The Lake Victoria North Waterworks Development Agency (LVNWWDA) in Kenya has announced plans to develop a drinking water plant in Bungoma County.
The project is part of the Mt. Elong-Mayanja-Kibalii Complex drinking water supply project. Chief Administrative Secretary of Kenya’s Ministry of Water, Sanitation and Irrigation, Andrew Tuimur broke ground on the project and said the goal of the drinking water project is to improve service to 85,000 people.
To achieve this goal, the future facility will have a capacity of 4,000 m3 per day. A station will pump 4,200 m3 of raw water per day from Lake Victoria. This water will flow through a 3.8 km linear network to the water treatment plant. The drinking water will be supplied to reservoirs through 46 km of pipes, and distributed through kiosks installed in Mt. Elgon, Kabuchai, Kanduyi and Kibabii University, Bungoma County.
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Water demand
“With this project, the water production capacity for drinking and livestock in Bungoma is expected to increase to 80% from the current 67%,” said Andrew Tuimur.
The project will also help prevent waterborne diseases such as diarrhea, malaria and neglected tropical diseases. The Kenyan government will fund the entire project with a US $5.36M grant from the Korea International Cooperation Agency (Koïca). The funding also includes capacity building for Bungoma County staff to operate and maintain the new water supply facilities.
The County’s water demand is currently (year 2020) 58,220m3/day. This demand will surpass 220,027m3/day by the year 2050. The County has seven urban water schemes, twenty rural schemes. The urban water schemes collectively produce approximately 20,550m3/day. However approximately 66% of the production is lost as Non-Revenue Water (NRW) hence only 7,000m3/day (12% of the demand) reaches the consumers.
