By Sukuoluhle Ndlovu
Masvingo – Passing by seeing the state of Mucheke and how polluted it is, one wonders if the water is even safe.
The river has become a dumping area and the water indicates that it has nitrate and phosphates.
A tour of the sections of the Mucheke River was conducted out by the Zimbabwe Union of Journalist on Thursday under the theme strengthening the role of the media in support of accountable governance and community development in Zimbabwe.
Despite the water being polluted, it is in the blue class, said the Environmental Management Agency Communications officer, Brian Makani.
“The water has an indicator that the water has nitrate and phosphates. We take water samples to check out the water inflowing rivers if it is clean or not. The water we collect here we classify it under ER1, and for the past two seasons; 2018 January to November the water was in the blue class which means it was environmentally friendly.
“2019 due to lack of rain for three months the water was in blue class then the other three months it was in green class and the other month yellow class,” said Makani.
Residents easily conclude that the water is dirty but after laboratory tests are carried out it proves otherwise.
“But this does not rule out that nothing is polluting the water because as we can see people are dumping waste products and we have service stations and also those who are practising stream bank cultivation will lead to the water being under the bad class,” he said.
Representatives from the city council were not present to give their point of view regarding pollution in the river.
EMA encouraged residents to stop stream bank cultivation and desist from dumping waste products in the river.
To Date EMA has carried out 89 awareness roadshow campaigns to educate the people about water pollution.
Thomas Mbetu, the chairman for Masvingo United Residents and Ratepayers Alliance said that they are also working on bringing awareness to the residents about the dangers they are likely to face if water pollution continues.
