Water shortage hits Melaka city hotels

MELAKA: A number of hotels here have been badly hit by a water shortage.

Malaysian Association of Hotel (MAH) Melaka chapter chairman Abu Hassan Ismail said hotels in the city centre were the worst hit over the past few days.

“MAH is collecting data on the exact number of hotels with water disruptions. Supply to hotels in the outskirts, however, remains normal,” he said in an interview.

Abu Hassan said some of the hotels were finding it hard to cope with the lack of water supply.

These hotels hoped that the state water concessionaire, Syarikat Air Melaka Berhad (SAMB), would inform them about scheduled water distribution, he said.

“We received feedback from hoteliers saying that there was a communication breakdown between SAMB and them.”

It is believed that there was a meeting between SAMB and hoteliers, as well as industrial captains on Friday evening.

In a statement issued that same day, Chief Minister Adly Zahari said there was a water reduction in the state’s three dams – the Jus and Asahan dams in Jasin and Durian Tunggal dam in Alor Gajah.

The Jus dam, which has a capacity of 45,000 million litres of water, now holds 18,895 million litres.

The Asahan dam has 210 million litres compared to its normal capacity of 700 million litres and the Durian Tunggal dam, which has a normal capacity of 32,600 million litres, now holds only 6,270 million litres.

Out of nine water treatment plants in the state, the Bertam and Bukit Sebukor plants’ capacity to supply raw and treated water had dropped to 24% and 49% respectively.

Bernama reported yesterday that forest trees would be planted in Melaka’s water catchment areas to help the land area function effectively.

Quoting Adly, the report said the cultivation of oil palm would no longer be allowed in these areas.

Adly said the state government would instruct all departments and agencies to replace oil palm with forest trees over the next 10 to 20 years.

“This measure is vital because oil palm trees require a lot of water to survive. Each tree needs about the same amount of water as a human being. Thus, this high water consumption has led to the reduced efficacy of the water catchments.

“If we look at the water catchment ponds in Durian Tunggal (in Alor Gajah), many have been put at risk by oil palm planted in the area,” he said, adding that as of last year, the state government had acted to gazette the catchments.