Don’t use sewer, vegetable growers warned

Sun, 01 Oct 2017 10:04:39 +0000

BY LINDA SOKO TEMBO

MILLENNIUM Challenge Account Zambia (MCA) will not give in to demands by vegetable growers in Lusaka’s Kaunda Square compound to use raw sewer water for their crops.

MCA communication and outreach director John Kunda has said he was aware that the residents were used to growing vegetables using the raw sewer water, but that this will no longer be the case.

“They want manure. They claim that the maize and vegetables they grow become healthy when they use the raw manure,” he said.

Dr. Kunda said that the vegetable growers in the area were not happy receiving treated water because they were losing something supposedly good for their crops but dangerous to them and a danger to the environment.

But Dr. Kunda said that according to Zambia Environment Management it was wrong for MCA to give them the raw sewer because it was a health hazard.

In an interview with the Daily Nation, Dr. Kunda explained that the newly constructed sewer pounds in Kaunda Square had been designed in such a way that the raw sewer would be going into the environment and the treatment process would follow before water would start following.

“We have constructed the new pounds and there is no sewer that is going directly into the streams anymore the treatment process will be taking four weeks that is when the water will start flowing into the natural environment,” he said.

He said that it was unfortunate that they could not adhere to their cries because if they did then they would be charged as irresponsible.

“So what we are going to do is to allow the process of treatment once the purification is complete whatever is going to overflow will be much cleaner and good for human consumption. When this water comes to them they will still complain because it won’t have the manure that they want,” Dr. Kunda said.

He said that the vegetable growers wanted to be compensated if MCA could not give them role sewer for their manure because their crops would not grow health.

Dr. Kunda said that MCA would not be the ones to promote illegality in the country.