Johor going for long-term answers to water woes

KOTA TINGGI: Johor is confident that there will be a long-term solution to water woes that hit several of its districts with the completion of the Raw Water Project to Rapid (Pamer).

Also in the pipeline is the expediting of paperwork for the water transfer project at the Sungai Layang dam.

State secretary Datuk Ismail Karim said the Pamer project was on track and was expected to be completed by the end of May.

“This will benefit about 100,000 people in Pengerang and Bandar Penawar,” he said.

He pointed out that the RM700mil project would not only meet the demand for the Pengerang Integrated Petroleum Complex (PIPC) but would benefit about 60,000 account users from the Sungai Lebam dam.

Ismail said the phase for this project also included the supplying of raw water to the Sungai Layang dam near Pasir Gudang.

“Once Pamer is fully completed, it will be able to supply more than 230 million litres of water to the PIPC area and the balance will be channelled to the Sungai Lebam dam,” he said.

“Since early this month, between 40 and 60 million litres of water have been supplied to the dam to sustain more than 60,000 accounts there,” he added.

Ismail said this after the soft launch of the raw water project operational to Sungai Lebam dam here yesterday.

He also said that the state government would expedite the paperwork for the Sungai Layang dam here following the approval of a RM100mil by the Federal Government on its water transfer project.

He also said that the amount would not be a problem for the state government as they wanted to solve the water woes quickly.

“The state government has debts with the Government – from constructing the affordable homes project – and this RM100mil will offset from the total amount,” he said.

It was recently reported that Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak has approved the amount that would be offset from the RM300mil which Johor owed the Government.

The Pamer project involves a 77km pipeline from Sungai Seluyut in Kota Tinggi to Pengerang for the oil and gas needs in the area.

However, as the project is not fully operational in Pengerang, the state hopes to build additional pipelines to divert the water to the Sungai Layang dam.