There’s a pungent smell in the morning air

FOR the past couple of days I have noticed a pungent smell emitting from Sungai Senawang which flows alongside the old Seremban/tampin road. This small river may not exactly be the cleanest river, but it had previously not smelled the way it does at the present moment.

My wife and I also noticed that the smell is more pronounced early in the morning, when it is still dark.

Where we stay is about a kilometre or two from the river, and yet when we get out of the house to send our son to school the morning air is permeated with this pungent smell.

I suspect some factories in the Senawang and Tuanku Jaafar Industrial areas could be discharging their waste into Sungai Senawang during the night.

The State Department of Environment should send its officers to investigate the cause of the smell. Also the river water is blackish in colour, a clear sign of the presence of pollutants.

The sad thing is that the Sungai Senawang would eventually flow into Sungai Linggi which could be one of the sources of the state’s water supply.

Malaysians are notorious for polluting our rivers. All the campaigns on maintaining the cleanliness of our rivers seem to have fallen on deaf ears.

I have personally seen irresponsible people stopping their cars and throwing their rubbish into rivers. To them the rule is “out of sight, out of mind”. MICHAEL NG, Seremban.