By Hayal Alemayehu

Overflowing Lake Beseka has finally forced authorities to break open one of the two huge concrete tunnels serving to discharge the overflowing water to Awash River as the spilling over becomes a clear and present danger to the country’s major import/export corridor - the only highway to the Port of Djibouti.

The Ministry of Water Resources (MOWR) two weeks ago passed the decision to break open one of the concrete tunnels itself to let in the overflowing water directly into the tunnel some six months after the water pumps installed to pump the spill-over to the tunnels became dysfunctional due to flooding, it was learnt.
MOWR had six years ago launched a project involving a water pump house and two 4km-long concrete tunnels to divert the overflowing water from Lake Beseka to Awash river .

Due to its acidic nature, the water being discharged from the lake has been regulated to be less than two percent of the total volume of Awash River so that it will not damage the river which is being used to irrigate the sugar plantations and other farms downstream.

While the decision taken by the Ministry to break open one of the tunnels and discharge the overflow to the river has apparently helped to minimize the overflow and even slightly reduce the height of the lake over the last two weeks, observers fear that that will not be a lasting solution because the discharged water cannot be regulated in such a way.

“We have taken an urgent action to prevent the overflowing water from flooding the highway [to Djibouti], the railroad and the surrounding farms,” Asfaw Dingamo, the MOWR, told The Reporter. “The discharged water is being gauged as well.”

The Minister said that the breaking open of the tunnel was an urgent measure to keep the overflow at bay from flooding the highway and the railroad. The Ministry will come up with a lasting solution to the problem after an ongoing study, expected to identify the cause for the overflow and indicate possible solutions to the problem is completed at the end of next month, according to Asfaw.

Unconfirmed reports reaching The Reporter say that Prime Minister Meles Zenawi had two weeks ago paid a visit to Metehara to see for himself the overflow that was close to flooding the highway to the port of Djibouti then.

According to a study conducted earlier on, the unprecedented expansion of the lake over the last four decades and the overflow from the lake has been causing a significant damage to the country and the economy.

The study indicates that the expansion of the lake had incurred damage worth 23 million birr on the Ethio-Djibouti Railway Enterprise, the Ethiopian Roads Authority and the Metehara Sugar Fatory until it was completed in December 1998.

Experts fear that if the expansion of the lake continues unabated, it will damage the country’s economy more and become hazardous to the surrounding farms, including the country’s giant sugar mill – the Metehar Sugar Factory. Among those experts who expressed the damaging effects of the lake is Bizuneh Assefa, the agricultural operation manager of Metehar Sugar Factory. “The expansion of the lake is a threat to the surrounding areas,” he said. “Nothing can grow where the lake flows to.”

An undergoing study is examining what are the sources for the overflow and expansion of the lake. While it is expected that there are a few springs inside the lake attributable to the expansion of the lake, drainage from the surrounding farms, including Metehara sugarcane plantation, is also considered to be the other source, according to experts.

Latest findings indicate that Lake Abyata, somewhere upstream from Lake Beseka, could be surging to the latter underground, thereby expanding its volume.
The Beseka lake area, which occupied 3-5sq km from 1912-1964, had since been expanding significantly to 40sq. km. in 1998, according to the same study. The area of the lake is now believed to be over 60sq.km. according to some experts.

Source: Ethiopian Reporter