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PETALING JAYA: That is why more than eight million people in the Klang Valley will continue to suffer water cuts.
Rampant development along the banks and in the Sungai Selangor and Sungai Langat basin and its tributaries is exposing the river to pollution and also reducing the carrying capacity of the rivers to dilute or absorb any pollutant or effluent, or which is known as the Maximum Daily Total. Load.
“Yes, the load changes and has been depleted,” said Dr. Zaki Zainudin, an expert on water quality.
“As there is more and more development and more pollution, little by little, the capacity is filling up,” he said.
The fact that rivers can no longer absorb effluents as effectively, Dr. Zaki said, was definitely a contributing factor to the pollution incidents that continue to shut down treatment plants throughout Sungai Selangor.
This is Sungai Selangor (or rather a 30km stretch of the main Sungai Selangor from Bestari Jaya to Sungai Tinggi and then to Ulu Yam).
The Sungai Selangor river basin, which covers an area of 2,200km2 and has 10 sub-basins, supplies about 60% of the water in the state, in addition to Putrajaya and Kuala Lumpur.
Sungai Langat and its tributary Sungai Semenyih provide the other 30% of the water supply in the Klang Valley.
However, as the video shows, there are various socio-economic activities along the river, ranging from industries such as aquaculture farms, sand mining and land clearing, to residential housing.
Watching the video, the Global Environment Center (GEC) river stewardship program coordinator Dr. K. Kalithasan said that the Sungai Selangor basin primarily looks like a large industrial area.
“We can see in the recent case of Sungai Gong what effluent from industries can lead to.
“Another thing, we can see massive agricultural activities, which can introduce a lot of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and sewage can have significant effects. We must realize that it is very difficult to remove inorganic pollutants from the water body.
“There are also a lot of the usual land clearing activities,” he said.
While many of these socio-economic activities are legal, Selangor state executive advisor for the environment Hee Loy Sian told reporters on October 19 that there were no illegal factories along the river, this certainly makes the stretches from the river are vulnerable to sources of pollution or worse, the illegal dumping of waste.
Some of the development is just yards from the river’s edge, with some even reaching the shore.
This is despite existing guidelines from the Department of Drainage and Irrigation that require any activity or development to be located at least 5 to 50 meters from shore, depending on the width of the channel.
The definition of “fluvial reserve” is provided for in article 62 of the National Land Law.
Two recent cases of odor contamination in one of Sungai Selangor’s tributaries, Sg Gong, led to a water supply disruption affecting more than a million account holders in the Klang Valley in the three months since September.
Four water treatment plants had to be closed: Sg Selangor Phase 1,2, 3 and Rantau Panjang.
In both cases, the solvents in Sg Gong, which are funneled to Sungai Sembah before joining Sungai Selangor, were eventually traced to nearby auto parts and machinery factories.
When The star visited one of the factories, where authorities alleged that between 2 and 3 September, a solvent was poured into a drain leading to Sungai Gong, a tributary of Sungai Sembah that eventually joins Sungai Selangor, was vacant and, According to the Selangor Mentri Besar, then, it would be closed definitively.
A worker from a nursery next to the factory, who did not want to be identified, does not believe that the contamination at Sungai Gong is due to a single factory, as there are many factories operating in the area.
“All Rawang factories have a sewer that connects directly to Sungai Gong,” he said.
The distance between the factory and Sungai Gong is about 5 km with a drain connecting them. The factory had reportedly received notice before to build structures without the approval of the Selayang Municipal Council.
In 2015, the then director of Lembaga Urus Air Selangor (LUAS), Md Khairi Selamat, had said The star According to their inspections, the place with the greatest potential for contamination was Sungai Sembah near Rawang, which had a growing number of residential and industrial areas.
LUAS is Selangor’s main water authority.
The situation with Sungai Langat and Semenyih is not better and, in fact, it could be worse.
“We have talked a lot about Sungai Selangor, but for me, Sungai Langat is equally important because there are many high-risk activities there. We are just waiting for an incident to happen, if mitigation measures are not taken,” he said. Dr. Kalithasan.
He said that from what he noticed in the video above, there were four key activities that could have a significant impact on raw water for Sungai Langat.
“Number one is aquaculture or fish ponds, which can cause a build-up of ammonia nitrogen, as well as chemicals if used.
“It can also cause oxygen depletion. We also see that there are massive land clearing activities, either for industrial areas or for homes.”
“In fact, there is a large area of housing near Bangi. The problem is whether adequate mitigation measures are being taken, such as sediment traps, that could prevent total suspended solids, which is one of the parameters of the Index of water quality (WQI), “he said.
Dr. Kalithasan said that when land was cleared for living areas, it wasn’t just turbidity (a measure of how clear or cloudy a water sample is) or erosion.
“Sometimes the use of heavy vehicles can lead to oil leaks. Land clearing activities can cause erosion and cloudiness of the water, and the use of heavy vehicles, if left unchecked, could cause a problem like the one below. It happened recently in Sungai Selangor. “he said.
The other problem in Sungai Langat is the industrial area.
“We see that it is one of the key issues where people do not take their effluent management seriously. Sometimes waste is not audited and scheduled waste is disposed of carelessly.
“This could affect the chemical oxygen demand (COD), which is one of the parameters of the WQI,” said Dr. Kalithasan.
He said that similarly, there were many land clearing activities around Sungai Semenyih.
“We can also see that there are many residential areas nearby. And, if I’m not mistaken, there are also some records that show that there were some environmental problems with the industries in that area previously,” he said.
Dr Kalithasan said that these were the main activities posing a significant risk to Selangor’s water sources, adding that it was necessary to explain to consumers what the water intake actually entailed.
“They still perceive that the raw water from the water treatment plant comes from the dam, which is not always true. That’s why people don’t see taking care of rivers as important, and they don’t see the importance of rivers. a supply of water.
“They still believe that every river has a dam or reservoir and they think that all the water comes from there, so they don’t need to worry about the water flowing near their area. The water is actually drawn directly from the river in your area.
“For example, in Cheras, they get their water from Sungai Langat in Bangi: how many kilometers are there between the two places, how many tributaries and monsoon drainage discharge points, and how many industrial areas would the river water have had to pass through?” Dr. Kalithasan pointed out.
The public, he added, must be educated on why they have to strive to monitor rivers because this would affect them, not only in terms of water quality but also quantity.
“People need to know their ‘river addresses’: the name of the river that flows through their area, where their drinking water comes from (which waste treatment plant) and where our wastewater ends up (the waste treatment plant). waste).
“It is much easier to prevent contamination than to treat it,” he said.
In an interview with Star meter On August 21, the executive councilor of the state of Selangor in charge of infrastructure and public facilities, agricultural modernization and agriculture-based industry, Izham Hashim, said that the state was in the middle of making policies of “Zero Discharge” and ” Whoever pollutes pays “.
The “Zero Discharge” policy would force industries to recycle effluent instead of dumping it into the drainage system, while under the “Polluter Pays” policy, those who discharge effluent into the river will have to pay any additional amount discharged beyond what is regulated. acceptable volume.
Izham also said that LUAS was studying the implementation of the Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL).
Dr. Zaki said that while incidents like the Sg Gong pollution were generally ad hoc, TMDL involves the carrying capacity of a river to withstand the regulated discharge of effluents allowed by authorities.
“We must set TMDL and water quality goals,” he said during a webinar organized by the Irrigation and Drainage Department in conjunction with National Environment Day on October 21.
He also urged authorities to mitigate risks by developing a list of high-risk / incompatible industries that can operate in areas upstream from a water intake point.
He cited as an example booming development activities in another state that could ultimately also affect water quality in Selangor’s rivers.
Sungai Selangor originates from Fraser’s Hill in Pahang, while Sg Langat originates from the Titiwangsa Mountain Range along the state border in Pahang.
Dr. Zaki also urged the creation of contamination detection stations that could quickly detect contamination and deploy a research team.
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