Njoro MP Charity Kathambi has called on the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) to move with speed and ensure sanity in Njoro over non-compliant flower farm dams that are now posing a threat to the locals.
Speaking in Njoro days after a dam belonging to Sojanmi Flower farm burst its banks causing destruction in the area, the legislator said NEMA should ensure compliance so as to avert what was witnessed in Solai.
“I am urgently calling on NEMA director and his team to come to Njoro because we don’t want to witness what we saw in Solai. We must ensure that our people are safe” said Kathambi.
A year ago, a section of residents from Muchorwe village in Njoro sued a flower company over environmental pollution caused by chemical effluents.
The case was determined this year in June. The farm's licence was cancelled and is required to comply within 60 days.
In the case filed before the Environment and Lands court in Nakuru, the residents sought orders to compel Sonjami Spring Fields Limited which runs a flower farm next to the village to rehabilitate their land which they claimed had been degraded by the chemical effluents released from the green houses.
According to the suit, three residents Jane Wagathuitu Githinji, Isaac Kamau and Samson Gichuki claimed the firm which is stationed uphill in the region had failed to contain and treat the waters within their farm.
The trio said the flower firm has been releasing the effluent down to the community residing along the slope causing harm.
According to court documents supporting their case, the residents state that sometime in August 2014, a dam constructed by the company broke its banks allowing its waters to flow downhill which caused massive loss of property including cattle, donkeys, homes, farm produce.
Roads were also destroyed.
They argued that the locals were compensated 'peanuts' following the loss. In the case, the National Environmental Management Authority and the county government were listed as respondents.
The residents also sued the county government of Nakuru for allowing the firm to construct nine more hectares of greenhouses on top of the existing 36 hectares without considering the conditions set by the environmental authority.
According to the affidavit by Wagathuitu, NEMA had granted the firm permission to construct the greenhouses on condition that they built a dam for harvesting the rainwater.
However, the Water Resource Management Authority denied the farm permission for the construction of the dam at the point where they wanted as it was a wetland area.