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It’s time to be frank because we are furious.
For too long, all the warning signs of a potential water disaster affecting Kuala Lumpur and Selangor have been ignored.
Our politicians and authorities were alerted, but, true to their nature, they did it squatting. All the warnings fell on deaf ears.
So now, Kuala Lumpur and Selangor have the dubious distinction of having the most water interruptions in the country. And let’s not even talk about the type of water we’ve been drinking.
As early as 2012, the Universiti Putra Malaysia found that most of Selangor’s rivers, which feed the state’s water supply, were polluted. The institute of higher education specifically said that the pollution problem could seriously threaten the availability of this basic need.
The unit director of the Center for Environmental Forensic Research at UPM Universiti, Dr. Hafizan Juahir, said that the clean water sections of the rivers were being shortened due to development, especially housing.
For example, he said, the length of Sungai Langat, the state’s main source of raw water, was 149.3 km, but the clean water section had been reduced to just 49.3 km and the rest was polluted.
“The entire stretch of Sungai Langat has fallen into the pollution categories of Class 3 and 4, and if the quality worsens, it can be considered a dead river,” he said.
He said that in the Hulu Langat district, the situation was more serious because there was too much development, especially of condominiums and commercial premises.
The increase in population has also negatively affected water quality through washing and dumping of household waste into the river.
“I am a scientist and researcher. I speak based on facts about water quality. I see the details for each water quality parameter or water quality trend index. There is very little clean water left, ”he said.
The problem is that every time we are faced with water shortages, we blame the climate.
We take our water resource for granted because with our frequent rains, our dams must always be full, or so we assume.
Then we talked about building more water treatment plants, but we never executed those plans.
The demand for water supply will continue to increase in the Klang Valley because it is the most populated and industrialized place in the country, but water treatment will become more expensive as water quality deteriorates.
It doesn’t help when idiotic politicians, wanting to increase their shares, promise free water to the people of Selangor during the elections.
Obviously, they didn’t care about the consequences.
There is little point in discussing the restructuring of the water industry when more pressing issues, such as the contamination of water resources, are not addressed.
It is not just the government.
We are all guilty of overlooking water pollution. We treat our rivers like garbage dumps, so we deserve poor water quality in return.
Dr. Hafizan suggests that Selangor’s water comes from Sungai Pahang, especially since the water in that river is not as polluted as the Selangor rivers.
In fact, uncontrolled and unplanned development comes at a high price.
A research report indicates that “the degradation of water quality in the Selangor River will continue to be present in the coming years, as pollutant loads from poultry farms, municipal wastewater and industrial wastewater are not expected to be managed effectively. “
“It will be facing the problems of the state of the quality of the water to use it for multiple purposes and to provide its aquatic environment continuously. The water quality assessment system is used to assess the condition of the water quality in the river, ”he said.
“This system distinguishes two categories of water conditions, that is, the water quality index and the suitability of the water quality. The water quality assessment for the Selangor River from nine stations along the main stream, which concludes that the water has been highly polluted immediately downstream from the 02 River Selangor station prior to the confluence with the Kubu River due to the high concentration of microorganisms and immediately downstream from station 06 Río Selangor before the confluence with the Batang Kali river was verified due to high concentrations of microorganisms and suspended particles ”.
Suddenly, Selangor politicians woke up from their slumber of ignorance and started talking about water pollution when the problem had been staring at them for decades. Too little too late?
Even the ruler of Selangor, Sultan Sharafuddin Idris Shah, has said that the recommendations he made to overcome the water problem appeared to have no effect, as the problem has persisted and made his subjects uncomfortable. Now the Selangor state government has spent RM2 thousand on four Military-grade drones will be deployed next month to catch the water polluters. We’d like to think it’s a brilliant idea, but it sounds like another knee-jerk reaction from politicians to appease angry consumers.
It’s safer to prepare for another round of water outages than to believe them because, apparently, responsibility is not part of their vocabulary.
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