Ngusishi Water Resource Users Association-Newsletter 2010

NWRUA-Protecting Water Resources for the Future

NGUSISHI WATER RESOURCE USERS ASSOCIATION Page 8

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS SUPPORTERS

Lydia Rouse and friends • St Steven’s Children’s Home

• Tima Flor Ltd • Laikipia Wildlife Forum

• WRMA/ENNCA-NANYUKI • Child Fund Kenya (timau family programme)

• Lolomarik farm • Marania Farm

• Ol-Donyo Farm • Lobelia Farm

• Ole-Naishu Ranch • AL & AB Puckett

• Alan Dickson / Let’s Go Travel • Pro-A-Kids

Contacts Ngusishi Water Resource Users As-sociation (NWRUA) P.O. Box 33 - Timau 10406 KENYA Tel: 0722886456 0724 597472 E-Mail [email protected] Website: www.ngusishi.com

Description Unit Amount (Kshs)

Water use charges

M3 50cts(commumities)

Annual Sub-scription

l/sec 2,500.00

Managers Sal-ary

Monthly 3,100 (For unconnected members)


Ngusishi Water Resource Users Asso-ciation (NWRUA) is a an Association formed by users of Ngusishi River and stake holders who voluntarily associate to achieve the common objective of im-proving water resource management. It is registered with the registrar of socie-ties of Kenya under the section 10 of the societies act as an Association.

The Association has it's foundation as a registered self help group with the gen-der, culture and social services in 1998 (registration no. 183/98) and was regis-tered as an Association in 2003.

NWRUA incorporates water users, ripar-ian land owners, and other stakeholders who came together for the purposes of cooperatively and transparently sharing and conserving a common water resource with the following objectives:

“ Conserving Water Resources for the Future”

NGUSISHI WATER RESOURCE USERS ASSOCIATION

July, 2010 NEWSLETTER

• Promote good management prac-tices to make efficient and sus-tainable use of the water re-source;

• Promote water conservation practices to ensure sufficient water reserves that meet the demands of the environment, the wildlife, the livestock and all the communities who rely on the water resource;

• To work towards reducing con-flict in use of the water re-source and participate in solving those that arise;

• Promote catchment conservation measures to improve water quantities and quality

Continued next page…..

• A Brief History of NWUA

1

• How You Can Support NWUA

2

• NWRUA Website 2

• Pictorial 3

• A Donation That Made A difference

4

• NWRUA Opens Lobe-lia weir

4

• Catchment degrada-tion versus Riparian

4

• Planting Trees; A Worthy Cause

5

• NWUA Administra-tion

5

• NWUA to connect 3 more projects

6

• Al Puckett’s Dona-tion

6

• NWUA Springs 7

• Acknowledgements 8

A Brief History of NWUA


….Continued from page 1


The Ngusishi River Water Users Association was born out of conflicts arising between the upper agriculturist and the lower pastoralists over the availability of river flows. The lower pastoralists felt that the upper river users were util-izing the flow from illegal off takes for irrigation and con-sumption the detriment of the users below.

The foundation of the Association was at a meeting held on the 14th May 1998 with a few farmers and water users ex-pressing their need to form an Association to ensure that at least domestic water was availed to all stake holders of the river water resource.

Ngusishi river originates from three springs namely:

• Kabeere

• Muthuuri

• Batian

Water quality issues have also been raised due to com-mon use by humans and livestock, contamination by agri-cultural chemicals and infiltration from poor sanitation practices. Ngusishi Water Association (NWUA) cur-rently serves sixteen projects namely:

1. Kabubungi A

2. Kabubungi B

3. Kabeere

4. Daisa Farm

5. Batian Farmers

6. Siraji

7. Lobelia

8. Batian Flowers

9. Tima Flor/Land A

10. Ol – Donyo

11. Lolomarik

12. Chumvi

13. Wiumiririe

14. Ole Naishu

15. Kongoni

16. Valley spring

You can support NWRUA by joining your project, familiarizing yourself with the activities laid out in its sub-catchment man-agement plan (SCMP) and ensuring that your water use meets the rules and regulations developed by the WRUA.

Additional support (office space, transport for meetings, ven-ues for meetings, etc.) is also valuable and can count as WRUA/community contributions to the Association.

Participation in Association activities is not only valuable but strengthens the Association

Commercial farms who are members have contributed enor-mously to the Association by providing equipments like motor-bikes, material and finances, transport, storage and security of the Associations property and contributing to Managers salary. We really encourage such invaluable support.

How You Can Support NWRUA

NWRUA WESITE In order to keep abreast with the changing global techno-logical advancements, to effectively reach out to its members, partners and other parties across the globe, NWUA has fre-quently updated its website. Most of the activities going on in the Association are posted to the website and soon their will be a video embedded in the website.

The site has ‘News’ section where you can keep in touch with the developments in the Association. Know more and give your feed back by logging on to www.ngusishi.com.A daily water tip appears on the site to advice all on water use efficiency

A screen shot of the NWUA website



eradication of household poverty among its mem-bers. The donation has also come at a time when the Association was grappling with the issue of distribu-tion lines and meters for its members and there-fore the donation is hugely invaluable

NWRUA Administration ….. Continued from page 5 NWRUA’s detailed administrative structure is as be-low: Management Committee: 1. John Mwirichia - Chairman 2. John Tema - Vice Chairman 3. Bryn Llewellyn - Secretary 4. Gordon Murray - Treasurer Procurement Committee: 1. Simon V D Berg 2. Misheck Muthomi Finance Committee: 1. John Mwirichia 2. Gordon Murray 3. Hellen Kiende Monitoring Committee 1. John Tema 2. Bryn Llewelyn 3. John Maina Project Managers 1. Dominic Maringa 2. Mercy Kendi

NWRUA Springs Ngusishi river originates from three springs namely:

• Kabeere

• Muthuuri

• Batian

SPRING PROJECT ALLOCATION (l/s)

Muthuuri Valley Spring 0.5

Ol-Donyo 5

Lolomarik 5

Chumvi 3.28

Kabeere Springs Kabubungi A 2.5

Kabubungi B 2.5

Daisa 5

Wiumiririe 5

Kongoni 5

Ole-Naishu 4.9

Reserve30% 11

Batian Spring Lobelia 2

Land A 1.25

Tima Flor ltd 1.25

Batian Flow-ers

2.3

Batian Farm-ers

2.5

Kabeere farm

1.25

Resrve-30% 5.5

Page 7

OleNaishu 2.4

Chumvi 0.1

Reserve 30% 3.9


NWRUA Finishes pipeline to three projects

NGUSISHI WATER RESOURCE USERS ASSOCIATION Page 6

It could be the year of all smiles as the Association achieves its long dream of finishing the main pipeline to three of its downstream projects. For Wiumiririe Community Project, Chumvi and OleNaishu, the long awaited pipeline is now at their door steps thanks to the individual project’s efforts and support from do-nors, commercial farms and the Association’s contribution The Community members participated with enthusiasm in all the excavation, pipe laying , backfilling and gulley filling and when assistance from Tima Flor Ltd and OleNaishu Ranch came in time , the pipeline is now fully in the hands of the individual projects. The projects are now making their own connections to the households through pulling together contributions as groups to purchase distribution lines

This will be history to people of Wiumiririe once the pipe-line is complete

This will be the site in every compound once the distribution lines for the Wiumiririe and Chumvi are complete

The Puckett Family Foundation and Global Connections have been staunch supporters of Ngusishi RWUA for many years. In 2006 the foundation which is based in the United States, donated the two 50m3 tanks for the Kabubungi A and B Water Projects Last year 2009 the foundation donated $12000 which helped to purchase the pipes for the Wiumiririe Water Project This year in July, the foundation led by Al Puckett him-self visited the Association and had a firs hand view of the projects implemented using their donation. Al Puckett was accompanied by three other friends who helped to raise the funds. They were happy to see the progress so far and they promised to donated some more funds raised b their Foundation. The Foundation has donated another $17,975 to go to-wards finishing the remaining projects in the Associa-tion. This came as great news when the Association is raising capacity on water use efficiency, conservation farming, introduction of small scale drip irrigation and

Al Puckett Donation



NWRUA Executive Committee at renovated Lobelia weir A drip kit donated by LWF set up at Kongoni Project

The launch of drip demo plots at Chumvi Project –NWRUA

A foundation for a distribution Tank donated by Child Fund Parliamentary Committee visit at NWRUA-Kabeere weir


A Donation That Made a Difference


Dominic Maringa This year Ngusishi Water Resource Users Associa-tion was very lucky to realize a dream it had nurtured for very long. Thanks to Lydia Rouse and her Friends from Univer-sity of Virginia, USA, the Association was able to set up three drip irrigation demonstration plots at three of its community projects. The donation of the three drip kits was a welcome gesture as one of the technologies that will help in water conservation. This donation was immediately followed by another donation of 4 drip kits of quarter acre by Laikipia Wildlife Forum (LWF) Currently, NWRUA is using the drip kits to train all the community members on how to effectively use the little available water to grow food crops for both house hold consumption and income generation The long term objective is to eradicate the overhead irrigation which wastes a lot of water to evaporation and unnecessary parts of the shamba that only help in bringing up weeds in the gardens Reports from the pilot farms indicate that the farmers can spend less time in attending the crops and pay three time less for the water used The farmers have entered into contract with the Association to pay for the drip kits in installments until it will eventually belong to them. the pilot sites serve as training grounds for other community mem-bers to learn the new technology This is one technology that can set up equip farmers with opportunities to food outputs on a sustainable basis and to reliability of farm incomes thus eradi-cating household poverty in rural areas What the farmers need most now are the meters to their water taps in order to control their water use.

NWRUA Opens Lobelia Weir Dominic Maringa

Lobelia weir, which has been under renovation is now complete thanks to the funding received last year from WDC. The weir has cost the Association about ksh 200,000. It will serve Batian Farmers, Tima Flor/Land A, OleNaishu ranch, John Mwirichia and Lobelia Farm. As a rule the weir will also leave 30% of the stream to flow for ecological purpose The weir is complete with chambers and master meters and gate valves and the Scout from Batian Farmers monitors the meter readings daily. The Weir is expected to yield 13liters per second. The current yield is still low as seen in the graph below

Catchment degradation versus Riparian land protection

Dominic Maringa Although catchment degradation in the Mt. Kenya region has often been cited has the reason for the low river flows, lack of knowledge on riparian land contributes much to the prob-lem. This coupled with illegal water abstractions and lack of un-derstanding of the current water act has always made river flows not to reach the downstream members. NWRUA has undertaken various trainings on riparian land protection and pegging to ensure its members fully under-stand the importance of protecting riparian areas. Members regularly plant water friendly tree species along the stream edges and know that the moment the trees attain their full maturity they will reap many benefits from them. Before then they will have protected the soils and provided shade to the river water

Lobelia weir which was under

BATIAN SPRINGS

02468

10

24 25 26 27 28

WEEKS

AV

L/SE

C



Planting Trees; A Worthy Cause

Dominic Maringa The encroachment into various forests in Kenya has seen abandon destruction of forest cover that caused uproar which has shocked the nation to its roots. This saw the government swing into action with the Prime Minister leading the Nation for a refores-tation exercise at Mau forest. At Ngusishi we advocate for the indigenous species which provide long period of vegetative cover and act as rain trappers, among other benefits. These include Olea Africana (Mutamaiyu, muthata, ol-orien), Prunus Africana (Muiri), Whose bark is used for treating prostrate cancer, and bamboo (Bambosa) Trees also provide shade, firewood posts etc. Com-munities or individuals can develop their own tree nurseries. One needs a good supply of water and com-post manure and some know-how of the germination needs of different tree seeds. Though seedlings can stay in the nursery for more than three years, it is important to relocate them to planting holes before they form root foundation in the nursery. Apart from their rain trapping nature and soil con-servation, people should plant trees just for the beauty of it. A tree is a man’s best friend who never abandons him. Many a man is born in a wooden bed, and the same man is buried in a wooden coffin. It is worthy to plant a tree today and reap its enormous benefits a few years to come. Whether for wood, timber, fruits, shade, fencing or fodder, its great to plant a tree today?

Members of Ngusishi WRUA Plant trees to mark the World Environment Day this Year

Mr.Wangome of WRMA Plants a tree along the Ngusishi River to mark The World Environment Day

NWRUA Administration The Association is managed by a Management Committee con-sisting of an Executive Committee and 3 other Committees which are auxiliary bodies. The Executive Committee consists of a Chairman, Vice chairman, Secretary and Treasurer. The auxiliary bodies are those recognized by WRMA and other bodies. They are Procurement Committee, Finance Committee, and Monitoring Committee. The committees are elected every five years. In total it consists of 16 members

Two Project Managers are employed to coordinates the As-sociation’s activities. The Association has an office, computers and motorbike. ( Continued On Page 7)…..

Page 5

Project managers Dominic Maringa and Mercy Kendi on the project motorbike

Ngusishi Water Resource Users Association-Newsletter 2010

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Transcript of Ngusishi Water Resource Users Association-Newsletter 2010