‘Shutdowns due to high level of pollutants’

PETALING JAYA: Frequent shutdown of water treatment plants are inevitable if effluent from factories, farms and commercial premises contain high level of pollutants, the Environment and Water Ministry says.

“Even cleaning activities at factories, plants and livestock pens could pollute water sources if the wastewater treatment facilities are not available at the premises, ” its secretary-general Datuk Seri Zaini Ujang said in his Facebook post.

Without wastewater treatment facilities, dirt, manure, chemicals and other wastes would be discharged straight into drains.

“From drains, the effluent would flow into streams without any intensive treatment, ” he said.

Raw water intake points would have to be shut down if the pollution level became high.

“Only raw water with a low level of pollution is allowed to be treated at treatment plants to reduce public health risk, ” he said.

“Better technologies are available to treat contaminated underground water sources and rivers, but the cost of installation and operations is high and the risk to public health is also high.

“The onus is on the respective stakeholders to ensure effluents are not directly discharged into waterways.”

He said discharge from residential areas would be channelled to Indah Water Konsortium-operated centralised sewage system.

“Wastewater from toilet, kitchens and sewage at most residential areas are connected to IWK’s centralised sewage system, ” Zaini said.

The centralised system is equipped with a sewage treatment plant to reduce the level of pollution before treated sewage is discharged into rivers or sea.

“Those using septic tank should clear it at least once every two years, ” he said.

In a separate post, Zaini said water supply to Bandar Baru Bangi and its vicinity was not affected although two treatments plants were shut down after odour pollution was detected in Sungai Semenyih.

He said consumers in the area received water supply from Phase II of the Semenyih treatment plant.

“The Phase II plant get raw water supply from riverside reservoir originating from Sungai Langat (and not from the contaminated Sungai Semenyih).

“The Semenyih Water Treatment Plant is divided into two phases.

“Phase I plant with 650 million litres per day capacity sources raw water from Sungai Semenyih while Phase II plant with 100 million litres per day capacity gets its raw water supply from the riverside reservoir (TAPS) originating from Sungai Langat, ” he said.

“The shutdown of Semenyih Treatment Plant only involves Phase I.

“Operations at Phase II of the plant continues, supplying water to Bandar Baru Bangi and its vicinity.

“Plans to build TAPS for Phase I has been in the pipeline since 2017, ” he said.

Putrajaya has a large reservoir of 110 million litres of treated water.

“The supply (in Putrajaya) can last several hours, depending on the rate of usage, ” he said.