This is Part 1 of a two-part series on Kenya’s Eldoret-Iten Water Fund. Part 2 will be published Tuesday, Nov. 12. When farmers in the upstream Moiben catchment of Kenya’s Cherangany Hills Water Tower shifted from raising merino sheep to growing Irish potatoes, a more profitable crop, an unexpected issue arose downstream. Unlike the grass that once had anchored the soil during rains, potato farming left the land exposed and prone to erosion. This led to increased surface runoff, carrying agricultural effluent draining into rivers like the Moiben, a primary source of water for Chebara Dam, which supplies more than 475,000 residents of the city of Eldoret in Uasin Gishu county and surrounding areas downstream. As a result, Eldoret’s residents and companies began receiving tap water contaminated with mud and other debris. The Eldoret Water and Sanitation Company (ELDOWAS) struggled to treat the water fast enough due to limited resources. Water supplied to residents contained traces of iron and manganese, and on a daily basis, the area suffered a water shortfall of 20 million liters (5.3 million gallons), according to Peter Biwott, who was the ELDOWAS director at the time he spoke. All of this prompted a collaboration with The Nature Conservancy (TNC) to establish what is known as the Eldoret-Iten Water Fund (EIWF). “Ecosystem services from catchment areas are declining due to factors like population growth and deforestation for charcoal and wood fuel,” Biwott told Mongabay. “We also observed that we were using excessive chlorine to purify the water.”…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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