pollution on regional businesses.
The issue originates upstream, where some sewer pipes from squatter communities like Korogocho have been redirected into the river.
According to the 2019 national census, there are more than 35,000 adults living in the slum.
Violet Ahuga, a local of Korogocho, depends on its water for her daily income.
She uses it to wash plastic bags that she then sells to traders so they may turn them into reusable baskets.
However, her family also makes use of it for a much less hygienic reason.
“I do not have a toilet. My daughters are too young to go to the bush alone so I usually tell them to poop in a bag and I toss it into the river,” she says.
The majority of informal communities, which house undocumented workers and their families, lack sewage connections and have open trenches where locals dump waste water into rivers.
Farmers in this area are affected by it.
Many of the veggies sold in Nairobi marketplaces come from the region around the Athi River, which is downstream of the city’s rising pollution issue.
On his five-acre farm, Morris Mutunga raises kale, spinach, and amaranth, but he has also seen crops like French beans perish when irrigated with polluted water.
“Farming has been challenging. The main challenge is water. Sometimes the water is good and other times it’s not. Mainly the water is good when it is raining because the river will be cleaned but when the rains stop, the water is salty and has chemicals. When you apply fertilizers, sometimes the yields perform well and other times it does not perform well,” he says.
The Nairobi River pollution not only kills flora, but it also has an impact on how families live in the rapidly expanding downstream suburb of Athi River.
The river and its tributaries run through Kibera, the largest slum in Africa, as well as numerous factories that produce clothing, alcohol, and building supplies. Environmentalists have charged everyone with dumping raw sewage and other pollutants into the waterways.
Anne Nduta washes her babies’ clothes by hand in the murky waters of the river.
The other option is to purchase water, but a 20-liter can of borehole water costs 20 shillings ($0.16), and Nduta would require four of them to wash her children’s clothes every three days.
“Sometimes when it rains, this water flows with a lot of garbage and because of the garbage, we can not use the water, we have to wait for the water to get clean. Sometimes the water flows with sewage and is not good so we can not use it. We depend on this water but when it’s very dirty, we have to buy water and it’s expensive,” she says.
However, restoration might be approaching.
A commision with the authority to clean up and restore the Nairobi River basin has been established by the new administration. There is currently no budget and no timeline. The commision is still not in session.
A community-based initiative called Mazingira Yetu, or Swahili for Our Environment, is working with the government organisation Athi Water to create 19 contemporary toilet blocks in Kibera, where more than 185,000 adults reside in mud-walled huts.
Manure is also produced.
The manure is sold to people who have gardens, and some is used to grow tree seedlings that the organisation sells. Money generated from Mazingiza Yetu projects is distributed to young people who work with the organisation.
“All the rivers in Nairobi, one of the biggest polluters is solid waste and we are yet to find a solution. So we saw the element of introducing the circular economy model in addressing solid waste has worked, it just needs to be replicated,” says Sam Ndindi, Director at Mazingira Yetu Foundation.
“Besides that, another problem that we discovered our rivers are facing is poor sanitation especially in informal settlements. Like in Kibera, very few toilets are connected to the sewer, so all the waste from these toilets, these pit latrines ends up in the river. Since 2019, we were able to collaborate with the Ministry of Water and Sanitation and Athi Water Agency in constructing 19 ablution blocks.”
Some Kenyan lawmakers have criticised the National Environment Management Authority of being negligent in allowing enterprises to get away with contaminating the river.
The environmental organisation was accused of failing to take action against a distillery that locals claimed was discharging rubbish in the vicinity of the Athi River during a hearing before a parliamentary committee in 2021.
David Ongare, the head of NEMA, concedes that fewer organizations are being prosecuted these days, but he argues that this is because the government has changed its strategy to promote collaboration rather than being combative, which can spark opposition.
“Government can not only work with one set of tools. So a long time ago the approach used to be very ‘command and control’ type but now it is more collaborative, discursive and also to be what we call ‘compliance assistant’,” he says.
“So in this way we level the ground so that it is not one person or entity talking down to another but it is a consultative effort. Of course, they are those who have proved they are a little bit difficult or recalcitrant, then we also have a lot of enforcement actions going on and also quite a bit of prosecutions.”
The head of NEMA anticipates that more people will have access to excellent sanitation thanks to the national government’s initiative to create affordable housing.
The health of those who live close to the river’s banks and the safety of the nation’s food supply depend on the river being cleaned up.
