Mtwaba bridge which straddles Mtwaba Creek in Mombasa, Kenya. Shimo la Tewa, is a prison located near the creek, with an immense population that is overwhelming the septic drainage system. The prison has been dumping raw sewage into the area for a very long time. With other sides dumping excess substances into the Creek, it has resulted in pollution.
The pollution threatens the ecosystem of the coral reefs, the biodiversity of fish species and carb species in location nearby and has forced evacuation of humans from certain buildings of the prison due to the inhabitable conditions and the stench.
To address this issue, Kenya Marine and Fisheries Research Institute, Shimo la Tewa prison, the National Environment Management Authority and GreenWater has decided to use constructed wetlands to try and mitigate the effects of pollution. Constructed wetlands is an engineered system or a green infrastructure involving using water bodies to filter water naturally. The authorities have decided to diverge the prison’s sewage into the constructed wetland, which will have a system of plants and gravel or sand to mimic the nature’s processes and lessen the amount of harmful pollutants.
When the water has been filtered from the pollutants, the authorities are planning to use that treated water into growing food crops at the prison’s farm and it will be used to manage, construct and stock fish ponds at the prison as well, this will improve food security and nutrition of prisoners and workers there.
National Environment Management Authority officials said that if the project of constructed wetlands was proven to be successful at the Mtwaba Creek and the prison, this method could be adopted to save other habitats or be installed at other location in Kenya that has wastewater management issue like local hotels.
Applied Plant Ecology Winter 2020 