Poison in the water
WATER CRISIS LOOMS IN MALACCA AND SELANGOR PROTEST OVER DIRTY WATER IN KELANTAN
Foul-smelling, toxic solvent has been dumped by the banks of Sungai Buah which flows into Sungai Semenyih, leading to a massive water disruption in the state. The authorities have built a bund in Sungai Buah to prevent the river from flowing and are pumping the contaminated water out. But even as they do so, the politicians continue to squabble.
SEPANG: Someone has been dumping toxic solvent by the banks of Sg Buah, off the Elite Highway here, causing the water that flows into Sg Semenyih to become dangerous.
Authorities are now racing to clean up the mess by building a bund across the river to stop the water from flowing into Sg Semenyih and drawing out the contaminated water to be dumped elsewhere.
The 20m bund has been built across Sg Buah as authorities work to restore treated water supply to hundreds of thousands of consumers in four districts in Selangor.
Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Mohamad Azmin Ali said that although the authorities had yet to establish the culprit behind the mess, Selangor Water Management Board Authority (Luas) had found traces of a solvent at three spots in the river, across the border to Negri Sembilan.
The solvent is so toxic that swathes of green grass by the banks were charred.
“We had no choice but to prevent Sg Buah from flowing into Sg Semenyih to restart our water treatment. Our priority now is to ensure the 320,000 account holders get their supply as soon as possible,” he said after checking on the cleanup operations.
The affected consumers are from the Sepang, Kuala Langat, Hulu Langat and Petaling districts.
Apart from the water board, several other agencies, including the Sepang and Kajang municipalities, the Drainage and Irrigation Department and Indah Water Konsortium are involved in the cleanup exercise.
After the bund was in place, pumps were brought in to extract the foulsmelling water from Sg Buah into tankers. The water was transported out in lorries and deposited in a nearby pond.
Azmin said the Luas employees went to the scene after getting reports of the foul smell at about 7.30am on Sunday.
“While conducting checks, they found the smell at its worst near a section of the river at the northbound Nilai R&R, along the NorthSouth Expressway,” he said.
At about 6.10pm, they found large traces of solvent along the 45.9km mark of the Elite Highway, which links the New Klang Valley Expressway and the southbound stretch of the NorthSouth Expressway.
“It looks as if the solvent had been dumped along a slope causing it to flow into Sg Buah,” Azmin said.