Early preparation helps Semporna tackle water shortage
SEMPORNA: Tourism industry entrepreneurs in Semporna have stored up additional clean water supply for the continuity of their business operations when faced with the issue of water shortage following the current hot spell.
Semporna Bumiputera Tour Operators Association chairman Kerino Jalani said the water supply disruption is not a new occurrence in the area and, as such, the residents and tourism industry entrepreneurs had taken alternative measures to tackle the issue, especially in carrying out water rationing weekly or once every three days.
“The issue of clean water supply affects all parties and even makes it difficult for tourism industry players in Semporna, such as in the hospitality industry, restaurants… if in villages, the residents have wells.
“But, for us, the clean water supply will be sent according to your turn and will usually reach us every two to three days. That is why we need to have a contingency plan to tackle the water problem so that tourists are not affected by it,” he told Bernama.
Kerino said the Sabah Water Department would always issue rationing notices in advance for industry players to store water, thus ensuring that Semporna’s status as a world tourism destination is not affected.
“The tourism sector will not be slated or given bad reviews by tourists because the industry players have made efforts much earlier to obtain water supply for use in toilets and so on,” said Kerino, who also owns a tourist resort here.
Car wash owner, Baruddin Maasa, 47, said water supply disruption notices should be issued much earlier so that all parties are aware of the need to store water for daily use.
“I have obtained water tanks to store water to meet my business needs. We knew there would be a water shortage, so we were prepared,” he said.
He said plants that get their water supply from the Babagon Dam are operating as usual according to standard output, and if water levels decreases further, those such as the one in Moyog can still obtain water from the Madsiang water intake to conserve the Babagon Dam’s supply.
However, in the event of water levels at the dams reaching a critical stage, he said there is a big possibility of implementing raw water rationing.
“But for now, the situation is still under control. Water is being supplied as usual. I visited Tambunan recently and found that even though the water level at the nearby river had gone down, water can still be supplied to the plants for our usage such as for drinking water.
“Despite that, the river’s water level has become less suitable for food agriculture activities, which will affect our food production,” he said.
Jeffrey, who is also State Agriculture, Fisheries and Food Industries Minister, explained that as of now, several paddy planting areas throughout the state have been affected by the dry spell following a 40 to 50 per cent decrease of water level in rivers here.
He said the affected areas are in Kota Belud (267 acres), Papar (135.12 acres), Membakut (99.66 acres) and admittedly the most concerning, Keningau (5,621.65 acres).
He said a solution for the lack of water in Keningau is to use mobile pumps to channel water from nearby larger rivers to the paddy fields, as opposed to the traditional irrigation method of using gravity water which is unfeasible now due to lower water levels in the smaller rivers.
“Affected in this sense means that the paddy plants are not receiving enough water. Some of the plants that are already at the harvesting stage are not affected but I am more afraid of the coming season. Disruption in the state’s production of paddy is expected maybe not this year but in the next planting season. I cannot give an estimate on percentages but the production will definitely go down,” he said.