IT’S absolute rubbish. The people in the Klang Valley do not deserve to face this constant water disruption – over and over again.
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Kuala Lumpur and Selangor are the most populous areas in the country.
Every time there is a water cut, there is a serious business multiplying effect and is not just a simple inconvenience.
It’s already bad enough that the Covid-19 pandemic has impacted small businesses, especially restaurants, hair salons, laundries, bakeries and ordinary homes – we have all been hit.
It does not matter if your home supply is not cut because indirectly, you would still be affected.
The Klang Valley is beginning to feel like a half-baked banana republic with no proper water supply and certainly we have a right to be angry because this has happened far too many times.
The latest is another suspected contamination in Sungai Selangor which has forced Pengurusan Air Selangor Sdn Bhd (Air Selangor) to issue a stop-work order on its Phase 1,2, 3 and Rantau Panjang water treatment plants, causing unscheduled water cuts to almost 1.2 million accounts in the state.
The contamination was detected around 2am on Monday (Oct 19).
“Repair works on the burst pipe at the Sg Selangor Phase 1 water treatment plant is about 80% completed but work cannot continue because of odour pollution at the same plant,” Air Selangor said in a statement.
Just over the weekend, households in Selangor had also endured another water cut caused by a burst pipe on Saturday (Oct 17).
The new unscheduled water cut in Selangor comes just as households are reeling from an earlier disruption in September, also caused by river contamination at Sungai Gong, which feeds Sungai Selangor.
The deeper question we need to ask is why does this problem persist, and when will we stop hearing the overused cliché of the authorities assuring us that they will get to the bottom of it. As it is now, it looks like a bottomless hole.
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Factories are still located near waterways and the public still treats our rivers, the lifeline of our water supply, as a rubbish dump. In an interview with environment activist Maya Karin last week, the actress told me that she once found a sofa floating in a river!
Our schools need to instil the importance of treating the environment with respect.
It has been reported that the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) has begun investigations into the Sungai Gong pollution which led to over 1.2 million users in Kuala Lumpur and Selangor facing water cuts in September.
In a statement on Sept 15, the MACC said the investigation is intended to analyse whether there were elements of corruption in the incident, including among enforcement officers.
In September, after the public outcry, we were told that one of the factories behind the cause of contamination in Rawang has been shut down by authorities for two weeks.
The factory was alleged to have released solvent into Sungai Gong, which flows into Sungai Sembah, one of the main rivers of Sungai Selangor – but what has angered many of us is that the Selayang Municipal Council (MPS) said the factory responsible for the pollution had been operating illegally since 2014.
How can this factory be operating illegally for six years without the enforcement agency acting on it unless the officers are on the take or complacent? Worse, it was reported that the factory, which repairs heavy machinery, was among 308 other factories found to be operating illegally under MPS’ jurisdiction.
Selangor executive councillor in charge of local government, public transportation and new village development, Ng Sze Han, has said that unlicensed factories that posed a high risk of causing pollution, due to the nature of their business, must move.
Please. Tell us something that we don’t know. He reportedly said that “we need to relook at licensed operations that process raw sewage near rivers or water bodies.” Why is there a need for a re-look? They shouldn’t even be there in the first place.
He disclosed that more than 700 unlicensed factories in the Klang district were at risk of being shut down by authorities if owners failed to legalise them before Dec 31. Klang has 1,127 unlicensed factories and only 395 are legal.
A total of 732 have not submitted documents to the district land office for land conversion from agriculture to industrial. Others have not even submitted building plans to legalise the building structure, he said.
We are sick and tired of these afterthoughts, excuses and promises of action, which, well, hold no water and lead to nothing – until the next water cut. -The Star