A Kisumu County director of environment wants the assembly to set laws that will help curb pollution of Lake Victoria from the highlands. County director of environment Saisi Aura said that the town was a basin which made it easy for waste from the neighboring highlands to flow into the lake. He now wants the county assembly to table and discuss laws that will help them manage the situation. “Around 80% of the pollution in Lake Victoria is waste from neighboring highlands and if we had a law in place, we would be better placed to deal with this problem,” he said. He blamed the current crisis on the defunct local authority, which he says did not do enough to invest in waste management. The director complained that due to fertilizer and other wastes from the highlands, hyacinth growth was becoming a major hindrance to water transport in Lake Victoria, the world's second largest fresh water lake. On her part, environment executive Rhoda Obadha said the assembly should quickly pass laws on wastes once they are tabled to guide the industry. “There is a huge potential and opportunities in our wastes. All we have to do is ensure that we have the right laws and ways of separating and sorting the wastes,” she said in her office yesterday.

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