This archive report was first published on 9 July 2019.
Published on July 9, 2019, the National Environmental Management Authority (NEMA) has embarked on a campaign to eradicate effluent discharges by industries and petrol stations in the Coast region.
The crackdown, part of the 100-day Rapid Results Initiative, targeted effluent discharge and plastic waste disposal in the area. According to Kilifi County NEMA director Samuel Lopokoit, 60 per cent of petrol stations in the county did not adhere to the Effluent Discharge Act of 2006 and were polluting the environment by discharging untreated liquids.
“We are concentrating on the discharge of waste water whether hazardous or municipal waste with the aim of ensuring that we protect our territorial waters and marine waters for a safe and healthy environment and our target are petrol stations which discharge hazardous liquid wastes that negatively affect living things,” Lopokoit said.
He added that the oil and petroleum substances contained chemicals known as bitex that are carcinogenic and dangerous to the health of living things. The authority would be enforcing the waste management regulations and the water quality regulations, with operators required to have waste water treatment plants monitored by NEMA at quarterly basis.
Failure to adhere to the regulations attracted fines ranging from Sh500,000 to Sh4 million. In Mariakani alone, four of the ten petrol stations inspected had complied with the regulations and had the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) licence and the Effluence Discharge licence.
