Authority bans mining of stones from riverbed

By MUNENE KAMAU

The Water Resources Management Authority has banned mining of stones from rivers in Embu and Kirinyaga citing environmental damage.

The Zone manager, David Mumo, said mining activities were rampant in Kirinyaga especially on rivers Mukengeria and Kiringa while in Embu it was Kavingachi and Ena rivers.

He said the riparian area of the rivers was under threat from the miners, who do not understand the implications of a destroyed ecology.

Mr Mumo described the riparian area as that which forms the riverbanks and plays the role of filtering soils not to get to the river and disappear into the Indian Ocean hence the need to protect it at all costs.

The manager said some unemployed youth had been mining stones, which they then crash into hardcore and then sell to builders oblivious of the consequences.

“When you disturb the environment, devastating consequences follow like the ones witnessed in Meru where some people put up houses on the riparian areas, which have now been swept away by raging floods,” he said.

Mumo said Githogondo village, a slum within Ngurubani market right on the banks of Thiba River, was testimony to a degraded riparian zone after unscrupulous civic leaders allocated the land to residents without due regard to the environment.

The miners have been warned to vacate the riverbanks and those who defy the order will be arrested and prosecuted, according to Mumo.