(l – r) Residents of Hale township Jumanne Mazimbu, Rodrick Nzowa and Said Ngonyani negotiate their way on the muddy Pangani River in a canoe. Credit: Kizito Makoye/IPS.

By Kizito Makoye
PANGANI, Tanzania, Oct 24 2013 (IPS)

As farmers and herders fight over dwindling water levels in the Pangani River Basin in northeastern Tanzania, a new dispute is emerging between farmers and the state-run power utility firm over this precious resource.

The Tanzania Electric Supply Company or TANESCO manages three hydropower plants located on the Pangani River near Muheza district, which are meant to provide 17 percent of the country’s electricity.

Subira Mgalu, the Muheza district commissioner, told IPS that conflict was rife between farmers and TANESCO, particularly in downstream areas where the hydropower plants are located. She said that the government was trying to “find a lasting solution” to the dispute.

“Insufficient water has been the main source of the clashes between irrigators and TANESCO, but we have tried to use wisdom to resolve them by ensuring that the available resources are shared equally between the parties,” Mgalu said without elaborating further. This East African nation’s water policy does not exclusively grant water rights to any agency and considers water a national resource that should be shared equally by all Tanzanians.

For the last four years, northeastern Tanzania has been experiencing a drought that locals say is the worst to have ever hit the region. Thousands of farmers and herders who earn a living here have been affected.

Jumanne Mujuni, a councilor from Mombo town, which is located a few kilometres from the Hale hydropower station in Muheza district, told IPS that the drought has pushed many to the brink as they compete with TANESCO for dwindling water supplies. He added that many locals are now embroiled in disputes with the state-run utility.

“All these problems that we face are rooted in the drought. There were hardly any [problems] when there was enough water in the river,” he said.

Hydropower from the Pangani River, which has a capacity to provide 17 percent or about 97 megawatts (MW) of the country’s electricity demand– enough to light 100,000 homes – is experiencing generation output of less than 30 percent due to insufficient water. This has caused a deficit on the national grid.

TANESCO has blamed the farmers for overusing water for irrigation without bearing in mind that the river’s flow must be maintained to enable the hydropower plants to operate.

“Those activities are straining water supply to the production facilities. We have often experienced inadequate water flow, which is below the minimum mark required to run the generating turbines effectively,” Danstan Mramba, the TANESCO manager who oversees the Pangani hydropower stations, told IPS.

He explained that the New Pangani Falls and Hale hydropower plants had capacity to produce 21 MW and 68 MW respectively but were now only able to produce 9 MW and 32 MW respectively.

Director of Water Resources Protection at the ministry of water, Naomi Lupimo, told IPS that the traditional furrow irrigation schemes used by small-scale farmers in the upper Pangani basin were the major source of the dispute as they used water inefficiently.

“These people have probably forgotten their traditional ways of conserving water sources, that’s why they use it haphazardly as if there is no tomorrow. They must be reminded that the water belongs to the state and everybody has the right to it.

“In the past, traditional furrow irrigation was concentrated in the highlands. But as more people keep coming into the basin, this system has spread to the lowlands, putting enormous pressure on water resources,” Lupimo said.

She explained that in a bid to protect water sources, the government would, among other things, start charging for the resource in some areas.

Smallholder farmers, however, view this move as a deliberate effort to safeguard TANESCO’s interests. Some told IPS that their share of the water was not adequate as TANESCO was “too selfish” to share the water with indigenous people.

“We have lived in this area all our life. How come today some people point an accusing finger blaming us of encroaching on water sources?” Mwamedi Jecha, a farmer at Hale village in Muheza district, told IPS.

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Pangani Basin Water Board officials Arafa Maggidi (green shirt) and Lillian Mkongo (seated) collected water samples to measure salinity at one of the tributaries of Pangani River in September 2013. Credit: Kizito Makoye/IPS

By Kizito Makoye
PANGANI, Tanzania, Oct 22 2013 (IPS)

The freshwater drinking supply of the coastal town of Pangani in northeast Tanzania is becoming increasingly contaminated as salt water steadily seeps in from the Indian Ocean.

The 500 km Pangani River and underground aquifers are the main sources of drinking water for thousands of residents in Pangani town, located about 400km north of the capital, Dar es Salaam. Over the last few decades, the rising ocean has been siphoning away freshwater and leaking salt water into aquifers and wells.

Dwindling rainfall has also made it difficult to replenish freshwater supplies. But Pangani town residents tell IPS that some underground wells that were previously resilient to the seeping salt water have now been contaminated.

“The rate at which dissolved salt is leaking into freshwater sources is quite alarming, we have to be extra-vigilant to monitor this situation,” Hamza Sadiki, a researcher with Pangani Basin Water Board tells IPS. He says most water sources have been contaminated, leaving people with no other option but to drink salty water.“It’s a pity that most people drink salty water whose salinity exceeds acceptable standards, but we simply can’t tell them don’t drink it.” -- Mohamed Hamis, a water engineer with the Pangani Town district authority

Scientists have linked the growing problem partially to climate change. According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, as sea levels rise, water from the ocean will inundate wetlands and other low-lying lands, intensify flooding and increasing the salinity of rivers and groundwater tables.

According to a 2011 study titled “Economics of climate change in Tanzania”, published by the Tanzania government in collaboration with the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development, changing weather patterns in this East African nation will make its coastal communities more vulnerable to rising sea levels.

Already, many along the coast have been forced to drink water with high levels of soluble salt and many are bracing for a bleak future as they desperately wait for the government to improve the quality of their water.

“Salt water is a huge problem here, but we drink it anyway since fresh water has become scarce. All the wells are supplying salt water – we need help,” Amran Shamte, a 65-year-old local resident tells IPS. He recalls his school days in the 1960s when crocodiles were commonly seen close to the river mouth. He says that today they have moved further upstream as they cannot withstand the salt water seeping into their freshwater supply.

According to the World Health Organisation, the acceptable level of dissolved salts in freshwater from lakes, rivers and ground water is from 20 to 800 milligrams per litre (mg/L).

But water samples taken by researchers from the Pangani Basin Water Board show that the total soluble salt levels downstream of the Pangani River are far beyond acceptable standards at 2,000 mg/L.

“It is for this reason that the government decided to set its own standards of salt water to enable people in coastal communities to drink this water,” Arafa Maggid, an engineer from Pangani Basin Water Board tells IPS.

Sabas Kimboka, a nutritionist from the Tanzania Food and Nutrition Centre, tells IPS that drinking salt water over a long period of time could potentially be hazardous to human health since salt dehydrates the body.

“There is no safe amount of seawater to drink, the salt makes you more dehydrated and requires you to drink more fresh water [that] you probably don’t have,” he explains.

Mohamed Hamis, a water engineer with the Pangani Town district authority, tells IPS that salt water intrusion has gone 10 km upstream of the river, making it difficult for the authority to supply fresh water, especially during high tide. The town authority now pumps water only during low tide and plans to move the pump further upstream, he says.

“Some of these villages are very close to the ocean, and the water table is already deeply percolated with dissolving salts,” Hamis says. They have not yet conducted a census to establish how many people are affected.

He adds that the government is considering hiring experts to drill salt water barrier wells to protect underground aquifers from contamination, but this project will depend on the availability of funds.

According to Hamis, in some villages two out of three large underground wells are highly contaminated by saline intrusion. As a result some residents have been forced to travel longer distances to find fresh water.

To help stem this growing problem, the government is encouraging local communities who live close to the Indian Ocean to move further inland where water sources are less contaminated. But many say they cannot afford to move anywhere since they do not have the means to do so.

“It’s a pity that most people drink salty water whose salinity exceeds acceptable standards, but we simply can’t tell them don’t drink it,” Hamis says, showing his concern for the government’s decision to raise the acceptable standards of water salinity beyond international norms.

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(l-r) Jumanne Kikumbi, the chairman of Langoni village; Hamza Sadiki, an official from Pangani Basin Water Board; and Joseph Mwaimu walk on a muddy section of a dried Pangani River bed. Credit: Kizito Makoye/IPS

By Kizito Makoye
PANGANI, Tanzania, Oct 18 2013 (IPS)

Conflicts over water are increasing in the sprawling Pangani River Basin in northeastern Tanzania as farmers and herders jostle for dwindling water resources in the face of climate change. Over the past decade, Maasai pastoralists from the northern areas of Moshi and Arusha have been streaming towards the basin with tens of thousands of their cattle in search of water and grazing pasture.

Hafsa Mtasiwa, the Pangani district commissioner, told IPS that the Maasais’ traditional land was strained by overuse of water resources and overgrazing. She said in the last three years 2,987 herders with 87,1321 cows and 98,341 goats moved into the basin’s low land, destroying arable land.

She said that although the government of this East African nation was trying to control the influx into the basin, a lack of policy coordination between relevant regional authorities made this difficult.

“This is a very complex issue whose solution requires a general consensus between the fighting groups. You don’t simply chase away cattle keepers. We must educate them on the need to respect the rights of the others,” she said.

The Pangani River Basin, which sprawls across 48,000 square kilometres, is already stressed as it faces continued demands on its water resources and ecosystems.

According to the Water and Nature Initiative of the International Union of Conservation of Nature, the basin has a population of 3.4 million people, “80 percent of whom rely on small-scale farming. Ecosystems are in decline and, with aquatic resources supplying up to 25 percent of household income in parts of the basin, the poorest are those most affected by declining water levels.”

Statistics from the Tanzania Meteorological Agency (TMA) show rainfall patterns across many parts of the Pangani River Basin have drastically dropped in the past 10 years. Some areas that recorded 990 mm of rainfall a decade ago receive almost half of this now.

“The impacts of climate change are very difficult to foresee, they keep changing from time to time. It could start with drought then abruptly switch to floods, the important thing is for the people to adapt,” TMA’s director general Agnes Kijazi told IPS by phone.

What little water there is, is mostly used for irrigation and electricity generation. The Clim-A-Net project, which aims to develop scientific knowledge on climate change, states on its website that “almost 90 percent of the surface flow in the Pangani Basin is used for irrigation and hydropower generation.”

“We are spending sleepless nights just finding water, the little we get we feed our cattle. We have lost so many cows … The people here should also understand the situation we are in,” Vincent Ole Saidim, a Maasai youth living in Pangani, told IPS.

But farmers here complain about the number of cattle that enter their fields, destroying crops and irrigation structures in the process.

“These Maasai are very selfish people, they think they are always right, even when they destroy other people’s lives. I can’t bear them, they should go back to where they belong,” Mwasiti, Isinika a farmer in Pangani, told IPS.

Residents from the region told IPS that over the last six months tensions between farmers and herders have been ongoing and many feel that there is no end in sight.

The most recent incident that IPS noted occurred in August in Makenya village, a community of 600 people located about 19 km from the basin’s Pangani Town. According to residents, a scuffle involving farmers and pastoralists ensued when 24 herders attempted to take over the village’s central water source in order to feed their animals. The villagers managed to remove them and no deaths were reported.

However, two years ago in Mbuguni village, which is about 18 km from Pangani Town, four farmers were hacked to death by angry Maasai morans (warriors) as they tried to stop a group of cattle from trampling on their maize seedlings.

Omar Kibwana, a local government official from Mbuguni village, told IPS that conflict was rife because the government was reluctant to create borders separating farmers from pastoralists.

“This issue should have been resolved a long time ago had there been clear demarcation,” he said.

The Pangani Basin Water Board said it was aware of the challenges here.

Arafa Maggidi, an engineer from Pangani Basin Water Authority, told IPS that while climate change was the main reason for the reduced water supply here, other factors such as deforestation, increasing number of livestock, and an expansion of farming activities contributed.

“The threat of climate change and the need to adapt cannot be over emphasised. We are trying our very best to educate the people to change their life styles, they must understand by destroying environment they are preparing for their own suffering,” Maggidi said.

“We strongly believe that successful management of the water resources has to integrate all environmental, economic and social demands,” he said. Going forward, scientists predict increasing temperatures, reduced rainfall and ultimately less water.

According to Pius Yanda, a professor at the University of Dar es Salaam who is also a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a rise of between 1.8 and 3.6 degrees Celsius, decreasing rainfall and increased evaporation in the river basin can be expected before the end of the century.

But as they face an uncertain future, people here recall better times when the river was full and its flow was guaranteed throughout the year.

“The river has lost all its old glory, some of the fish species have also disappeared, how disgusting,” Fundi Mhegema, a villager at Buyuni village in Pangani, told IPS.

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