Muindi Mbingu ABC high school in Machakos County could be saying goodbye to water scarcity after adopting an Australian technology and built a water tank.
Education News visited the school and established that the steel tank with a plastic lining on the inside holds up to 200,000 liters of water.
Daniel Muli, the school principal said that they resorted to the method because it’s cheap, durable, and reliable and the tank construction takes just two weeks.
“We chose to do the dam liner, a steel tank with a geomembrane-based containment. The tank holds up to 200,000 liters of water that can serve the school for two months if full thus saving us money,” he said.
“We chose this method because it’s cheap and reliable compared to the plastic tanks which break after some time. Also, the tank can hold a lot of water depending on the size, if not for lack of space we could have done one which holds up to one million liters,” he added.
Muli noted that during the dry spell, the school experienced a lack of water thus being forced to buy from Machakos town spending over sh.400,000 in two months.
“End of last year the rains were short and by February we were experiencing drought. By the end of March, we were buying water from Machakos town, for the two months we bought over 40 water boozers that cost us an arm and leg, It is not our school only but others also in Machakos constituency can say the same,” said the principal.
He disclosed that the school has a borehole that sank a few years back but cannot provide enough water for the school while consuming a lot of electricity.
“The electricity bill became too much compared to the water we are getting from the borehole. In the future, we will still do a borehole but somewhere we can get enough water,” he explained.
“With the new tank, we will be able to go through dry spells comfortably without any distractions. Mostly June to October there are no rains and we need to prepare. The tank is more durable than the plastic one. We will take advantage of the ongoing rains and store the water,” he added.
By Agnes Orang’o
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