Closure of premix plant a huge relief to residents
MIRI: Five years after the diesel leakage from Cahaya Mata Sarawak Premix ( CMSP) plant at Miri-Bintulu Road on March 2, 2012, the company officially closed down the plant on April 30.
Piasau assemblyman Datuk Sebastian Ting has confirmed that the plant had ceased operation in April, which is good news for the over 300,000 water consumers affected by the incident.
Even though it took quite a while for the closure to take place, Ting said the CMSP management had given their assurance to the local authorities and the state government that all measures had been taken to ensure such incident would not happen again.
“I have been informed and given an assurance personally by chief executive officer ( CEO) of CMS Group, Datuk Richard Curtis, that they have taken strict measures to ensure that all environment and safety regulations have been followed to avoid similar incident from happening again.
“Since then, the company has slowed down its operation in stages and fully stopped operation on April 30 this year,” said Ting during a visit to the plant site about 15km from Miri City centre yesterday.
The plant has been relocated to a new site in Kuala Baram industrial area, and is currently in the process of construction.
“I hope this news will give Mirians some relief as they have been waiting for so long for this assurance.
“Even though the plant was only closed down fully in April, we were already given an assurance that the plant will not effect our water sources. Steps have been taken by all agencies such as the Department of Environment, Natural Resources and Environment Board (NREB) as well as Laku management to ensure that such incident won’t happen again.”
To a question, Ting said “I wish to thank all Mirians who have given me the mandate to represent them during the last state election as this is an opportunity for me to follow up and act on the incident.”
Without referring to any party, Ting said before he became an assemblyman, he did not have any power to represent the people of Miri or to put pressure on the management of the plant to act.
On March 4, 2012, Mirians were shocked with the news of diesel leaking from CMSP plant into Sungai Liku and Laku water treatment plant in Lambir about 2km from the premix plant.
Lambir Module 4 water treatment plant had to be closed down at 8.30pm on March 4, 2012 after workers saw oil spots in the water catchment area. The following day, some 300,000 Laku consumers were left without clean water supply while works were being carried out to clean the mess.
The incident was the worst case of clean water pollution ever recorded by Laku since the water treatment plant was put up in 1992.