NEMA shuts dirty petrol stations in Kilifi

KILIFI, KENYA: The National Environmental Management Authority has embarked on a campaign to eradicate effluent discharges by industries and petrol stations in the Coast region.

The authority carried out raids at several petrol stations at Mariakani and Mazeras areas on Monday where operators were arrested and their stations closed for failing to produce an effluent discharge certificate.

Kilifi County NEMA director Samuel Lopokoit said the crackdown was part of the 100-day Rapid Results Initiative targeting effluent discharge and plastic waste disposal in the area.

He said that 60 per cent of petrol stations in the county did not adhere to the Effluent Discharge Act of 2006 and were polluting the environment by discharging untreated liquids in the environment around their locations.

 “We are concentrating on the discharge of waste water whether hazardous or municipal waste with the aim of ensuring that we protect our territorial waters and marine waters for a safe and healthy environment and our target are petrol stations which discharge hazardous liquid wastes that negatively affect living things,” he added.

Lopokoit added that the oil and petroleum substances contained chemicals known as bitex that are carcinogenic and dangerous to the health of living things.

 He said that the authority would be enforcing the waste management regulations and the water quality regulations so that in the next 100 days all the operators should have complied or face punitive penalties and their stations closed down.

 “We are targeting hazardous areas fast and petrol stations are required to have waste water treatment plants that should be monitored by NEMA at quarterly basis but most of them have not complied,” he added.

In Mariakani alone he said that four of the ten petrol stations inspected had complied with the regulations and had the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) licence and the Effluence Discharge licence.

 He also said that failure to adhere to the regulations attracted fines ranging from Sh500,000 to Sh4 million.

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