In an interview with the Zimbabwe Independent, Amkela Sidange, environmental education and publicity manager at EMA, said flowing raw sewage has polluted both terrestrial ecosystems and water bodies. She said:

Surveys by EMA indicate that an estimated 399 mega litres of raw and partially treated sewer are discharged into Lake Chivero (daily), which is one of the most pronounced drivers in pollution of the lake thus contaminating and polluting both terrestrial ecosystems and water bodies.

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The destruction of wetlands across the country due to urban sprawl and the unchecked parcelling out of State land by politically-connected land barons has worsened the situation.

Sidange said there was hope that under the National Wetland Masterplan, the ecologically fragile ecosystems can be preserved. She said:

Wetland utilisation should only be done under a licence from EMA, failure of which can result in prosecution.

Commendable government efforts have been recorded recently, including the gazetting of the National Wetland Master Plan.

Increasing wetland area under sustainable management is one of the key objectives of the National Development Strategy.

To date, an estimated 252 000 hectares against a target of 500 000 hectares have been put under sustainable management

Early this week, the City of Harare temporarily closed its water treatment plant due to a phenomenon called “lake turn” at Lake Chivero.

The local government authority explained that the “lake turn” occurred as a result of a sudden weather change on the night of 12 September.

It said the warm and dirty water at the bottom of the lake rose to the abstraction point (the level where water is drawn from the lake to the treatment works for treatment).

As a result, the City shut down “the plant to allow for adjustment of abstraction levels to draw better quality raw water for treatment.”

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