SEWAGE AND WASTEWATER MANAGEMENT SUMMIT
Mar 10th, 2010 | By Irene Adedoyin Abisogun | Category: State News
The Lagos State Governor BabaTunde Raji Fashola in his keynote address delivered at the Lagos State Sewage Summit 2010 held at Planet One,Maryland Ikeja, Lagos said that he felt greatly challenged by the state of the management of waste water in the country and Lagos State in particular.
He said that sewage and waste water management should be assessed the same way many of the State’s life sustaining asset infrastructure like road, schools, hospitals, market, and water supply are being assessed.
Governor Fashola said that the state sewage treatment plant developed many years ago and have been out stripped by the pressure of increased demand from a growing population.
He further said that the environmental health and related consequences of a failure to respond to this problem are better imagined than experienced.
He commended the leadership and entire membership of Lagos State ministry of Environment in finding a solution in the face of daunting obstacles so as to create a sustainable mega – city conducive for healthy living, socio economic development and tourism boost.
He said the three existing treatment plants located at Oke-Afa, Abesan, and Iponri are undergoing rehabilitation and modification to improve on their capacity as this will discourage discharge of raw waste into our water bodies by sewage tank operators, the treatment plant at Alausa is being rehabilitated and upgraded to meet current water generation.
Governor Fashola pointed out that Lagos State will need about 60,000 sewage trucks to ply the road six times every day just to transport the sewage to a treatment plant.He said it has also been estimated that, the sewage needs of the state will cost over 2 billion US dollars in the next 5 years.
He called on all stakeholders , donors , agencies , investors and financiers to invest in this project as the government can’t do it alone.
In his final note he said the state intends to network with the Federal Government and other states of the federation in order to create awareness and expand the scope of collaboration between the state and the international community to eliminate the adverse impact of inappropriate sewage management and harness the resource value of end and by products of the process using technologies which had been tested world wide.
