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NILAI: Authorities found debris and organic compounds dumped in a bush near the Nilai industrial zone, which they believe caused the contamination of two rivers and caused water outages in neighboring Selangor.
The odor from the dumped waste was similar to that detected near the Sungai Semenyih water treatment plant, which led to its temporary closure.
The Ministry of Environment and Water in a statement said it had reason to believe that the illegal dumping was the work of an unlicensed company or companies.
“Police, the National Water Service Commission and the Department of the Environment (DOE) will investigate this and refer to the discovery as their secondary source,” the ministry said.
However, the statement does not stipulate the type of waste that was found dumped in the area.
Several high-ranking officials, including those from the ministry, commission, DOE, Negri Sembilan Water Regulatory Authority, Syarikat Air Selangor and the police were involved in the operation.
The ministry said state DOE staff took six samples from the site that were sent to the Chemistry Department for analysis.
“The Seremban City Council and the Solid Waste Management and Public Cleaning Corporation or SWCorp will conduct a cleanup exercise in the area,” he said, adding that the area had also been cordoned off.
The ministry said Air Selangor was unable to resume supplying the affected areas because the smell along the water intake points was still strong.
At the time the statement was released, the odor reading was between seven and eight TON (Odor Threshold Number).
“Trading should resume once the reading drops to zero,” he said.
The chairman of the State Committee for the Environment, Health, Cooperatives and Consumerism, S. Veerapan, said authorities also took samples from a goose farm in Kg Hulu Pajam.
“Our findings revealed that the farm has been operating illegally for the past four years.
“The samples were also sent for analysis,” he said in a statement.
He said the state government would help coordinate logistics to transport waste from the area.
The Sungai Semenyih and Bukit Tampoi water treatment plants had to completely shut down on Sunday after contamination was detected at Sungai Semenyih, which is the source of raw water for both facilities.
This came just a month after the odor pollution in Sungai Gong that led to a water outage that affected 1,292 areas in the Klang Valley and nearly 1.2 million consumer accounts.
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