JBALB prefers conventional water supply system for Sungai Asap communities
KUCHING: The Rural Water Supply Department (JBALB) has decided on the conventional water supply system for Sungai Asap Resettlement Scheme (Sg Asap) to meet not only current but future demand of the communities there.
Initially, JBALB had taken the alternative water supply system suggested by Murum assemblyman Chukpai Kennedy Ugon for consideration and conducted studies on it.
However, studies had shown that the alternative system would not be able to support the needs of Sg Asap communities in the long run, said JBALB in a statement yesterday.
“To meet the current and future demand of Sg Asap population and communities, a sufficient raw water source is essential.
“Based on hydrological analysis of one in 50-year drought event, Sg Koyan with a catchment area of 643 square kilometres can give a safe yield of about 400 million litres per day ( MLD) which is more than sufficient to meet Sg Asap’s communities demand of approximately three MLD,” said JBALB .
It further pointed out that the existing five-MLD water treatment plant was constructed about 20 years ago as a temporary system to serve Sg Asap.
“However, after heavy rain, heavy siltation occurs at the intake which renders the plant unable to cope at such times.
“The system is now back to normal after de- siltation and clearing at the intake as well as flushing of the reticulation system had been carried out,” said JBALB.
The department said it would closely monitor the operation to minimise the recurrence of such problem.
“In the meantime, the department will take action to improve the intake to overcome the siltation problem where JBALB chemist and technician will closely monitor quality of the treated water.”
On the alternative water supply system, JBALB said the water volume of the four rivers would not be sufficient to meet the needs of Sg Asap communities in the long run.
The proposal to use the alternative water supply system had been studied in detail earlier, and it was found that the four streams identified as raw water source with a combined catchment area of 2.65 square kilometres can only give a safe yield of about 1.66 MLD based on hydrological analysis of one in 50 years drought event.
“And this is insufficient. Safe yield of one in 50-year drought event is an engineering design criteria used for selection of water source,” said JBALB.
Meanwhile, the department also pointed out that the contract cost of the ongoing upgrading project is about RM65 million and not RM87 million as reported by The Borneo Post.
“The progress of the project is currently at 56 per cent and is expected to be completed by early 2018. The scope includes new water treatment plant, high ground tanks and about 75 km of pipelines under the supervision of the state Public Works Department (JKR),” said JBALB.
JBALB was responding to The Borneo Post front page stories on Sunday entitled ‘Anger over dry taps, murky water’ and on Monday, ‘ Villagers hope to switch to alternative water supply system’.
The Borneo Post had reported that the people of Sg Asap had lost their patience after waiting for regular and clean supply of water since moving there 19 years ago.
The issue was brought up because recently, the tap water turned out to be so murky that it was unusable.
The 10,000 re- settlers at the Sg Asap Resettlement Scheme expressed frustration, anger and disappointment that after almost two decades of settling at the area, the government was still unable to fix their water problem.
They hoped that the alternative water supply system which had been proven to be effective at Uma Bakah, Sg A sap could be adopted for the whole resettlement as the system proved to be effective in supplying uninterrupted clean water.
Belaga assemblyman Liwan Lagang ( who is River Transportation and Safety Assistant Minister) and Murum assemblyman Chukpai also questioned the rationale of the government’s choice of upgrading the existing conventional water supply system which they claimed to cost RM87 million and not adopting the alternative water supply system which cost only RM50 million.