Residents of Nairobi and its environs will have dry taps for a while as the World Bank Group begins a probe into complaints about environmental and social impacts of building a water tunnel, lodged by residents of Murang’a County in Kenya.

The group’s inspection panel has received complaints on the building of a 11.3 kilometre-long northern collector tunnel (NCT) to divert water to Ndakaini dam to improve supply to Nairobi and its environs.

Building of $680 million NCT phase one started on February 24, 2015 with intakes from the Rivers Maragua, Gikigie and Irati to increase water supply to Nairobi by 140 million cubic metres daily. The city receives 580,000 cubic metres of water daily against a projected demand of 750,000 cubic metres.

Chairman of the panel Gonzalo Castro de la Mata said 47 residents of Murang'a fear experiencing shortages of water for domestic, agricultural and coffee processing when the Aberdares river system is diverted to NCT.

“They fear short periods or days of zero or near-zero flow, especially in the dry season (December-March; July-October),” he said in the notice of registration dated January 12, 2017. The notice of registration was addressed to World Bank President Jim Yong Kim and the bank's executive directors.

The panel registered the request after carrying out initial due diligence upon receiving the request for inspection, claiming abstraction of rivers in the local area will cause irreversible environmental impact leading to food insecurity and water scarcity.

IDA funding

The Washington DC-based panel is an independent body that investigates complaints on projects funded by the International Development Association (IDA) and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) — funding arms of World Bank.

It fosters redress when warranted by assessing allegations of harm to people or the environment and reviews whether IDA or IBRD followed the group’s operational policies and procedures.

IDA on December 20, 2007 approved $150 million for the Water and Sanitation Service Improvement Project in areas served by Athi Water Services Board (AWSB), Lake Victoria North Water Services Board and Coast Water Services Board.

The project was scaled up in May 2012 with an additional financing of $300 million from IDA to increase access to water supply and sanitation services. The northern collector tunnel phase I (NCT I), costing $85 million, is part of additional financing to divert water from the Aberdares.

Inspection team

NCT I, which is derived from a master plan for Nairobi and 13 satellite towns, includes a tunnel to transfer water to Ndakaini Dam. It also entails building a channel to move water by gravity to a treatment plant six kilometres downstream of Ndakaini.

The 44km-long gravity pipeline, with capacity of 1.6 million cubic metres of water per second, was to be built to Kabete reservoir through Ngethu and Gigiri water treatment plants to meet demand for water in Nairobi by 2017.

NCT I was to be completed by December 2015 but additional financing needs resulted in a change of Word Bank’s environmental assessment category to reflect significant environmental and social impacts.

“The assessment prepared for NCT I indicated that the main environmental and socioeconomic impacts would be related to diversion of water; resulting in reduction in downstream flows in the rivers,” said the inspection panel.

Forty-seven people, who authorised two residents to engage the panel and asked that their identities be kept confidential, are supported in their submission by a local non-governmental organisation.

The Kenyan opposition had also raised the red flag, saying the project could turn Murang’a County into a desert. Opposition leader Raila Odinga claimed that their was no public participation when the project was being initiated.

The Murang’a residents also argued the Ndakaini Dam, which receives water from Thika River, spills over twice a year and additional volumes from NCT I will result in spillage that could have replenished Murang’a’s lowlands water table.