Dr. Paul Otuoma

All parliamentary appearances

Entries 341 to 350 of 412.

• 25 Mar 2010 in National Assembly: Mr. Speaker, Sir, I think as you are all aware, there was a problem in Lake Naivasha, where there was sudden death of fish. I gave reasons as to why there was that sudden death of fish from the preliminary results that we have gotten. The current laboratory results from KEPHIS indicate that there are no toxic chemicals that can justify to be the cause of death of fish. There are also results from the Public Health and Sanitation Laboratory. There is a certificate of analysis here which also does not show that there were any toxic chemicals in the ... view
• 25 Mar 2010 in National Assembly: Mr. Speaker, Sir, I think in my earlier answer, I expounded on some of the environmental challenges that the catchment area of Lake Naivasha was facing. We are all very much aware that our Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources and the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) are already carrying out an audit as part of the long-term actions that were being undertaken by the Government. This audit report is going to be made available. They are investigating the whole catchment area of Lake Naivasha. I am sure a similar Question had been put by a Member of Parliament to ... view
• 25 Mar 2010 in National Assembly: Mr. Speaker, Sir, science is not fiction. It is a matter of hard facts. At that time as I indicated in my earlier answer as to the cause of fish death, I had not received the report from Prof. Ogutu. As I was going through extra literature, I saw similar information and I thought I would be educating this House on this sudden death of fish. It happened in Lake Victoria in 1927. In fact, the research work there is from 1927 and it is still ongoing. So, I was just trying to use it to reemphasize the point. view
• 25 Mar 2010 in National Assembly: Mr. Speaker, Sir, I have already tabled all the laboratory results. view
• 25 Mar 2010 in National Assembly: What I said was going on was the environmental audit, which is being undertaken by NEMA and the Ministry of Environment and Mineral Resources. I had also indicated at that time that the Ministry of Public Health and Sanitation had already taken the Municipal Council of Naivasha to court just because of their sewer treatment. So, there are a lot of other activities that are going on. As I said, some activities are immediate and others are long-term. With regard to the cause of death of fish in Lake Naivasha, I have already tabled all the results. view
• 25 Mar 2010 in National Assembly: Mr. Speaker, Sir, I undertake to do so. view
• 10 Mar 2010 in National Assembly: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir. I beg to reply. view
• 10 Mar 2010 in National Assembly: (a) The cause of recent fish deaths in Lake Naivasha was suffocation as a result of lack of oxygen. Preliminary results revealed a sharp drop in dissolved oxygen to almost zero milligrammes per litre at 1.5 meters depth to the bottom of the lake, implying that there was a dead zone at the bed of the lake. The general accepted minimum amount of dissolved oxygen that supports life is between 4 to 5 milligrammes per litre. We are certain that this was the cause of the death because the fish taken from the site showed signs of death from suffocation. ... view
• 10 Mar 2010 in National Assembly: (b) Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, on the second level whereby we were checking on chemicals and other causes of eutrophication, as asked by the hon. Member, so far the analysis has only revealed that some organo-phosphates, basically malathion, was found in the sediments. Malathion’s life span is around just six days. So this normally decomposes very fast and we do not expect it to accumulate within the aquatic organisms. The cause of eutrophication, which caused that depletion of oxygen, is mostly currently being attributed to decomposing organic matter in the lake. The lake had receded so much during the dry ... view
• 10 Mar 2010 in National Assembly: Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, as I said, one of the organo-phosphates that was identified in the sediments, not in the fish muscle tissue, was malathion. As I said earlier, malathion is basically used for spraying crops and other plants; a lot of it is sometimes also used in farms. So, this can be washed down into the lake. But the levels which were found were not of dangerous concentration to cause sudden death of fish. These are sometimes normal levels that one would find. But as I said, I am awaiting the KEPHIS report so that we can collaborate what ... view