|
|
Welcome to a dying lake!
Wondirad
Seifu, June 20, 2009, The Reporter
Lake Abijata
is dying, although the Ministry of Culture and Tourism is boasting that it is
the country’s sanctuary for a colony of exciting birds. Oddly enough, the
Environmental Protection Authority has indexed the lake in its recently
published green book, presenting it to parliament as a proof its effort in
environmental protection when Abijata Soda Ash Enterprise (ASAE) is
diligently harvesting sodium carbonate (soda ash), destroying plants,
chasing away birds and depleting the volume of water.
Flamingos
The situation
is encouraging NGOs to draw big funds. But they spend the funds mainly for
publicity. As usual, the Prime Minister is turning a blind eye to the grave
problem facing the lake.
A few years ago, I had participated in a training course on “Environmental
Impact Assessment” organized by the Heinrich Boll Foundation. The training
was "cooked with fluidly program”, as it was graphically described by
its energetic organizers. In fact, it was generous with stipend, and, since
then, I was veritably exposed to the “art of wandering.” Among others, the
program constituted a visit to Lake Abijata and its bug, ASAE. Welcome to
the dying lake!
Lake Abijata is found in southern Ethiopia along with other Rift Valley
lakes: Zeway, Langano and Shalla. It had covered an area of 204 sq. km. in
1984, at 1,578 m. above sea level. It had hosted a variety of colourful
birds, which I had never seen in Kenya. It was said that when the training
group arrived at the lake, a significant number of bird species migrated
abroad for good, probably to Kenya.
As several studies have shown, the birds’ colony continued to diminish day
by day as the bio-chemistry of the lake and its holdings continued to be
obliterated by ASAE. The factory is using heavy water pumps to suck the
lake’s water and spray it on PVC plastic lined ponds with a total area of
150 ha at a depth 25 centimetres. They are like a hot pan in an area where
the temperature is over 30 Degree Celsius. The water can be seen with the
naked eye as it changes into vapour, leaving its sediments in the ponds.
But each litre of the water is yielding only about 15 grams or half a
spoonful of crude soda ash (trona). Considering the annual capacity of
ASAE, 20-30 thousand tonnes, its corresponding quantity of soda ash water
demand might be on a par with the content of the controversial would-be
hydroelectric dam – Gibe III. Therefore, it must be with God’s grace that
the life of the lake is extended to this date. Thanks be, indeed, to God!
Evidently, as you approach the lake, you can trace a layer of water marks
circumscribing the lake, formed as the water recedes to the centre of the
lake. I was probably moving as far as the 10th or 11th chapter of the
trajectory. According to the studies, the lake was reduced to 108 sq. km in
the 1990s, down from its previous size of 204 sq. km. in 1984. And it keeps
shrinking probably to a quarter of the latter because ASAE continues to
supply its ill-produced output to the local factories.
Of these, the major one is Caustic Soda Factory (CSF), operating near ASAE.
Incidentally, before both factories were installed, caustic soda,
chemically known as sodium hydroxide, was produced at the household level
in various parts of the country. I saw a number of households using it to
boil soda ash with lime powder to yield caustic soda for the purpose of
making soaps from animal fat and vegetable oil.
It was this same public technology that scaled itself up to create CSF. Unlike
ASAE, CSF has a discharge known as calcium carbonate. It had been idly
piled up forming a white mountain in front of CSF’s main gate, though it
would have some useful application. Does it have any environmental impact?
The visit was winding up by exploring ASAE’s processing complex, which
consists of mainly crushers and packing units, segregated from the ponds.
And, under the sunlight, I was forced to hide my head in my coat while
following the group like a shepherd. It was then that I discovered blue
coloured crystals spreading at the doorsteps of the plant’s store.
I was stunned because the same crystal, known as copper sulphate, is used
for impregnating wooden poles to protect them from being damaged by
termites. To satiate my curiosity I had asked one of the factory’s
employees, “What is that blue crystal supposed to do?” He laughed and said,
‘It is used to clean the water pumps.” They possibly put copper
sulphate under the pump’s legs to prevent their blockage by planktons or
fish. However, in water there is no such local action and hence any soluble
matter should lend itself to the law of dissolving. Therefore, the blue
crystal must be uniformly distributed in the lake. That is why, as many had
claimed, the birds are disappearing. Copper sulphate is harmful to any form
of genetic material. Hence, if there is no plankton, there is no fish; if
there is no fish, there are no fishing birds. Of course, depletion of the
water is the main problem of the lake.
Apparently, ASAE is a living proof of a problem of ignoring environmental
impact assessment of a certain economic activity, and it costs an
irreversibly damaged environment, perhaps like Lake Abijata. However,
possibilities are not yet exhausted in that the same products of the
factories could be produced with a number of alternative technologies, and
our chalk and talk chemists would recount them to the fantasy of their
counterparts: the timid chemical engineers. Or our trade experts could
smartly exploit opportunities in the comparative advantage region.
This might cause inconvenience for the factories' employees and
stakeholders. But, the notorious BPR, which is extravagantly orchestrated
by the seemingly parasite institutes, the Capacity Building and Ethiopian
Management Institute, would help to generate a host of solutions perhaps in
converting the factories into tourist lodges. Just an idea!
In spite of such pros and cons, some have attributed the lake’s problem to
be beyond the bounds of human control. They attempt to advance a theory that
assumes that the water of the lake seeps into the earth once and for all.
It seems a subverting act or taming the shrew to deny this reality. Is
really the lake sinking?
llllll
|
|